SCI Fault on H1 Gen2 5kw

[Mikegoodwin]

My update to share rings generally aligned to yours.

I filled the RMA form in myself and although they gave me a 7 day lead time, the inverter turned up via DPD after 2 days.

Then the delay was with the installer. I was so very tempted to just do it myself.

Installer said they work normally on a 4-5 week lead time. Which I understand in respect of full PV instals, but as this is a 20 min job, I did expect a bit of a quicker turnaround than the 4 weeks it actually was.

Replacement day arrived and 90% of the process went as expected. Also had the built in WiFi inverter and we used that rather than just moving the dongle.
Slight snag was that the data connector seemed ever so slightly different size / shape (it was the same overall shape but the original plug wouldn’t fit nicely), and so the installer had to re terminate the CT and my modbus connections.

I then emailed fox to get all components updated back to latest firmware which worked without issue.

Fox then booked in a dhl pickup for the dead box.

I am considering blocking the IP of the inverter from the internet on my firewall so I can manage the update process a bit more, as from my perspective all of this situation came from their proactive firmware updating that wasn’t requested…..

[jalbo]

I was so very tempted to just do it myself.

I was incredibly tempted to do it myself too and took a lot of self-control to hold off. I think if they'd taken much longer I would have caved in but my concern was about support issues with the installer further down the line if I did it myself.

Installer said they work normally on a 4-5 week lead time. Which I understand in respect of full PV instals, but as this is a 20 min job, I did expect a bit of a quicker turnaround than the 4 weeks it actually was.

Yeah, given it's such a quick job, installers really ought to respond more quickly. Mine wanted to align with when they had another job in the same area.

Slight snag was that the data connector seemed ever so slightly different size / shape (it was the same overall shape but the original plug wouldn’t fit nicely), and so the installer had to re terminate the CT and my modbus connections.

Was it still the same square shaped comms connector you had originally or the slightly older round one - I can imagine the round one needing a complete change over but the square one should have worked - a bit odd.

One of the things I did while trying to sort out the Force charging problem was changing the CT clamp over. I had been in the inverter CT menu and tried the Check option but it kept saying "unknown state" or something like that. During the swap the original CT was used but the new inverter came with it's own CT. But the old one was black, the new one was white and I wasn't sure if the spec had changed, even though load power readings seemed to work fine. I thought maybe this was causing my force charge issues and thought it would be best to at least have the inverter using the actual CT that came with it. So I had the joy of fishing the cable through some conduit through my garage wall from the meter location to the inverter location following the same path as the old CT. I managed to do it and had to wire it into that square comms connector. That was a bit tricky to work out how the inside part was clipped in but luckily having all the spare connectors from the new inverter I could see it split apart so was able to separate it. Getting the old wires for the CT out of the connector was a real pain - there are little orange buttons you have to press to release the grip on the cables but they still didn't want to come out. Eventually pushing really hard with a flat head screwdriver on the orange button and pulling the cable managed to get them out - obviously making note of cable polarity and which connector hole they went into. I have a ferrule crimper so putting the ferrules on the new CT wires was simple, then just push them into the connector in the same holes. After all this.. using the menu to check the CT and I still got "unknown state". It's probably good that the matching CT is in use with my new inverter but I don't think there's any real issue with using the original inverter one.

I then emailed fox to get all components updated back to latest firmware which worked without issue.

You can do firmware updates in the Fox Cloud phone app now and that's what I did - the updates took a little while - 5mins or so each but both (master and manager but not slave) that were needed were successful. I did have to email Fox support again like I did after the original install to ask them to set my meter compensation again as this seemed to reset with the new inverter (not surprising). So if you did have a custom meter compensation you might want to get that set on the new inverter too.

Fox then booked in a dhl pickup for the dead box.

My installer took away my old inverter. I don't know if it will end up going back to Fox. It would be good if Fox get some back to figure out what has gone wrong in these SCI Fault failure scenarios.

I am considering blocking the IP of the inverter from the internet on my firewall so I can manage the update process a bit more, as from my perspective all of this situation came from their proactive firmware updating that wasn’t requested…..

Yes that's not a bad idea and I might consider that too. Especially as we can request firmware updates on our own terms/schedule now it is probably better than random updates happening. But the downside is none of the cloud apps (not that I depend on them with Home Assistant and Modbus) will work and if you need help from Fox to troubleshoot any problems you'll need to open up the firewall for them to remotely look at the inverter again (and for making changes like setting meter compensation). Still not sure on this one myself.