I was cooking Christmas Eve Lunch with no issues whatsoever but noticed in my garage that my generation meter was blank. Quickly checked the FoxESS cloud and showed no data feed between grid and house but all electrics running fine so surprised it went undiscovered. Looked into the Alarm Statistics and saw Erros 1, 27 and 28 (grid voltage and frequency issues) and what appeared to be my system disconnecting itself.
None of the consumer unit or PV breakers had flipped and the inverter and battery was not showing any errors. I flipped down all the PV system breakers for 10 seconds and then set them back up and after a set of checks on the inverter the generation meter came back to life.
Has anyone else experienced this as it was pure fluke I noticed an issue as no 'alarms' were triggered although my wife did say the inverter was clicking earlier in the day (does this when it is checking). Should I be concerned that there is a fault in my system i.e. the generation meter or is it a grid instability with everyone outting dinner on !!!
Fox H1 6.0 Hybrid Inverter
18 Panels (7.5 kW)
3x Mira HV25 + BMS
Installed mid-Nov 2023
Gneration Meter Blanked
-
Dave Foster
- Posts: 1185
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm
If none of the breakers have popped, it sounds more likely the inverter is disconnecting perhaps because the grid voltage is too high and Error code 28 is usually because of a 10minavgfault - you should be able to see all the inverter errors if you are at the Inverter and you select History, Error Log.
The grid voltage is high today because it’s a windy day and that might be taking it over the limits that have been set.
The foxesscloud website allows you to select rvolt in the lower graph which shows your grid voltage and it will pick out the high and lows for the day - can you have a look at the voltages shown there and report back please.
Have a look at this post for more information about the fault, the inverter can have it’s limits changed which i’ve documented about 6 posts down. viewtopic.php?p=2549
The grid voltage is high today because it’s a windy day and that might be taking it over the limits that have been set.
The foxesscloud website allows you to select rvolt in the lower graph which shows your grid voltage and it will pick out the high and lows for the day - can you have a look at the voltages shown there and report back please.
Have a look at this post for more information about the fault, the inverter can have it’s limits changed which i’ve documented about 6 posts down. viewtopic.php?p=2549
Thank You - I was wondering if the windy weather was causing surges. The surpise was that generation meter went blank. When it went off again at 16:00 I turned off the DC and AC isolators for a while then flicked them back on and after the checking routine on the inverter it all came back and has been stable now for a few hours.
Historically today the rVolt has been in the low to mid 240's however an hours and a half before the first issue it peaked at 251.5 and remained in the high 240's as it did when it went again but only recently settled down to the mid 240's again.
Sort of stymied me as I thought the issue was the generation meter as I had to 'manually' reset the isolators to get it to talk again. Now watching it like a hawk as if it trips out again the system is unlikely to charge my battery overnight at cheap rate and there is not muc sun forecast here for a few days !
Historically today the rVolt has been in the low to mid 240's however an hours and a half before the first issue it peaked at 251.5 and remained in the high 240's as it did when it went again but only recently settled down to the mid 240's again.
Sort of stymied me as I thought the issue was the generation meter as I had to 'manually' reset the isolators to get it to talk again. Now watching it like a hawk as if it trips out again the system is unlikely to charge my battery overnight at cheap rate and there is not muc sun forecast here for a few days !
Followed the other article to see what the 10 min avg was set on my system and the H1 Inverter simply states N/A with no functionality to change it to anything. From an idiots point of view I am concerned that maybe other paramters have not been set well. As I say I have been running this for over a month and only seen an issue today possibly the wind but now really suspicious !
-
Dave Foster
- Posts: 1185
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm
If it’s set to n/a it’s been disabled by the installer (which is a credible setting) so not the 10minavg causing it, the inverter believes that your grid has been lost, that coupled with the loss of the generation meter is more concerning as it could be a loose connection at the breaker, a faulty breaker, rcd or isolator causing it to fault - I think best to keep a very close eye on it.david1313 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 24, 2023 6:41 pm Followed the other article to see what the 10 min avg was set on my system and the H1 Inverter simply states N/A with no functionality to change it to anything. From an idiots point of view I am concerned that maybe other paramters have not been set well. As I say I have been running this for over a month and only seen an issue today possibly the wind but now really suspicious !
Definitely something wrong around the wiring / isolators as it went out in the night once the charge level built up. Nothing tripped but only seeing limited information in the cloud.
As a precaustion I have flipped both the DC and AC Isolators over to off and tripped the PV RCD switches to off.
Strangely the Inverter is still chugging away making a very slow charge off the limited solar today to keep charging the battery.
Should I be concered at this behaviour or is it merely operating off the battery in EPS Mode (even though I do not have an EPS solution fitted)? Assuming we get some sun before an engineer can come out in the new year what will happen when the battery tops out and there is no grid to connect to will it merely disconnect from the solar as it has no where to go !
As a precaustion I have flipped both the DC and AC Isolators over to off and tripped the PV RCD switches to off.
Strangely the Inverter is still chugging away making a very slow charge off the limited solar today to keep charging the battery.
Should I be concered at this behaviour or is it merely operating off the battery in EPS Mode (even though I do not have an EPS solution fitted)? Assuming we get some sun before an engineer can come out in the new year what will happen when the battery tops out and there is no grid to connect to will it merely disconnect from the solar as it has no where to go !
-
Dave Foster
- Posts: 1185
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm
That sounds like the safest solution, it definitely needs to be checked, if its a loose connection it will typically get worse and can suffer heat damage if left on.
It’s nothing to be concerned about as once the inverter loses grid the inverter switches to EPS mode even if you don’t have the connector fitted, it will continue to charge the batteries from PV (obviously not if you have opened the DC isolator).
It will eventually drain the battery at which point it will turn off until there is enough power to start it up again.
It might make sense if it’s going to be off for a while until an engineer can check it, that you also turn the battery off and open its isolator.
It’s nothing to be concerned about as once the inverter loses grid the inverter switches to EPS mode even if you don’t have the connector fitted, it will continue to charge the batteries from PV (obviously not if you have opened the DC isolator).
It will eventually drain the battery at which point it will turn off until there is enough power to start it up again.
It might make sense if it’s going to be off for a while until an engineer can check it, that you also turn the battery off and open its isolator.
Cheers, always safe here and the guy in customer support actually pinged me late last night to say they had logged the ticket and will be in contact after boxing day and try to get an engineer to me in the new year, typical these things always happen over the festive break.
I have closed all the Isolators and Trips on the system (AC and DC) and set the inverter to stop mode as a precuation. As you say it is now still communicating but just drawing power off the batteries to basically keep itself running. The plan is that when I get a bit of sun and I am in I will start it up on the DC side only to charge up the battery and keep it healthy and the Inverter alive just so when I do get back up and running I have not fully discharged the battery.
I will report back on developments if and when I get a solution just in case someone else experiences something similar in future.
I have closed all the Isolators and Trips on the system (AC and DC) and set the inverter to stop mode as a precuation. As you say it is now still communicating but just drawing power off the batteries to basically keep itself running. The plan is that when I get a bit of sun and I am in I will start it up on the DC side only to charge up the battery and keep it healthy and the Inverter alive just so when I do get back up and running I have not fully discharged the battery.
I will report back on developments if and when I get a solution just in case someone else experiences something similar in future.
The installers Engineer turned up nice and early this morning ran up the system and straight away confirmed that it was an isolator (AC) issue. Took the switch apart to find a frayed live wire (hence no trip switched activated) but no sign of charring so looks like the Inverter did it's job and sensed the instabilty and shut down the AC side. 30 minute job for the engineer to replace the Isolator and rewire and test the system and now all up and running again.
-
Dave Foster
- Posts: 1185
- Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm
That's a great result, glad you got it sorted so quickly and a great response from your installer 