Lights Flicker in "Off-Grid Mode", On Grid problems

Inverters

Last Post by Krzysiek_KTA 1 month ago

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adwilson254

Topic starter

June 4, 2025 6:50 pm

(@adwilson254)

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Joined: 1 month ago

My wife was getting upset with flickering lights, and my ups for my pc triggers, I believe when certain loads turn on such as the hvac. I disabled Off-Grid Mode and the flickering has gone away, but the priority for solar and the production seems horrible. The supposed priority is loads, battery, and then grid, but I am having a ton of export to the grid and my solar production is lowering dramatically while pulling from the grid more than it does the battery. When I turn on PV Priority for the battery, the solar production returns to how I would expect it to, except the soc stop for the mode doesn't work and it stays in the mode instead of reverting to self consumption again.

Does the system have problems with handling full solar output to the loads, and the remainder to the battery and avoiding grid sellback?

Does "Fast Zero Export" or "Grid Sellback" even do anything?

System: 2x 18kPV Parallel, 3x Eg4 Indoor(closed loop), 35x Aptos 440 w/Tigo TS4-A-O

The ground at the service entrance and the ground at the loads are not connected by an dedicated wire, the property has a dedicated ground rod

I am on the most recent firmware, I did not test this on the previous firmware versions.

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flickering zero-export

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EG4 Eric

June 4, 2025 7:58 pm

(@eg4eric)

Honorable Member

Joined: 9 months ago

Is that the main service panel where the neutral/ground bond is located?

It doesn't seem like it, but do you have solar on both inverters or only one?

Are you wanting to sell power back to the grid?

If you are planning to sell back to grid, you will need to enable grid sell back and disable Fast Zero Export.

As far as the flickering issue, this is usually a wiring issue.

Posts: 3

adwilson254

Topic starter

June 5, 2025 7:00 pm

(@adwilson254)

Active Member

Joined: 1 month ago

The bond occurs at the service entrance.

I only have solar on the master inverter now, I have 27 more panels to put up.

No, I have both settings set to where grid sell back is disabled and fast zero export is set to enabled, but it doesn't seem to prevent it.

The flickering occurs only when bigger loads happen and only when not on grid. It looks like a voltage drop during inrush current. Considering it doesn't happen at all when the grid is connected, is this still wiring issue? The location of the flickering has a dedicated grounding rod, not a wire to the transfer switch. That could be the only thing I would question.

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EG4 Eric

(@eg4eric)

Joined: 9 months ago

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Posts: 485

June 9, 2025 9:34 pm

Reply to

adwilson254

@adwilson254

Most of the time, when people have flickering lights, it's caused by wiring issues but not always.
Where do you have your PV grounded?

Krzysiek_KTA

(@krzysiek_kta)

Joined: 7 months ago

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Posts: 17

June 12, 2025 2:54 pm

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EG4 Eric

@eg4eric

I am having exact same issue - flickering when 6000xp in off-grid mode. Called the Signature Solar Tech and ruled out wiring issues ( neutral, bonding, grounding, etc.) nor overload issues (the flickering occurs even at 15% inverter load). We tested all configurations updated the firmware and the problem persisted. Eventually the inverter was replaced with brand new one.

And.... LED lights flickering still exist (I have replaced LED lights too), yet it is not as severe as it was before, so I can live with that.

I have had similar experience with 3000W inverter I used before EG4 6000xp - especially when powering 'dirty' loads - might be systematic issue for inverters when dealing with "dirty loads" especially above 50% inverter capacity.

In my case the Keurig coffee maker and one of window AC are the culprits, yet sometimes even without these the flickering is noticeable.

Just my five cents.

Brgds

raisingnemos

(@raisingnemos)

Joined: 1 month ago

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Posts: 1

June 11, 2025 3:23 pm

Reply to

adwilson254

@adwilson254

I had the same problem with my off-grid setup. (FlexBoss 21 and Gridboss, 120kwh DIY batteries). In part the flickering is exaggerated by my LED lighting, as LED's can be more sensitive to power drops. I have a standard 3 ton A/C unit and the inrush current at startup is noticeable, as is the massive shutter. The solution for me was to add a "soft starter". This all but eliminated the light flicker and made the A/C quieter at startup, a win-win from my point of view.

A voltmeter won't respond fast enough to get a usable reading, so don't waste time there.

Posts: 22

Frugal Farmer

June 7, 2025 11:06 pm

(@frugal-farmer)

Eminent Member

Joined: 9 months ago

What's your batteries capability? Voltage sags can easily occur when/if it is insufficient. Have you put a volt meter on your output when flickering is occurring?

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adwilson254

(@adwilson254)

Joined: 1 month ago

Active Member

Posts: 3

June 8, 2025 6:02 pm

Reply to

Frugal Farmer

@frugal-farmer I have 3x EG4 Indoor wall batteries and the inverter has the bms current limited to 600A, so that should be more than sufficient to power any loads on both inverters. I haven't put a volt meter on the output yet. I would probably need to get someone to help trigger a load and be where the inverter is to watch it.

@eg4eric I am thinking about taking them out of parallel and having the one with the solar input to be completely off-grid and set it to just charge the batteries. I would then set the other inverter to have no solar and only pull from the batteries and provide to the load, that way the inverter cannot misjudge the difference between charging the batteries and supplying the loads. I will turn off the grid and load subpanel breakers on the main inverter with the solar so that it doesn't interact. This seems like a really cruddy solution due to a lack of capability on the inverters. It looks like a couple of other people are having issues similar to this, is this being looked at from the EG4 side at all?

Feature Request: It would be nice to have inverters that are paralleled that have different operating modes. Is there an SDK available to allow for community support in feature and capability changes?

Breaking Lights Flicker in "Off-Grid Mode", On Grid problems

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