I just had a 8KW system installed by an installer. Now I don't trust them...

[myfriendSUN]

Again, they have the manager account to see the system and they have more control than I do. They chose not to care.
At this moment I don't think the account for your system is set up yet.
If the account was set up already you and Enphase should be able to see it when you called Enphase and logged in to your account.
Now Enphase needs the map info to set up your account.
After the activation of your account ask them how you can see your individual panel performance.

If you don't have the map you need to contact the installer to forward the map info to Enphase.
Otherwise you are going to need to find out the serial number and location of each microinverter on your roof yourself.

[myfriendSUN]

I will ship them back the envoy and I will buy a new one (and deduct the $) and I will set it up myself, totally isolating the installer from the system. Can I do that? Will Envoy see the serial numbers of the micro-inverters and give me trouble?
The Envoy should be under warranty. And it should be just plug and play. Just call Enphase to activate with the new serial number of the Envoy.

[derekc]

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[myfriendSUN]

In particular, I have per-panel viewing on my account, but don't see a means by which you can modify the panel map or add/remove microinverters from the system. I believe you need an installer account to make those changes.
I have the Enlighten Manager view. I did modify the panel map myself because the map provided to Enphase by my installer was not accurate.
On one side of the roof the map has to be turned 180 degrees.
The Enlighten Manager view is what you need to monitor your panels and it is the view that the installer has.

[derekc]

On that day last Monday they installed the envoy, they saw the problem... sometimes it shows 5 bars and all 29 micros online, sometimes it dropped to zero and no micros online. When he left he said oh it was normal, just needed time. And that Enlighten Activation Checklist was stuck at stage 3 failing "Good Communication Established". So I trusted him and he left. For days, it has been stuck at stage 3 then I stepped in and researched what's going on. I read the troubleshooting guide and finally pinpointed one circuit (running UPS backup for my servers) giving the interference. They never bothered calling me back to ask or even replying my emails requesting for service (and they have their manager account to check my system and to see micros going offline). I turned off that circuit for a day and finally the activation checklist was completed. Now I just got the ferrite torroid and I installed it just now and everything is working FINALLY. I have 5 bars and I see all 29 micros.

Again, they have the manager account to see the system and they have more control than I do. They chose not to care.

Hmmm, in that case, I will ship them back the envoy and I will buy a new one (and deduct the $) and I will set it up myself, totally isolating the installer from the system. Can I do that? Will Envoy see the serial numbers of the micro-inverters and give me trouble?

[derekc]

Where do you plug in your Envoy?
How many bars you have and for how long it's been working?
How many bars do you have right now?
If you had 4 bars and have been working for months and now it's not working then may be you have problem with your Envoy itself.
Enphase can hardly help you with the communication problem between the microinverters and the Envoy.
The Envoy has to be plugged in as close to the main circuit breaker panel as possible to get at less 4 bars of signal.

I would never expect somebody would keep an eye on my system at all unless I called them that I have problem.

On that day last Monday they installed the envoy, they saw the problem... sometimes it shows 5 bars and all 29 micros online, sometimes it dropped to zero and no micros online. When he left he said oh it was normal, just needed time. And that Enlighten Activation Checklist was stuck at stage 3 failing "Good Communication Established". So I trusted him and he left. For days, it has been stuck at stage 3 then I stepped in and researched what's going on. I read the troubleshooting guide and finally pinpointed one circuit (running UPS backup for my servers) giving the interference. They never bothered calling me back to ask or even replying my emails requesting for service (and they have their manager account to check my system and to see micros going offline). I turned off that circuit for a day and finally the activation checklist was completed. Now I just got the ferrite torroid and I installed it just now and everything is working FINALLY. I have 5 bars and I see all 29 micros.

Again, they have the manager account to see the system and they have more control than I do. They chose not to care.

[wwu123]

I am the OP.
For a week the installer has ignored me. Envoy has gotten no communication with the micros for two days already because I specifically kept the interfering devices on 24x7. They should have gotten some warning if they were monitoring my system. Keep in mind that this is not new. They knew it was there and told me it is acceptable.
I will propose to release them from the warranty service (which they don't provide), I will ask for a $3k credit. I will need the map of serial number, and ask them to enable me to watch the per panel monitoring so that I can then remove them from enlighten (according to the Enphase support - see my post#6).

Some other installers might think I am not being reasonable. I think as a consumer paying full price, I have to right to ask a working system. I just happen to know what to expect from each component of the system so I am being demanding. A lot of homeowners simply trust their installers to do the job.

Keep in mind that you may be able to remove the installer from monitoring your system, but having per-panel viewing privileges for your user account does not necessarily give you all the controls that an installer account has. In particular, I have per-panel viewing on my account, but don't see a means by which you can modify the panel map or add/remove microinverters from the system. I believe you need an installer account to make those changes.

[myfriendSUN]

Envoy has gotten no communication with the micros for two days already because I specifically kept the interfering devices on 24x7. They should have gotten some warning if they were monitoring my system. Keep in mind that this is not new. They knew it was there and told me it is acceptable.

Where do you plug in your Envoy?
How many bars you have and for how long it's been working?
How many bars do you have right now?
If you had 4 bars and have been working for months and now it's not working then may be you have problem with your Envoy itself.
Enphase can hardly help you with the communication problem between the microinverters and the Envoy.
The Envoy has to be plugged in as close to the main circuit breaker panel as possible to get at less 4 bars of signal.

I would never expect somebody would keep an eye on my system at all unless I called them that I have problem.

[derekc]

I am the OP.
For a week the installer has ignored me. Envoy has gotten no communication with the micros for two days already because I specifically kept the interfering devices on 24x7. They should have gotten some warning if they were monitoring my system. Keep in mind that this is not new. They knew it was there and told me it is acceptable.
I will propose to release them from the warranty service (which they don't provide), I will ask for a $3k credit. I will need the map of serial number, and ask them to enable me to watch the per panel monitoring so that I can then remove them from enlighten (according to the Enphase support - see my post#6).

Some other installers might think I am not being reasonable. I think as a consumer paying full price, I have to right to ask a working system. I just happen to know what to expect from each component of the system so I am being demanding. A lot of homeowners simply trust their installers to do the job.

[sensij]

All of this arm-waving about unreliability has me thinking that the only problem is a lack of understanding of these systems and how to make them work. Sort of like the CBers who don't understand why their 1/4 wave mobile antennas don't work when mounted to a tower with no ground plane, or the guy who buys a pair of FRS radios and wonders why other channel users are interfering with him. Can't they use encoding? Can't they use FHSS? I like the waveguide suggestion, that's some out of the box thinking

I think the point is that while Envoy communications can be made to work with some knowledge and experience, competing systems have been designed to be more fool-proof. That difference may be just one small factor in the overall system comparison, but for some people, it might matter more than others.

[myfriendSUN]

For panel monitoring, unless you have the map of the panels on your roof, the installer has to supply the map to Enphase to enable the monitoring.
If you have the map information yourself you can build the map yourself at your computer.

[control4userguy]

...The advantage to per-panel monitoring is that if one panel or inverter fails, it's easier to find the problem. Eventually I'll need to replace one or more. Without the monitoring, I'd have to climb up and put a current meter on each panel, hoping that the DC current will be different for the panel with the bad inverter. With the Envoy, I can look at my phone and see which one has failed....

LOL, at this point, I doubt the OP is going to be climbing around up on the roof. One thing you are right about, you WILL have failures.

[myfriendSUN]

When you call Enphase for help on the phone always log in to your system with a computer/laptop and NOT a mobile device because some features would NOT work on the mobile device.

[myfriendSUN]

How does Enphase send down the data?

Enphase microinverter send data to Envoy through the power lines so the Envoy has to be plugged in close to the solar output for the best result.

[sdold]

You're right, all of these monitoring systems (TED, eGauge, etc) can be used to monitor an Enphase system. The advantage to per-panel monitoring is that if one panel or inverter fails, it's easier to find the problem. Eventually I'll need to replace one or more. Without the monitoring, I'd have to climb up and put a current meter on each panel, hoping that the DC current will be different for the panel with the bad inverter. With the Envoy, I can look at my phone and see which one has failed.

All of this arm-waving about unreliability has me thinking that the only problem is a lack of understanding of these systems and how to make them work. Sort of like the CBers who don't understand why their 1/4 wave mobile antennas don't work when mounted to a tower with no ground plane, or the guy who buys a pair of FRS radios and wonders why other channel users are interfering with him. Can't they use encoding? Can't they use FHSS? I like the waveguide suggestion, that's some out of the box thinking