I take no joy in writing this, I sincerely wanted to love this new inverter and to support an active business on the forum, but I cannot sit silently and pretend this unit is "flawless" and anywhere near ready for the real world. I am not alone, I have received many messages from other members with their own struggles, we've all seen threads and it needs to be addressed.
After weeks of what I'd call nothing short of a circus, the new EG4 18Kpv is heading back to Signature Solar in a Sol-Ark 15k box and I'm asking Visa to step in and handle the refund. Very long and detailed story to follow, but the short version is this:
I took a chance on the latest and greatest from Signature Solar and I've been beyond disappointed every step of the way. The hardware fit and finish is
great, I'd argue better than the Sol-Ark, but the software, support and attitude from specific members of their organization are utterly
pathetic. In time I imagine they can fix things, but as of right now, I'd highly suggest considering another platform and company altogether. The software difference between the EG4 and Sol-Ark is like comparing a Nokia flip phone of the early 2000's to a modern day iPhone, they are worlds apart. With the EG4 you're asking it to do things and hoping for a positive outcome, with the Sol-Ark it's well documented, easy to follow and does exactly what you want 100% of the time. If you value your time and sanity, the decision is easy.
I will however say the online monitoring and app for the EG4 18Kpv are great, very graphically attractive.
Remember, I'm just a guy on the internet, but I do hope you'll consider I have many years of experience working on dozens of systems with the leading manufacturers in the industry. I am not new to any of this, I am a licensed contractor and my work focuses in the IT and tech space. I am well aware that customers are often the source of problems with technical equipment like this, but in this instance, I can assure you that is not the case. Wrap your mind around this:
EVERY SINGLE ISSUE I HAD WAS IMMEDIATELY SOLVED WHEN THE UNIT WAS REPLACED BY A SOL-ARK 15K.
My entire goal was the following: Never under any circumstance backfeed the grid, period. The only other major sticking point I had was to peak shave from 3-9pm, then recharge battery bank after 10pm. These are not wild ideas, this isn't some lofty goal, this is exactly what the unit is advertised to do.
First problem: I get the unit installed and try to configure the app/wifi dongle and I'm met with an error, 4 days of no response from Signature Solar and it ends up being fixed by Gilbert from Luxpower. The dongle seemingly was never registered on their servers and needed back end work to begin functioning. There was nothing that could be done on the customer side. I was also given different Customer Codes for registration by different employees.
Once up and running, my sole support for a week was from Gilbert. They seem to have a quasi relationship with him helping diagnose customer issues, but not really working for them. He was always great and very helpful, but clearly had his limitations. Not that he was unqualified in any way, but there was only so much he could actually do with the inverter, everything was always a compromise and lots of, "it's not perfect, this is just how it works". For example, he got the 3-9pm peak shaving semi-functional right off the bat, except it would always pull roughly 10% of it's output power from the grid and the switchover time would (in his own words) happen + or - 8 minutes from the time it was programmed. How a computer decides to drift I do not know, but he didn't have any explanation.
After days of attempted fixes and me speaking to multiple Signature Solar employees, I noticed each person didn't really understand how to make it work. Not because they weren't smart, but because they truly didn't know, nor share any continuity of answers. One employee would tell me solution A would work, then another would be completely contradictory and say solution B would work, neither of which solved the problem. It legitimately was a guess and check situation, and more than once lead to the inverter back feeding the grid.
Second problem: I was never able to install or connect solar panels to the system because my inspector basically laughed at me when he asked about a remote rapid shutdown device. I had the 18Kpv installed in my garage and both CAT6 and 14/2 from the unit to the main service panel for a remote disconnect switch. After asking no less than (4) times both via direct message and email, I never once received a response. I've seen it addressed in other threads as, "we have a white paper coming soon". I've even seen other members posting how they've temporarily rigged up a solution. The manual CLEARLY states this can be done, but has absolutely no direction as to how to do it. There is no pinout, no clue, other than a crude drawing in the manual (there's nowhere to connect said switch, those two spots on the board don't exist). My inspector had serious doubts to say the least, and made it clear that no panels should be connected to the system until a remote rapid shutdown switch could be installed and tested. During this time I'm receiving messages from other forum members that are having differing forms of issues and some expressing how they feel lucky they got their unit at a "substantial discount", which really just twists the knife!
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At this point I reached out to Markus from Signature solar via the forums and expressed the situation, his initial messages were very reasonable:
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He then goes on to offer a full refund, and I express I want to see it work and am willing to help however I can (trust me, I had ZERO desire to take the thing back down, buy another inverter, hang it, redo an expensive wire way, rewire everything, ship the old one back etc.). I was financially invested and hoped for positive results:
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At that point I went camping for the weekend, here's where we picked up. The old firmware he is referring to is the firmware that Gilbert had installed and stated was what helped eliminate grid backfeed (my number one concern).
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The next morning I receive an email from Ty at Signature Solar. He's apparently been tasked with handling this situation.
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So I naturally responded with as much detail as I could, stressing the need to not backfeed the grid, at this point I'm trying to remain hopeful, maybe this person fixes everything and I become a happy customer.
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The next messages to Markus show how well that went. It was becoming a disaster quickly.
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(limit of 10 attachments reached, I'll post the rest in the first comment).
