INVERTER BUZZING THEN FAULT/SOMETIMES LED's??

[mpoland33]

i'm going to try to keep this short-ish. I lease from Solar City- took over the lease when I bought the house 3 years ago.

Basement remodel. Once powering up the circuit the inverter buzzes loudly and then faults out (only on sunny days). Cloudy days is a lower buzz (stops if I turn off breaker), nights no buzz. With the buzzing is a faint strobing of all the lights in the entire house (not just the circuit lights).

I am using Lutron Caseta switches (I have these on other circuits with no problems) and Maxlite wafer LED downlights- these are the downlights with no can, just a transformer box and can.

I can work in the basement at night, no strobe, no flickering, perfection (so it seems anyway). As soon as that inverter turns on, the buzzing gets loud. I tried bypassing the inverter....no problems, no flickering.

I've taken all the lights/switches off the circuit and went one by one until I found problems. I started to have problems using the Caseta dimmer switch. Changed it to a toggle switch, no problem. Tried a different Caseta dimmer, worked fine. connect a few toggle switches, no problems. Then installed another Caseta dimmer. Problem/buzzing. Changed the Caseta dimmer to a Caseta standard switch, no problem.

Then I got a drink because my head was about to explode.

Solar City won't come out unless I sign an agreement saying if its not their fault, I'll get charged a 200.00 site visit fee.

On top of this (because I read about harmonics, I have had a ridiculous number of light bulbs burn out (LED for the most part) since we moved in. Some of the same fixtures over and over.

Anyone have anything similar? What should I expect from Tesla/Solar City besides the run around like they've been giving me the past 3 weeks.

[Mike90250]

I'd start by looking at Power Factor. LED drivers often have lousy power factor, and your inverter has to manage all the weird loads that presents. Usually, a GT inverter has no issue, but ig the connection from house to grid is lame, that could be it.

Buzzing inverter means heavy load. You get heavy loads with odd Power Factor

[mpoland33]

So the wafers I'm using has a power factor of .9. There are a lot of them hooked up, 25 or so in the entire basement. There is one disc fixture that doesnt show any power factor on the data sheet but its also a low wattage. I have two keyless sockets hooked in with LED bulbs and one basement outdoor stairwell light hooked up too. Right now, out of the 25 total lights in the basement, only 9 are hooked up. I've been trouble shooting by seeing where in the chain the problem starts. Heavy load for the circuit shouldnt be it because I've connected half of what I had hooked up for the entire basement and still having problems.

if I'm leasing from Tesla/SC, what is my solution? Lighting in the basement cost my 700.00. Just throw these away and try another manufacturer with different power factors? Can I even alter the connection from the house to the grid?

[mpoland33]

I found the outdoor lantern- .98 power factor

[solarix]

What is the model number of the inverter and how old is it?

[mpoland33]

Solar Edge SE11400A-US. It's about 5 years old. You mentioned heavy loads. I've added a bunch of circuits to the house since we moved in. Not sure if that makes a difference. Added a pool circuit, shed lighting and receptacles, and 2 basement receptacle circuits. I also had to add 3 individual breakers for sump pumps (had basement drainage issues) This lighting circuit for the basement is the latest. That being said, the pool is used 3 times a week, shed for an hour or so each day maybe, the sumps have only drained 3 times in 4 months so its not like its constant flow either.

[solarix]

Shouldn't buzz no matter what the load is. When the inverter is exporting power to the grid, the load impedance is virtually a dead short (inverter output circuit is a current source so can basically handle an infinite load). Check for bad connections in the inverter's AC wiring. Also possible the inverter's internal magnetics (transformers or inductors) have developed loose windings and vibrate under particular conditions. I've seen this once before. Call SolarEdge tech support and see what they will do for you (1.510.498.3200). Tesla(SolarEdge) is quite parochial about the leased systems they own though so good luck with that. Maybe if you can get a statement out of SolarEdge that their inverter is defective, you can get Tesla in gear.
Be persistent - I just spent 6 months getting SolarEdge to replace all the optimizers on a job I put in 8 years ago because the plastic on the MC4 connectors were all falling apart from our high heat even though not exposed to the sun).... I figure that I'm going to have to replace all the SolarEdge stuff I installed back then. Thanks SolarEdge.... Another start-up company with a good idea, but not-so-good implementation.

[Salts]

Is it just my imagination, or do I read about lots of solaredge problems? I almost never see anything SMA related... but solaredge problems seem to be common in every forum..

[Mike90250]

I found the outdoor lantern- .98 power factor

1.0 is perfect, .98 is as good as it gets. average gear is .7 garbage stuff is .5 or .6
big electric motors are about .6

But generally the loud buzz is from increased load.

[J.P.M.]

Is it just my imagination, or do I read about lots of solaredge problems? I almost never see anything SMA related... but solaredge problems seem to be common in every forum..

I think there may be just two of us.

I mentioned the same thing about a year or so ago that even though SolarEdge seems to have a large market share, the posts that show up here describing problems with their equipment seem way out of proportion to that market share. At the time my comments didn't seem to generate much cogent comment. Most comments seemed to me to be that the stuff was great. Also seems to me mostly from owners of SolarEdge equipment. Some of that might just be choice justification and not wanting to question one's prior judgement. Don't know, don't care anymore.

I highlighted threads with Solaredge problems with comments such as : " Another happy SolarEdge customer", etc., for a couple of weeks but got bored with the frequency.

[Ampster]

Is it just my imagination, or do I read about lots of solaredge problems? I almost never see anything SMA related... but solaredge problems seem to be common in every forum..

I think you may be correct. I have never heard those kind of issues with SMA stuff. It seems to be very well built. I think Solaredge has a larger market share so statistically more problems will be reported. Anecdotally I have two Solaredge inverters and different locations and have already replaced it under warranty after less than two years. It was self installed at a remote location which took me one trip to diagnose it and remove it, then another to replace it. The service from Solaredge was excellent. The GT inverter on my home was installed by a third party and they offered a 30 year warranty to sweeten the deal. The issue will be how long will it take from the time I lose production until I am up and running again?

[mpoland33]

I think you may be correct. I have never heard those kind of issues with SMA stuff. It seems to be very well built. I think Solaredge has a larger market share so statistically more problems will be reported. Anecdotally I have two Solaredge inverters and different locations and have already replaced it under warranty after less than two years. It was self installed at a remote location which took me one trip to diagnose it and remove it, then another to replace it. The service from Solaredge was excellent. The GT inverter on my home was installed by a third party and they offered a 30 year warranty to sweeten the deal. The issue will be how long will it take from the time I lose production until I am up and running again?

So you'd recommend calling SolarEdge instead of Solar City customer service? SC has been pretty stand offish on the whole thing..threatening with different fees if they aren't at fault.

[mpoland33]

1.0 is perfect, .98 is as good as it gets. average gear is .7 garbage stuff is .5 or .6
big electric motors are about .6

But generally the loud buzz is from increased load.

So increased load as in there are more fixtures on the circuit? What steps would I take to fix that?I can't just not have lights in the basement and leasing from SC, I feel like its reasonable to expect their inverter to work with whatever I have.

Would the Caseta dimmer (wired but with wireless controllers for the 3-way side cause an additional problem? It's just weird that if I take out those dimmers, it's fine (on half the circuit). I think while I wait for SC, I'm going to connect all the lights in the basement and not have anything dimming and see what happens.

Also, just leaving out the dimming issue, I feel the buzzing is something I should expect Solar City to fix and accomodate me. Am I off base on that?

[bcroe]

Light dimmers used to all use phase controlled SCRs, which start to conduct late
each half cycle to limit power. Unfortunately these have a terrible Power Factor, if
that term may even be applied. Your inverters want to operate into a perfect PF
of 1 load. So your dimmers may be the problem.

If your grid had a super low impedance, it might absorb the bad power factor before
the inverter sees it. I would suggest the dimmers and inverters have completely
separate wiring to the grid source, to avoid local coupling. If your grid is not so
ideal this may not work, you need to use a dimmer with a good power factor. One
way was a Variac or power stat that lowers voltage without waveform distortion, but
these may not work on every type load. And they are costly. good luck, Bruce Roe

[mpoland33]

Light dimmers used to all use phase controlled SCRs, which start to conduct late
each half cycle to limit power. Unfortunately these have a terrible Power Factor, if
that term may even be applied. Your inverters want to operate into a perfect PF
of 1 load. So your dimmers may be the problem.

If your grid had a super low impedance, it might absorb the bad power factor before
the inverter sees it. I would suggest the dimmers and inverters have completely
separate wiring to the grid source, to avoid local coupling. If your grid is not so
ideal this may not work, you need to use a dimmer with a good power factor. One
way was a Variac or power stat that lowers voltage without waveform distortion, but
these may not work on every type load. And they are costly. good luck, Bruce Roe

Man I hope this is not the case. The dimming I'm using is wireless dimming (not cheap either). I have a number of 3 way and 4 way switches in the basement (When I had it fully electrified). These controllers allow things not to be used with 12/3 and allow to 12/2 all the way through. technically, its the 3 way and 4 ways that are wireless, the rest it wired. So in order for me to change dimmers, I'd have to re-run the entire basement to become 12/3 wire (also costly).

Also, I am already using Caseta dimmers in the rest of the house (3 in the kitchen, 1 in the family room, 1 in the bedroom).....although maybe thats the max the inverter wants to deal with. So frustrating because its putting a huge blocker on my renovation right now.