I know, it’s only temporary. My AC panels are on my house. The entire rest of the system is in a detached garage including the DC panels. I’m going to run the wiring directly over to the Gen port on the Sol Ark I just haven’t been able to do it yet.
Sol-Ark fails to turn on generator causing power outage
- Thread starter tve
- Start date
That's not what @Carlos_Sol-Ark said in this post. He specifically describes TOU while off grid. The Power setting is ignored while off grid, but TOU can be used to select if Gen Charge can be active in any time slot. % in TOU sets the SOC end of charging.
If batteries discharge down to Start% in Batt Setup and Charge is checked in TOU then the generator should start and charge the batteries until batteries reach SOC % set in TOU.
@Carlos_Sol-Ark read through this thread please..... This is what I was talking about when I mentioned a SEPARATE gen start menu in my PM to you! I have literally been bringing this issue up to the tech support guys for probably 4 years now.....
What does it take to be heard on issues like these, and see results in terms of changes?
To OP and anyone else looking at this thread.... TOU will most definitely limit the gen charge exactly like it does the grid charge. Even when using gen terminals specifically! TOU limits ALL AC CHARGING!
This should not be! Gen terminals, gen auto start and gen input should be 100% isolated from grid, as far as how and when it is used!
A workaround is to turn on gen force and leave it on at all times, then use a Victron BMV-712 battery monitor and program it's relay to start and stop the gen. You will also want to then have a relay with it's coil activated by grid, and with the gen start signal run through the contacts, so that when grid comes back on, the gen start signal is broken.
Another note, if you don't have TOU enabled, gen start will work when grid goes down. But...... when grid comes back on the gen won't shut down until the stop parameter is reached. The stop parameter, by the way, is not user accessible.... it is built-into the backend to stop at ~95%.....
What does it take to be heard on issues like these, and see results in terms of changes?
To OP and anyone else looking at this thread.... TOU will most definitely limit the gen charge exactly like it does the grid charge. Even when using gen terminals specifically! TOU limits ALL AC CHARGING!
This should not be! Gen terminals, gen auto start and gen input should be 100% isolated from grid, as far as how and when it is used!
A workaround is to turn on gen force and leave it on at all times, then use a Victron BMV-712 battery monitor and program it's relay to start and stop the gen. You will also want to then have a relay with it's coil activated by grid, and with the gen start signal run through the contacts, so that when grid comes back on, the gen start signal is broken.
Another note, if you don't have TOU enabled, gen start will work when grid goes down. But...... when grid comes back on the gen won't shut down until the stop parameter is reached. The stop parameter, by the way, is not user accessible.... it is built-into the backend to stop at ~95%.....
So, the Sol-Ark disconnects from the generator, but leaves the generator running OR it charges the battery to 95% before connecting to the grid. Generator running after the grid returns is certainly undesirable.
I agree with your point. Off grid TOU should be separated from On grid. Maybe this is inherently impossible. I don't know, I haven't written code since college 50+ years ago. Both SunSynk and Deye have this same shortfall.
The Sol-Ark disconnects from the generator and connects to grid, but doesn't shut down the generator. We had this happen for one of our customers and he didn't particularly like that..... I can't really blame him either.
Judging by the fact that Schneider XW inverters have had their grid and gen inputs function completely separate from each other for 10+ years, going all the way back to the Xantrex 6048 days, I would assume it is simply a lack of programming on these newer AIO units. Seems like all of the new "built-in-China" AIOs have this shortcoming, unfortunately.
