Видео

Hello, thanks for the detailed tutorial. Is there any advantage of emailing Jenny vs purchasing through the website direct?

Nice video

Nice video man! Updates are needed!

Nice video, I am a contractor in Northern NY and love my Lightning as well.

First! Welcome back, lol.

I'm a full time professional installer(36 years) and recently a customer had me upgrade his inverter and in the process I had to do a reinstall of his existing EG4 charge controller. Its the biggest piece of crap I ever had to work on. The design is terrible and no room to use the right size conductors required by code. Its a joke. Also 4 of his 6 EG4 batteries have failed. I want nothing to do with that brand. DIY folks should beware.

Have you plugged the battery charger that comes with the generator? When I plug mine into the generator the light turns green, ever when its not plugged into AC power. Seem like a flaw, as that green light would eventually drain the battery.

Lots of work there

how about communication between this Apexium battery to the EG4 or the sol-ark inverter?

How much? Why not put system in a box which can be insulated/vented? What benefits, and how is is worth this extra cost? Thanks!

So I have a duromax 13k watt generator. When I try to run my house (I had an electrician run a transfer switch right to main panel) the gfi outlets in the house trip and won’t stay on. I assume I need to do this to cure the problem??

Thanks for sharing; I had a GenerLink interlock installed after I purchased a XP7000IH, which has yet to be delivered. The GenerLink interlock does not transfer the neutral. If I decide to make the change to a floating neutral, I will tape off the 120 outlets. Connecting a floating neutral generator directly sensitive electronics can cause damage. I will also place a floating neutral label on the generator. Cheers

Good video by Mike Holt on bonded versus floating neutral. You can probably skip to about the two minute mark. ruclips.net/user/liveyS7usLY9zL4?si=Tjl24AOvtiVTWs_b

FYI on the 16000w model it's a much more involved task. All the neutrals and grounds connect to a bus bar. You can disconnect all the neutrals from that bar and wire them together. Obligatory only do this if you need to and know what you're doing. Consult a licensed electrician. But, if you are using it exclusively as a whole home generator via an interlock kit, NEC section 250 is very clear that you should only have a single neutral/ground bond in the system and one should already exist in your main panel.

If you don't have a very specific need for this modification, DON'T DO IT

WARNING!! I followed the instruction to unbond on my XP9000ih. During the next use the power fried the inverter on my refrigerator compressor, the condenser fan, and both transformers on my chamberlain garage door openers. It worked without issue before the modification and again after I returned it to original configuration. DON'T do this on this model!! The old saying "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" really applied here.

Edit because I have it wrong. Connecting to either panel box in your house would need the neutral to be floating in your generator because the neutral would be bonded at the main panel box so that is your one point of bonding that's required. Okay so I understand exactly why you need to float the neutral in a generator to wire it up to your panel box. But I wonder if it's different if you wire it to a main panel box that has the neutral and ground bonded or if you wire it to a sub panel box which does not have the neutral and ground bonded. I would imagine that it should be fine at the main panel box as is but you will need to float the neutral if you connected to the sub panel box. Does this sound correct to you?

This is intriguing. I just bought a mid century home that is architecturally awesome. However all the supply ducts are in the slab, outdoor condenser is 15 years old, and the gas fire furnace/evaporator/air handler are 30 years old with parts replaced here and there. On an 85 degree day, not even the worst part of summer, it struggles to maintain temp. I’ve noticed registers near the air handler flow well and are cold, but furthest away barely have anything. I’ve wanted to replace the whole system but I fear the duct design forever encased in the slab is just a bad design. Also being a mid century home, the vast majority of the home has no accessible attic to run new duct work, only a foot or so between ceiling and roof deck. to keep the ceiling insulated wouldn’t likely leave room for ductwork even if I wanted to tear apart ceilings. I wonder if a multizone ductless mini split (or a couple) could be a good solution. I think it would still have challenges, especially placement of indoor units so as not to takeaway from the architectural aspects, but may be much easier than a traditional central ducted forced air system.

Yea sure if have few 100k laying around I'll do this. Does anyone know a good place to buy the parts that we are just using out of those solar inverters?

A disconnect needs to be added to these units, have 2 of them and if the bus bar that they are connected to is live the unit will start charging or discharging no mater what position the push button is in

a question: what is the value of this kit over say an EG4 LL? These kits with a batteries are much more expensive in dollar cost, and have the added expense of needing to be assembled?

So its been a year. How is it going with the mini splits? I am also in north texas buying a large house. Im a little worried about the expensive electric bills im about to start paying. How are the minisplits handeling this heat wave? How old is your house? Awsome shop btw. How much are you saving on electricity?

Hi. Can something like this be used in a mb sprinter camper van ?

I did this very same thing and when I plugged it in to my panel outlet It would trip the breaker on generator. Then I thought the load was to high so I shut everything off and tried 1 15 amp circuit and still tripped breaker. I put the neutral back and everything was fine. Weird right.

How did you seal the vents and weatherproof the space where the old air handler?

What would happen if you don’t do this and still back feed your house? I’m sure I’ve seen people not do this and back feed the house.

how much it cost you?

I'm interested in knowing how easy it is to connect this to solar panels? Watching the build was really thorough I really appreciate what you did there.

Standard range lightning is 98 kwh. Extended range is 131

There are times I fly along at 80 mph and other times I may drive at 65 mph. You learn to manage your power. I purposely stop at a good number of chargers for about 15 to 20 minutes when traveling long distance to manage risk. I don't even think twice, and it does not bother me. I do have a Platinum with a long-range battery. My wife has an XLT with a standard range that she mainly charges at home. For our needs they are perfect. In my Platinum, driving from Reno to Las Vegas I charge to 100% at home, I Charge in Fallon and then in Tonopah and then I charge when I get to Las Vegas for 428 miles. Mostly at 70 mph. So, I'm stopping twice to get there. Hit the restroom get something to eat or drink. Not a big deal.

Thanks for the video. Learned a ton from you. Similar situation in that I am powering 6 circuits in my house from the Growatts and autotransformers and I did not realize I had to tie my derived neutral into my Grid neutral. Easy enough because I installed a second load panel next to my main house panel and have been moving the circuits as my capacity has increased but I bonded my neutral and ground in that load center also because it was completely off grid and it was the first means of disconnect from the inverters. The solar load center is back feeding my grid panel through a 4 pole 80 amp breaker that I've been leaving open because I figured the neutrals needed to be isolated, and then to an interlock kit. Looks like I should be closing the breaker so that will electrically connect the neutrals and remove the ground neutral bond in my solar load center. Only problem with that is the that now the ground neutral bond will not be in the first means of disconnect from my inverters but having only 1 point of bonded neutral is more important for safety.

Well now you know! Ive always thought an ev could be nice to solely get around town, but not for trips. Too much time waiting on charges. Are you getting money back for putting power into the grid?

Thanks for the real world experience video. It answers a lot of questions I’ve had about EVs. They obviously excel in regular commuting of 50-100 miles per day but when it comes to road trips, there are some extra planning and steps that take more time than the same trip with an ICE vehicle. Demand for EVs has fallen but all it takes to change that is $4.50/Gal gasoline! 👍

I recommend 10 to 65% on trips but u definitely want to use the Tesla stations.

Pretty certain it is larger than 60kwh battery. I think Ford originally quoted a "usable capacity" which kept significant portion in reserve just in case the battery deteriorated. They later revised that specified capacity without changing any hardware. I don't know what year yours is, but since 2022 they have offered a 98kwh and a 131kwh.

I'm also thinking of retrofitting my home to mini split and am curious. Since you had a traditional system and already had traditional ducts; Why didn't you use a ducted mini-split heat pump with your existing traditional vents?

Where can I buy the plugs to the negative & positive terminals (black & orange). And what do you call them ?

Wow… just wow.. 592v spike just because the installer substituted a Cat5 crossover cable? I am speechless. Somebody @EG4 got some splaining to do! Great job troubleshooting..

Conversation on this topic diysolarforum.com/threads/eg4-18k-what-not-to-do-in-parallel.84679

The moral of the story is check your cables.

Very cool! Off-grid 5yrs here in Upstate NY and couldn’t imagine ever going back on-grid! Great setup you’ve got there Boss! 😎

Thank you for this video. M

Still working?

How many watts of solar do you have?

Geeat video. Moving the camera so much can make some viewers dizzy. It is better to make the camera stable. Didn't take anything from the video, though.

I don't get it. So you paid to charge your lightning at the house now you using it to charge your batteries in the shop? Why not just run an extension cord to the house 🤷‍♂️

Very cool. Your largest solar battery doubles as a pickup truck! 🛻 The 6000xp is an incredible value considering the included peripheral breakers and isolater you don’t have to also purchase. I replaced my 6000ex with one and have been running my entire house with it since last week. No issues except for the low PV ☀️generation from the extreme number of cloudy days we’ve been having.

Great video!

Low budget Chinese made, high frequency, transformerless inverters have much shorter life expectancies and poorer peak power capacities than more reliable, heavy duty, low frequency, transformer-based inverters. And because there's no transformer in these inverters, there's no galvanic isolation between the DC boost stage and the AC output which makes for less safe operation during a catastrophic failure of the H-bridge circuit and the AC output monitoring circuitry. For just a few hundred dollars more, you can buy a low frequency, transformer-based inverter charger with MPPT which provides a much higher surge capacity, a built in AC transfer switch, grid or generator battery charger with automatic generator start and a much longer life expectancy with galvanic isolation.

I'm just now getting ready to commission my of grid system. I'm using 3 of the growatt 5000 ES inverters. How do i get all of the 240 V inverters into 120 V split phase. Would i have to get a separate auto transformer (say a 5000 watt split tr as nð dfor all three and install this neutral protection ckt in all three?