Hello from (actually) sunny Hampton

[Stuart444]

I aren't even going to try and figure out the setting - I'll leave that to the others

The only thing that occurred to me was that your meter is reading negative on import and that you have the grid supply going in the bottom meter terminals and the feed to the henley blocks (and the house) coming out the top, which is opposite to the diagram (grid in top, house into bottom) - could it be as simple as the inverter sees a negative power as 'export' and it should be positive for export?

i.e. It may be trying to reduce the -600w to zero by reducing it's output (from zero) - but cannot reduce it's output below zero (due to a full battery).

Thanks Marcus - lateral thinking is what I need! I think you've hit the nail on the head.

I have my grid connected to the bottom of the meter, and the house (and inverter) connected to the top, where the signal wires go. Eastron's user instructions don't show how to wire it up. However I found a youtube video which clearly states that the the inverter is connected to the bottom of the meter (bottom when the writing is the right way up), whereas it was convenient for me to wire the bttom to the AC in. I figured it is bidirectional so it didn't matter. But as you say, maybe that gives an inverted signal output and so the inverter is refusing to export as it thinks it's already exporting to the grid which its setup says isn't allowed.

So, another job for me today. I know that reversing the signal wires stops the communication, but maybe there's a setup parameter in the meter which inverts the reading. Alas the user instructions go on about baud rate, parity, pulse length etc - all a bit double Dutch to me. I can't see anything obvious to change that would make it work with the meter connected backwards! If it were possible, that would be much easier than physically turning the meter upside down, but if I have to, I'll do that. I've sent a query to Eastron Europe to see if I can invert the signal, but being Sunday today, I don't expect a reply until tomorrow at the earliest. Meanwhile, I can try the other tests I planned.

Thanks for all your help, you are stars

[Fintray]

No wonder there is confusion as the inverter manual shows this:



where the bottom row of terminals are numbered in the opposite direction from the one in the previous post.

[AE-NMidlands]

Even the 2 diagrams are different! Rotate one and you get the opposite sequences... Are there 2 different models/configurations being illustrated?

[Stuart444]

Success! well, partly

I had useful emails with Eastron yesterday. Initially they said my meter could have this output reversed, but I couldn't follow their instructions on how to do that. Eventually I had to send them a video of me trying to alter its setup and they then realised that my model of meter can't be reversed this way.

Meanwhile, I disconnected the inverter from the house and ran it with a load powered by PV. Both the normal "AC input" and "UPS" outputs worked. To my amazement I discovered that the inverter's display is misleading. Well, it was misleading me. The centre area describes the UPS output, which is why previously it was reading zero (as no loads were connected to it). The left area describes the output to the house (even though it says "UPS" above it), or rather it reports the voltage and frequency, but it does not report the current, either in or out.

To solve the meter problem, I had to remove it and rewire it the correct way round. 25mm2 wires are a pain to bend! But I managed it, and on commissioning it this morning, it is feeding AC to the house, and to the grid. It got to over 1kW to the grid on the smart meter, and 1.8kW on the Owl. Woo-hoo! That's been a long time coming. I'm not yet authorised to export, so I've now set it back to zero export.

Since then, my wife has put the washing machine on, and I'm importing 2.5kW from the grid now. The inverter is only putting out about 550-600W, and the batteries are "charging". They are full actually, there's zero charging current shown. The PV is high at 290v, and it could give much more than the 200W it's showing, According to my settings, I think it should be exporting to the house and offsetting the washing machine load, which it isn't. So I'm not quite there yet. More fiddling with the inverter's settings are needed, I think. If anyone can see anything else daft that I've done, please don't spare my blushes!

The "550-600W" is the reading from the Owl clamp-on meter, and it reads that most of the time. I'm wondering if it's misleading me. I'll wire a multimeter into the export wire and report back.

[nowty]

Try wiring a high load (say a kettle) to the "AC Out" and see if the batteries export to it.

Also, does the Owl meter show any output after dark on the "AC In" side. ?

[Countrypaul]

Good to hear your making progress. Once you have it working as you want a report detailing what was wrong (and/or misleading), how it was corrected etc. would be great for the next person that has a similar problem (or several). By the way you might have gathered already we like pictures, so a few of the revised hardware will always be welcome

[Fintray]

Have you tried altering "The grid tied mode" at all?

[Stuart444]

Good morning all,
I've had a cold since yesterday, so I'm only firing on 2 cylinders
I attach a picture of my Easton as it is now. To minimise wire bending I installed it horizontal rather than vertical, but it's actually easier to read that way.
Here's a puzzle. I cut the wire from my "AC Input" to the consumer unit so that I could put a multimeter inline to see which way the current is going, as often doing sums on the values in the inverter and my smart meters don't add up. However, it reads the same whichever way I connect it! No negative sign one way as I had expected. Same result for both my multimeters. Can you tell me how to decide which way the AC is going? It's easy with DC of course, I've never had to consider this before with AC.

[Countrypaul]

Good morning all,
I've had a cold since yesterday, so I'm only firing on 2 cylinders
I attach a picture of my Easton as it is now. To minimise wire bending I installed it horizontal rather than vertical, but it's actually easier to read that way.
Here's a puzzle. I cut the wire from my "AC Input" to the consumer unit so that I could put a multimeter inline to see which way the current is going, as often doing sums on the values in the inverter and my smart meters don't add up. However, it reads the same whichever way I connect it! No negative sign one way as I had expected. Same result for both my multimeters. Can you tell me how to decide which way the AC is going? It's easy with DC of course, I've never had to consider this before with AC.

My understanding is that for AC you have to measure the phase difference of the voltage and current and you can work out which way the power is going, if in phase it is going one way and if out of phase it goes the opposite way. The CT's measure the current flow (and I assume phase position?) but an ammeter only tells you the current flow and not direction.
Someone should come along to give a fuller explanation.

[Stuart444]

I'm just posting to say I'm still battling on, just not had much development since my last post.

My system seems to be working OK overall. "Seems" because I can't get a set of readings to obey Kirchhoff's first law. I've ordered another smart meter to put in line from the inverter to my house as I only partly believe the clamp-on meter, and hopefully that will help me. I've realised that the processor in the inverter is quite slow, and the readings all are somewhat delayed. So, a certain amount of screwing up my eyes to make "average" readings is necessary.

The only glaring error at the moment seems to be that the system is not importing electricity in the early morning (at the cheap rate time) to charge my batteries. The batteries are always flat in the morning, and the big inverter light (vertical bar) is flashing red even though the inverter was normal (orange light), and the batteries showing say 50% charge, the evening before. My house doesn't draw much power in the night (it was about 300-400W before the new system was switched on) so it can't use between 5 and 10 kWh overnight, so that's a puzzle at the moment.

The red light caused me panic at first, but I now think that this light just means that there's an error message to be read on the inverter's panel, and usually it is "error #4 - battery low" . So no panic really. The manual gives no indication at all about what different light signals the inverter gives out, and what they mean. Bonkers. The inverter seems to be fundamentally sound (if the above problem can be sorted out) but not designed for the consumer for easy use.