Ten K solar panels

[Foodplotter]

Anyone here have any experience with Ten K 500 watt panels? I bought a couple of them when they were going out of business. the manual states to use micro inverters and not to series wire them. I've asked here and been told to just wire them normally to my Charge controller and i would be fine. the panels flash red and don't produce any power. if I add a 100 W working panel to the system the Ten K panels start blinking green and my mt 50 shows that I'm getting about 300-500 watts. as soon as unplug the 100 watt panel I'm back to Zero output. Do I need to use micro inverters? I just don't understand why they won't stand alone? Thanks, Bob

[bob-n]

My understanding is that TenK panels have built-in electronics. If right, they are not the same as most mainstream panels and that would explain why they don't play well with string inverters.

From:
http://www.solarhub.com/product-cata...-500-TenKsolar
"500W Monocrystalline Module, with built in MPPT"

From:
http://7el.us/SPO/APEX%20Module%20Data%20Sheet.pdf
"...with integrated electronics..."

[Foodplotter]

Thanks for the reply. I've been trying to follow what i was told the 1st time i asked and have gotten nowhere. so do you think it would be worth it to put the micro inverters on these? I hate to throw away 1000 Watts. or should i just go conventional?? Thanks, Bob

[bob-n]

Seems that you have three choices with these panels:
1) Try them with microinverters,
2) Try to disassemble them and pull out the wires from the cells themselves for use with the inverter you have, or
3) Try to locate TenK inverters made for these panels.

If it were me, I'd try to find a friend or dealer with an Enphase IQ 7 or IQ 7+ microinverter that you can try before buying.

If you're in the SF bay area, perhaps Renvu could let you try one if you bring in the panel. If you're in Massachusetts, perhaps AltE could let you try one. Those are the only two dealers that I know that might be able to help, but there must be others. Even with those two dealers, I'm not sure that they are willing to let you try.

Enphase micros are for sale through Amazon, but none show free returns, so if you buy one and it doesn't work for you, you might try reselling it here or on Craig's list.

If you post your location, perhaps someone here is near you and willing to let you try a panel on their inverter.

I wish that I had real TenK experience to share.

[Foodplotter]

Thank you for doing some research. that's kind of the conclusion i came up with. my understanding is that the IQ7 needs to be grid tied to operate? I wonder if i could trick the micro inverter by wiring it to the ac side of my big inverter thus having 120V to that side like being on grid? I'm totally off grid and have been told that the IQ 8 may work but they are pretty spendy. to trial.
I'm located in south central Minnesota. TenK was out of Minneapolis Mn. I think that the panels are pretty good. my understanding is that the micro inverters that they were using weren't a good match for the panels and had alot of failures and went out of business.
Thanks for the help! Bob

[bob-n]

There has been a lot of discussion here about trouble trying to use the IQ 7 off grid. I haven't heard of anyone being successful. Perhaps someone else here has some ideas for an off-grid inverter that would work for these panels.

[peterator]

Hello, I just found this post and I realize it's a few months old but hopefully I can still help.
I worked for TenK solar back when they were still around so I know how their panels work. Here's a link to a write-up I made on another forum that might clear things up: https://secondlifestorage.com/index....88/#post-77479

There are two potential issues with your charge controller:
Your controller might not connect the panels to the battery if it doesn't see voltage on the panels. Likewise, the TenK panels won't produce power until it sees a voltage, as a safety measure. The preferred solution to this is adding a large capacitor (1000+uF, 60+V) on the output of the panels; the panel will charge it up and things should start up okay.
Second issue is if the charge controller has MPPT. The embedded electronics on the TenK panel does its own MPPT and puts out a constant voltage, which sometimes is unstable when the load is also trying to do MPPT.

I'm more active on the secondlifestorage.com forum if you want to discuss more. I have my own stash of TenK panels that I'm going to use to charge a battery I'm building.

[sdold]

Hi Peterator, welcome to the forum. Thanks for passing that along, I went over and read your writeup, pretty interesting stuff and will no doubt be very useful to those who happen upon those panels.

[firebirdgta88$]

Now isnt tenk on the back a "mppt" which is already a controller ? thus it doesnt sensor battery voltage to turn on since the second charge controller only moves voltage one way thru a diode so when you hook up a second charge controller it wont detect the voltage??

[peterator]

Now isnt tenk on the back a "mppt" which is already a controller ? thus it doesnt sensor battery voltage to turn on since the second charge controller only moves voltage one way thru a diode so when you hook up a second charge controller it wont detect the voltage??

That's correct, which is probably why you would see no power with just a Tenk module and a charge controller. However, you can't use the TenK module without some sort of charge controller because you can't program the maximum battery voltage into the TenK module, so it probably overcharge the battery.

[firebirdgta88$]

I'll buy those panels off of you if you still have them.

[peterator]

I still intend to use mine, but there's a fairly active facebook group where people are exchanging old inventory called TenK Solar Owners and Operators https://www.facebook.com/groups/559492874643037/