Does grid bypass shorten the life of inverters???

Trying to nail down an ideal grid tied inverter would work best (no export). The 6000xp should be able to handle all day time loads ... unless the dryer is turned on. Does overloading the inverter and having it switch to grid for hours at a time hurt or damage the inverter??

A 6000 watt AIO would be fed by a 40 amp breaker in the main panel and minimum 8 awg wire. Any load over that rating will trip the breaker before it overloads the bypass relay in the AIO.

stopdrpnro said:

Trying to nail down an ideal grid tied inverter would work best (no export). The 6000xp should be able to handle all day time loads ... unless the dryer is turned on. Does overloading the inverter and having it switch to grid for hours at a time hurt or damage the inverter??

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I can’t answer if it hurts it, but I have a critical loads panel and I put items like your dryer elsewhere so it did not overload the inverter. I did not want try overloading the inverter.

Three hours a day I use the solar to power critical loads only with a battery, but this is wasteful since with 7kW capable of real production, loads are usually less than 600 watts, so there is several kWh a day of production I lose out on.

If I don’t run in this mode and use normal grid tied, the extra power would run the dryer and the grid would make up the rest, but it’s more important to me to know the critical loads work.

IMO it is always best to not force fault conditions. I also try to avoid excessive operation of relays because they tend to wear out.

Mattb4 said:

IMO it is always best to not force fault conditions. I also try to avoid excessive operation of relays because they tend to wear out.

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Depend, solid state relay practically outlast the MOSFET in the inverter. Electromechanical relay though.....that another story......

Primary wear on pass-through relays is grid-glitches and collapse.

Inverter pass-through relay releases its parallel grid connection when grid drops out and inverter momentarily gets overloaded trying to power the collapsed grid causing pass-through relay to release contact connection under inverter surge current. It all happens in typically less than 4 milliseconds.

Many cheap hybrid inverters use 'electric water heater' class relays for pass-through relays. Pure resistive loads are 'kinder' than poor power factor reactive loads when making and breaking contacts. Cheap higher power inverters sometimes use two lower current rated relays in parallel to accomplish inverter's higher pass-through current rating. Separate mechanical relays will not make, or break contact simultaneously resulting in one relay contacts taking higher make/break arcing current.

stopdrpnro said:

Trying to nail down an ideal grid tied inverter would work best (no export). The 6000xp should be able to handle all day time loads ... unless the dryer is turned on. Does overloading the inverter and having it switch to grid for hours at a time hurt or damage the inverter??

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Always avoid overloading.
It's a safety mechanism, not for regular use.

PS: the 6kxp is not a grid-tied (or hybrid) AIO. (It can't export)
It's an off grid AIO (All In One).

timselectric said:

Always avoid overloading.
It's a safety mechanism, not for regular use.

PS: the 6kxp is not a grid-tied (or hybrid) AIO. (It can't export)
It's an off grid AIO (All In One).

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The 6kxp has grid inputs and switches to grid when overloaded.
Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology?

stopdrpnro said:

The 6kxp has grid inputs and switches to grid when overloaded.

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology?

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it is GRID ASSIST to the inverter and GRID BYPASS

it can consume grid power, but not "grid tie" for exporting power

stopdrpnro said:

The 6kxp has grid inputs and switches to grid when overloaded.

Maybe I'm using the wrong terminology?

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Yes, it will.
But I would avoid letting it happening on a regular basis.
Overloading, means that you made a mistake.