I made a comment on one of Will's videos recently about new products from EG4 / Signature solar being a risk and was asked to elaborate. In March 2023 I ordered two Chargeverter 5000 units and had all kinds of issues with them relating to poor quality mechanical design and assembly as well as software bugs. I had to make three RMA returns for these two units, yes, even returning one of the replacements. This took several months and there were countless emails and phone calls to Signature Solar. There could be a whole post about the poor customer service but I want to focus on the product here.
The three units I returned were for reasons you would expect for something in pre-production. And it's a shame because at their core they seem really great. You can't find anything with this capability for close to this cost but sometimes things that seem too good to be true are.
I took the following videos for the service team so that's probably the best way to convey all of this. Sorry that I am so frustrated sounding, by the time I got to these videos, it had been a long fight with customer service to get to someone who would actually contact me back and not try to blame the carrier for these issues.
Looks like I can't upload videos to posts, hopefully these links will work
Video 01: Display shows 0V and 0A even though it's actively charging
Video 02: Unit not taking settings that are programmed in, keeps using previous value
Video 03: Bracket holding in internals so thin and flimsy that everything inside can move around making loose connections
Video 04: All grommets are loose, were never tightened. They don't do any good that way.
Video 05: DC output grommets too large, they are sized for the next size up cable so they also don't do any good. Also wire routing is too tight and stresses the cable which is why the ferrules pull out of their connections as I found live in this video. THEY NEVER TIGHTENED THE CIRCUIT BREAKER CONNECTION!
Some of these issues can be fixed by fully disassembling the unit, tightening screws, redoing the cable routing, verifying correct connections on the breaker, fabricating a better bracket or tying in the internals so they don't vibrate loose, but this is not something you should expect to do for a production piece of electronics. And you still are left with a unit with software bugs where it may or may not be doing what it's saying on the screen which is a recipe for a dangerous and / or costly situation while charging a battery.
Two more things not shown in those videos:
1: In the assembly of one unit they pinched the ribbon cable between the circuit breaker and the case during assembly exposing copper.
2: In some of the later units they put so much RTV on the ribbon connection to the display it glues itself to the internals so when you take the cover off it pulls the connector off the display board, ripping up the solder connections and breaking the shell.
Finally after three RMA's I got two units that seemed to be of a new build. The internal bracket was stronger, and DC wire grommets were a size down so they actually held the wire. However the hole in the case was still the same size so it's now too big for the smaller grommets and since they still were only hand tight, they wiggled around. There was also no change to how the positive DC wire entered so there is a lot of stress on the circuit breaker connection which will result in it coming loose over time as shown in Video 05 above.
The final thing that is frustrating, is I have posted these videos and a description to a review back in June or July and it was never posted to the site. I tried to post it again in August first and this time it's showing up on the Judge.me site that filters the reviews, but it's still not posted to Signature Solar's site. Both companies have told me that it's the other one that decides which reviews are published. Since Judg.me is paid by the vendors, I don't really trust either of them, especially since there are no reviews less than 4 stars.
Thanks for listening
-Ben
The three units I returned were for reasons you would expect for something in pre-production. And it's a shame because at their core they seem really great. You can't find anything with this capability for close to this cost but sometimes things that seem too good to be true are.
I took the following videos for the service team so that's probably the best way to convey all of this. Sorry that I am so frustrated sounding, by the time I got to these videos, it had been a long fight with customer service to get to someone who would actually contact me back and not try to blame the carrier for these issues.
Looks like I can't upload videos to posts, hopefully these links will work
Video 01: Display shows 0V and 0A even though it's actively charging
Video 02: Unit not taking settings that are programmed in, keeps using previous value
Video 03: Bracket holding in internals so thin and flimsy that everything inside can move around making loose connections
Video 04: All grommets are loose, were never tightened. They don't do any good that way.
Video 05: DC output grommets too large, they are sized for the next size up cable so they also don't do any good. Also wire routing is too tight and stresses the cable which is why the ferrules pull out of their connections as I found live in this video. THEY NEVER TIGHTENED THE CIRCUIT BREAKER CONNECTION!
Some of these issues can be fixed by fully disassembling the unit, tightening screws, redoing the cable routing, verifying correct connections on the breaker, fabricating a better bracket or tying in the internals so they don't vibrate loose, but this is not something you should expect to do for a production piece of electronics. And you still are left with a unit with software bugs where it may or may not be doing what it's saying on the screen which is a recipe for a dangerous and / or costly situation while charging a battery.
Two more things not shown in those videos:
1: In the assembly of one unit they pinched the ribbon cable between the circuit breaker and the case during assembly exposing copper.
2: In some of the later units they put so much RTV on the ribbon connection to the display it glues itself to the internals so when you take the cover off it pulls the connector off the display board, ripping up the solder connections and breaking the shell.
Finally after three RMA's I got two units that seemed to be of a new build. The internal bracket was stronger, and DC wire grommets were a size down so they actually held the wire. However the hole in the case was still the same size so it's now too big for the smaller grommets and since they still were only hand tight, they wiggled around. There was also no change to how the positive DC wire entered so there is a lot of stress on the circuit breaker connection which will result in it coming loose over time as shown in Video 05 above.
The final thing that is frustrating, is I have posted these videos and a description to a review back in June or July and it was never posted to the site. I tried to post it again in August first and this time it's showing up on the Judge.me site that filters the reviews, but it's still not posted to Signature Solar's site. Both companies have told me that it's the other one that decides which reviews are published. Since Judg.me is paid by the vendors, I don't really trust either of them, especially since there are no reviews less than 4 stars.
Thanks for listening
-Ben
