Great job Jeff! Solark tech support has been really good and if you can't get hold of them you feel free to call me too. Enjoy all the data you're getting from both solar assistant and PV pro.
The ferrite donuts from Sol-Ark need to be right below the terminal block. You should run parallel battery cables not a jumper. You will find out once that is done you won't need those other ferrite chokes. I know I have sold and installed over 76 Sol-Ark inverters since 2020. Been a master electrician since 1992. Cheers!
Only kinda excited??? It’s so quiet! I love how clean looking the Sol-Arks are. They do such a good job at buttoning up all the cabling. I’m glad Solar Assistant is working for you. So much data available to you now! Sounds like the Sol-Ark support is top notch. Glad to hear they stand behind their products.
Wow, great setup! I'm glad I found your video, I currently have a 'little' 5kW grid-tie system and I am planning a summer project to add batteries (and more panels), with roughly the same peak usage as I saw you had on your graphs. I figured I would need two sol-ark 15K's as well so I'm glad to see someone with almost exactly the same configuration working smoothly.
@@jeffmotes2129 Niiice! Yah, our original system is quite old... almost 20 years old. This time around we are going to fill the whole roof with panels. Will probably wind up starting with one rack of LifePower4 batteries (30kWh) with room set aside for a second rack. Dual sol-ark 15-k's so there shouldn't be any issues with the AC. Not quite sure what the nameplate is going to be yet, but probably 20-25kW. (not that I would actually run Aircon in a backup situation, but I don't want to have a smart panel. I want things to just work, then just turn big loads off and optimize manually).
@@junkerzn7312 that’ll be a nice system. I live in a rural area with some acreage. I installed 42 -445W panels on a Sinclair ground mount. Getting too old to be climbing on my roof.
It takes a lot of mix 31 ferrites to tame the RF interference that solar inverters produce. I've gotten my noise levels down from 20 over S9 to about S7 on the 75 m ham radio band but I've had to put about 40 of these on various wires going into and out of my inverter.
I have a Sol-Ark 8 k and solar assistant as well. My batteries in SA don't correspond to the battery numbers either. Think it puts then in the order you add them. Otherwise both SA and Sol-Ark have been great. Also bought my system from Scott H.
Window and door great stuff works well because it's not super durable so if u need to break it out it falls apart by just Wiggling the wire or use thumb gumb duct seal
If/when I’m at that load level I’ll check it out but I’ll have to bypass my solar power system with the transfer switch. Probably won’t be doing that anytime soon I hope.
Had to do that. But the PI is finicky about usb hubs. I found an older (now obsolete) CyberPower in a drawer and used it. Worked. So I bought a spare off eBay.
Tech support from Sol-Ark has been good. Have you done a firmware update yet? That is an interesting process. PV Pro has been working well for a few weeks but the 5 minute update is a pain when you make a change. I’m going to order cable to get Solar Assistant going. Looking good, glad it went well.
Mine was broke I just didn’t know it. My 1st month mine would peak at around 10k from PV. Called them twice before they told me they had a firmware upgrade. Did upgrade and started getting full PV at about 16k. That update was in September. They also didn’t have the current version on their website for 15k inverters, now they have it. Have you got the pi connected to your network so you can view remote?
@@jeffmotes2129 They said that a busbar was needed from battery to split battery to each of the two 48v battery inputs on 15k. Not sure why unless they don’t think battery mount is not suitable for two end terminals.
Jeff, qq? What awg is the green ground cable you are using and can you point me to what you are using in your gutter for wire management? Your system looks very organized. I just started mine in a single inverter setup for now.
Hey Bob. My system is protected by 200A breakers hence I’m using #6 copper ground. This system was originally designed around 5 Growatt SPF5000ES inverters so the plastic wireways inside the trough was designed for the smaller wire. I’m using 3x3 plastic wire ways. One for AC. One for DC. If I had originally designed it for the Sol-Ark I would have used a larger trough and larger wireway.
@@jeffmotes2129 Thanks Jeff. Jeff another question, I'm close to hooking up my PV wires on my 15K. For the MPPT controllers, what type of ferrules did you use if any? I would like high quality ones if you have a recommendation?
@@bobmurray6249 I transitioned from PV wire to URD wire at the combiner box at my array. Then from URD to THHN at the disconnect box near my inverters. I did not use ferrules at the inverter.
I’m in rural Clarke County. An electric co-op supplies our power. They aren’t against it but they don’t want to buy any of your excess power. Alabama Power practically runs the Public Service Commission. They can get anything they want.
@@jeffmotes2129 Oh i know. We just put some Ham Radio towers up your way. Plus yall took some big storms not long ago. From the video i can see at least you all are okay. But Alabama Power is crazzy. I write to the the state weekly trying to get alabama power to stop charging a solar fee, If they would release that fee, id gladly hook them back up. But not until. Take care buddy, if you need anything, im only a hop skip and a jump!
If they paid a solar guys for power, they wouldn’t be able to afford their fancy suits, fancy buildings, nice benefits, retirement packages, helicopters and bizjets. Greed and corruption.
@@joelevi yes. That allows the SA to monitor and control the Sol-Ark AND also allows the batteries to communicate with the Sol-Ark. only required on the Master Sol-Ark. the slave Sol-Ark doesn’t require a splitter because it doesn’t connect to the battery comms.
According to Solar-Assistant: If you have a 3 phase or 15kW/16kW inverter the RS485 port might be read only, please see our Deye/SunSynk/Sol-Ark help page For parallel inverters and 3 phase installations each inverter requires it's own cable. I have two 15Ks, I believe in Parallel, so it looks like that wouldn't work for me?
@@joelevi mine are in parallel. You need the splitter for the master plus a cable to SA. The slave will need a cable to SA but no splitter. This is a special RS485 to USB cable.
@@electromechanicalstuff2602 Ive been following the videos of Dr Arthur Bradley. I purchased a set of ferrites from his website. Some of them still had their Mouser Electronics part numbers. I order more directly from Mouser. I think it was material 31 but I’d have to check my order to be certain. Check out his RUclips channel @empdoctor.
Huh. Communications module nested smack dab in the middle of major power circuits. Awkward spot. Also, I believe that 3 pole mag-break needs install guide [or catalog] looked at. While it is ok to use a 3p breaker as a 2p at times, most manufacturers will recommend not using the center pole in those circumstances. That is shunt trip, or remote indicator/status for the two wires out the back?
Talking about the Raspberry PI? That’s where the cables reached. I’m aware of their recommendations. This was originally built with a different design in mind and I was going to switch the neutral as well. However I changed plans on switching the neutral and decided to leave L1 and L2 where they were. It is a shunt trip breaker. I was planning on using it in my previous design (hence adding this breaker instead of buying a panel with a MB). Those plans changed but I don’t plan on changing the panel out or plan on removing this breaker. It is by far a heavier and superior breaker to the typical home panel main breaker.
Not sure other than my daily loads. My wife put 22kw on the Growatts once when she was washing and drying clothes, while cooking and baking all while a 5ton AC was running. They held up and didn’t trip. But that’s the largest load I’ve had on.
@@jeffmotes2129 I had 5 growatts connected on a sunny day. I had tons of stuff on, charging cars ect. I looked at my laptop at sa, and I was at 28kw. Opps, had to turn off a load or two.
@@jeffmotes2129 I took out my 12K Growatt installed 15k Sol-ark Being on that Tie grid function all the time is great. Don't have to worry about lights flickering. Overloading. Feeding power back to my shop now so the solar is doing the whole property instead of his part of it. And when the power goes out I still have power. To the house and some circuits in the shop. I've had it two months now and still really don't know what it'll handle off grid. Running 11 of the EG4 Lifepower batteries. 15K of panels through the Sol-ark.
Great job Jeff! Solark tech support has been really good and if you can't get hold of them you feel free to call me too. Enjoy all the data you're getting from both solar assistant and PV pro.
Thanks Scott!
Yúyq
The ferrite donuts from Sol-Ark need to be right below the terminal block. You should run parallel battery cables not a jumper. You will find out once that is done you won't need those other ferrite chokes. I know I have sold and installed over 76 Sol-Ark inverters since 2020. Been a master electrician since 1992. Cheers!
Wow. That’s a lot of Sol-arks! Thanks for the tips.
Awesome video, sir. Well done 👏 .I am just waiting to hit the lotto to purchase a solark.
Only kinda excited??? It’s so quiet! I love how clean looking the Sol-Arks are. They do such a good job at buttoning up all the cabling.
I’m glad Solar Assistant is working for you. So much data available to you now!
Sounds like the Sol-Ark support is top notch. Glad to hear they stand behind their products.
After my Comm experiences with the Growatts, I was really surprised how smooth and quickly it all setup.
Wow, great setup! I'm glad I found your video, I currently have a 'little' 5kW grid-tie system and I am planning a summer project to add batteries (and more panels), with roughly the same peak usage as I saw you had on your graphs. I figured I would need two sol-ark 15K's as well so I'm glad to see someone with almost exactly the same configuration working smoothly.
Good deal. Don’t make the mistake I originally made. By once cry once.
I hit 22kw this morning.
@@jeffmotes2129 Niiice! Yah, our original system is quite old... almost 20 years old. This time around we are going to fill the whole roof with panels. Will probably wind up starting with one rack of LifePower4 batteries (30kWh) with room set aside for a second rack. Dual sol-ark 15-k's so there shouldn't be any issues with the AC.
Not quite sure what the nameplate is going to be yet, but probably 20-25kW.
(not that I would actually run Aircon in a backup situation, but I don't want to have a smart panel. I want things to just work, then just turn big loads off and optimize manually).
@@junkerzn7312 that’ll be a nice system. I live in a rural area with some acreage. I installed 42 -445W panels on a Sinclair ground mount. Getting too old to be climbing on my roof.
Looking forward to the Sol-Ark 30k Unit
It takes a lot of mix 31 ferrites to tame the RF interference that solar inverters produce. I've gotten my noise levels down from 20 over S9 to about S7 on the 75 m ham radio band but I've had to put about 40 of these on various wires going into and out of my inverter.
Hmm … need to set up my old yaesu and give this a try.
Beautiful system!!
Thank you.
Looking good!
Thanks!
I have a Sol-Ark 8 k and solar assistant as well. My batteries in SA don't correspond to the battery numbers either. Think it puts then in the order you add them.
Otherwise both SA and Sol-Ark have been great. Also bought my system from Scott H.
Yeah got to think on that one a bit.
Window and door great stuff works well because it's not super durable so if u need to break it out it falls apart by just Wiggling the wire or use thumb gumb duct seal
It would be interesting to measure how many amps they take from batteries when there is no load.Nice job!
If/when I’m at that load level I’ll check it out but I’ll have to bypass my solar power system with the transfer switch. Probably won’t be doing that anytime soon I hope.
That’s a thing of beauty! They are very quiet most of the time. You get what you pay for, right? Thank you for sharing!
Wish I had done this to start with!
There’s a 30k coming out later this year!!!
Major progress
Much improvement over the Growatts.
O.k. Jeff, with the pi, add a USB break out box with 6 ports hub.
Had to do that. But the PI is finicky about usb hubs. I found an older (now obsolete) CyberPower in a drawer and used it. Worked. So I bought a spare off eBay.
Any flicker?
Edit
Alabama hope you and your family are safe and healthy from the tornado that I just saw rio through
No flicker.
Tech support from Sol-Ark has been good. Have you done a firmware update yet? That is an interesting process. PV Pro has been working well for a few weeks but the 5 minute update is a pain when you make a change. I’m going to order cable to get Solar Assistant going. Looking good, glad it went well.
Haven’t updated the firmware. Is that one of those “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” kind of things?
Mine was broke I just didn’t know it. My 1st month mine would peak at around 10k from PV. Called them twice before they told me they had a firmware upgrade. Did upgrade and started getting full PV at about 16k. That update was in September. They also didn’t have the current version on their website for 15k inverters, now they have it. Have you got the pi connected to your network so you can view remote?
@@geneg7956 yes. The PI is connected to the internet.
SA told me to not use a jumper between the battery inputs like you did to get the increased amp draw the batteries (and cables) are capable of.
What was their recommendation? Run parallel cables from each inverter to the battery?
@@jeffmotes2129 They said that a busbar was needed from battery to split battery to each of the two 48v battery inputs on 15k. Not sure why unless they don’t think battery mount is not suitable for two end terminals.
@@AaronBlake I just flipped one of the compression lugs 180. It worked fine. Plenty of clearance. Not sure what their concern is.
@@AaronBlake I also used 600V welding cable that was rated for battery use. It’s more flexible than standard battery cable.
Jeff, qq? What awg is the green ground cable you are using and can you point me to what you are using in your gutter for wire management? Your system looks very organized. I just started mine in a single inverter setup for now.
Hey Bob. My system is protected by 200A breakers hence I’m using #6 copper ground.
This system was originally designed around 5 Growatt SPF5000ES inverters so the plastic wireways inside the trough was designed for the smaller wire. I’m using 3x3 plastic wire ways. One for AC. One for DC. If I had originally designed it for the Sol-Ark I would have used a larger trough and larger wireway.
@@jeffmotes2129 Thanks Jeff. Jeff another question, I'm close to hooking up my PV wires on my 15K. For the MPPT controllers, what type of ferrules did you use if any? I would like high quality ones if you have a recommendation?
@@bobmurray6249 I transitioned from PV wire to URD wire at the combiner box at my array. Then from URD to THHN at the disconnect box near my inverters. I did not use ferrules at the inverter.
@@jeffmotes2129 got it, thanks
Where did you get the conduit box for connecting the 2 units together
I bought it from my electrical supplier, Stuart Irby. You can also get them from places like Graybar and Grainger.
Not sure what part of Alabama your in, Im around Mobile, AL Area and Alabama Power doesn't like me, because of going off grid...
I’m in rural Clarke County. An electric co-op supplies our power. They aren’t against it but they don’t want to buy any of your excess power.
Alabama Power practically runs the Public Service Commission. They can get anything they want.
@@jeffmotes2129 Oh i know. We just put some Ham Radio towers up your way. Plus yall took some big storms not long ago. From the video i can see at least you all are okay.
But Alabama Power is crazzy. I write to the the state weekly trying to get alabama power to stop charging a solar fee, If they would release that fee, id gladly hook them back up. But not until. Take care buddy, if you need anything, im only a hop skip and a jump!
If they paid a solar guys for power, they wouldn’t be able to afford their fancy suits, fancy buildings, nice benefits, retirement packages, helicopters and bizjets. Greed and corruption.
@@USA-GreedyMenOfNoIntegrity it’s worse than that. They want to charge a monthly fee for YOUR solar panels.
Are you able to control your SolArk 15Ks with Solar Assistant over that RJ45 cable you pointed out, or just monitor?
Yes. I can. But once I’ve gotten everything running like I wanted it I haven’t made any changes in over 6 months.
And you've got your rj-45 splitter plugged in there, and the Solar Assistant plugged in to that, correct?
@@joelevi yes. That allows the SA to monitor and control the Sol-Ark AND also allows the batteries to communicate with the Sol-Ark. only required on the Master Sol-Ark. the slave Sol-Ark doesn’t require a splitter because it doesn’t connect to the battery comms.
According to Solar-Assistant:
If you have a 3 phase or 15kW/16kW inverter the RS485 port might be read only, please see our
Deye/SunSynk/Sol-Ark help page
For parallel inverters and 3 phase installations each inverter requires it's own cable.
I have two 15Ks, I believe in Parallel, so it looks like that wouldn't work for me?
@@joelevi mine are in parallel. You need the splitter for the master plus a cable to SA. The slave will need a cable to SA but no splitter. This is a special RS485 to USB cable.
How much was each unit Jeff?
They list for $8,100 plus freight.
How many panels do you have & what size?
42 445W panels - 3 circuits from the array to the inverters rack 14 445W panels. Two circuits to tge master Sol-ark. One to the slave.
Please show your transfer setup.
I will soon.
What does the ferrite do for you?
EMP Hardening
Part of a layered EMP hardening plan. Check out some of my other videos. Also check out videos by Dr Arthur Bradley.
Where did u get those big ferrites
The ferrites on the battery cables came with the Sol-arks. All the other ferrites I purchased from Mouser Electronics.
@@jeffmotes2129 what material type? What frequency would a solar flare or nude be? I see 35mm and 76 mm
@@electromechanicalstuff2602 Ive been following the videos of Dr Arthur Bradley. I purchased a set of ferrites from his website. Some of them still had their Mouser Electronics part numbers. I order more directly from Mouser. I think it was material 31 but I’d have to check my order to be certain. Check out his RUclips channel @empdoctor.
Huh. Communications module nested smack dab in the middle of major power circuits. Awkward spot. Also, I believe that 3 pole mag-break needs install guide [or catalog] looked at. While it is ok to use a 3p breaker as a 2p at times, most manufacturers will recommend not using the center pole in those circumstances. That is shunt trip, or remote indicator/status for the two wires out the back?
Talking about the Raspberry PI? That’s where the cables reached.
I’m aware of their recommendations. This was originally built with a different design in mind and I was going to switch the neutral as well. However I changed plans on switching the neutral and decided to leave L1 and L2 where they were.
It is a shunt trip breaker. I was planning on using it in my previous design (hence adding this breaker instead of buying a panel with a MB). Those plans changed but I don’t plan on changing the panel out or plan on removing this breaker. It is by far a heavier and superior breaker to the typical home panel main breaker.
Gonna make a load test video?
Not sure other than my daily loads. My wife put 22kw on the Growatts once when she was washing and drying clothes, while cooking and baking all while a 5ton AC was running. They held up and didn’t trip.
But that’s the largest load I’ve had on.
@@jeffmotes2129 I had 5 growatts connected on a sunny day. I had tons of stuff on, charging cars ect. I looked at my laptop at sa, and I was at 28kw. Opps, had to turn off a load or two.
If you're running a tiegrid mode, you probably really don't need one inverter most of the time.
You’re probably right. I didn’t want regrets later so I decided to install two and be done with it.
@@jeffmotes2129 I took out my 12K Growatt installed 15k Sol-ark Being on that Tie grid function all the time is great. Don't have to worry about lights flickering. Overloading. Feeding power back to my shop now so the solar is doing the whole property instead of his part of it. And when the power goes out I still have power. To the house and some circuits in the shop. I've had it two months now and still really don't know what it'll handle off grid. Running 11 of the EG4 Lifepower batteries. 15K of panels through the Sol-ark.
What is that loud constant annoying buzz
Probably one of the ferrites before I replaced them.