DEYE inverter off-grid setup, connecting a pull-start generator 

i asked this because i am currently having a problem of making a 3T standing non-inverter aircon work with an 8kw off-grid solar system

@@MelayLibres So my DEYE 8kw manual says it will support an AC peak power output of "2 times of rated power, 10 S", which would be 16kW, for 10 seconds. I'm not sure how it will manage the power inputs. Will it use a combination of Generator, PV panels and batteries? Mine is currently set to "zero export to ct", but all my loads run off the LOAD connection, so I don't need any export to ct (which would be the generator).

I have all the earths connected together on one busbar (inverter earth, battery earths, AC load earth, GEN earth), and I have all the AC neutrals connected together on another busbar (inverter load output, generator/grid input). I have the neutral and earth busbars permanently bonded together. Bear in mind that I am completely off-grid, so I can use a permanently bonded neutral and earth. If you have a grid-tied connection, then I believe the recommendation is to use the ATS to disconnect the neutral/earth bond when going on-grid, as this then relies on the grid connection to have the earth and neutral bonded (this may vary depending on where you live). Where I live, the grid's neutral is bonded to earth on the supply side. The neutral and ground is only split after the earth leakage unit. The inverter itself does not have the earth and neutral bonded, so you need to supply this bond if you need it when going off-grid (my inverted supplies power to a distribution board that feeds the premises, so the inverter is before the earth leakage).

I also could not get it to work with the generator port. Someone else mentioned putting a transfer switch between the grid and generator - that way you can run the generator on the grid port if needs be.

Generator only works when completely disconnected from grid. If you shut mains supply off and click gen force it should kick in.

Yes, it's a single phase generator. My DEYE is a single phase inverter, so either the GRID or the GENERATOR inputs have to be single phase.

I think the inverter doesn't really care what the source of power is. If you can supply whatever it expects, e.g. 220V 50Hz single phase (in my case), you should be able to manage that through the System Work Mode setting. See pages 30,31 of this DEYE manual here: www.deyeinverter.com/deyeinverter/2020/12/29/502012022%E3%80%90a%E3%80%91%E5%82%A8%E8%83%BD%E5%8D%95%E7%9B%B8%E8%AF%B4%E6%98%8E%E4%B9%A6sun-5-8k-sg01lp1-useu-ver2.0-deye.pdf

​​@@unorthofoxu can use a v2l car like a generator. Only issue is for it to work the inverter has to be off grid so mains have to be manually turned off before it will kick in. So U cannot simply set the generator to kick in automatically with the system mode settings if tied to the grid which is what I thought it was capable of. I wonder if an ATS could make that possible and am looking into that.

I have not tried the Gen Signal and Gen Force options, so good to know. Seeing as you can use both Grid and Gen inputs for the generator, do you have a preference for either one?

@@unorthofox It is more convenient for me to use the gen port for the generator, because at the same time I can supply a lower charge current than from the grid, and use the remaining power for my needs. This is in case of a blackout. Also, a separate icon of the generator appears and I know exactly how much power I take from it. I haven't checked one thing yet - whether gen force will switch to the grid when the grid is turned on

On my DEYE inverter, there is a touch screen, with a gear icon in the top right. Tap the gear icon to enter the settings menu.

That's how I understand it should work. But as I'm not able to test this myself I can't say for sure.

@@unorthofox I bet this is not possible with the old generator you have, right? So, the time period you set in Work Mode does not make any sense at all as you need to turn it on and off manually.

I could not get it to accept the generator input on the gen port, and I could not find any settings to adjust the tolerances for frequency and voltage for the gen port. However the grid port does have more settings and ended up working for me.

I think this is a somewhat complicated issue, as the relevant legislation for your area will dictate what is required. Here's my 2c: On my inverter, the ground and neutral is not bonded by default, so if you run it without a neutral-ground bond, then the AC output will float. The inverter doesn't care whether the earth and neutral is bonded so I believe there is no harm to the inverter whichever way you choose to go. For my setup, the inverter supplies a distribution board where the supply neutral and ground is expected to be bonded. I believe this will be the most common situation for most people but I'm no expert. My system is off-grid, which means there is no connection between my AC (neutral and live conductors) and the city council AC (neutral and live conductors). If I had been connected to the city council AC, their neutral and ground will be bonded, and my distribution board would see a power supply with earth and neutral bonded. Since I'm off-grid, I need to supply the neutral-ground bond myself, which in my case is a permanently installed 6mm2 copper conductor between the neutral and earth busbars. So that satisfies the earth-neutral bond requirement in my case. If however, I was to run the system in a grid-tied mode (hybrid mode), then I would need the ATS relay to disconnect the earth-neutral bond when connected to the city council supply, and re-connect it when not connected to the city council supply.

​@@unorthofox I'm off grid too. I'm only interested in the N-G connection for the The residual current device (RCD) to work. My installer said those don't work without that connection, which could be a risk. So, right now I think it's the ground from the inverter grid input that is connected to the output neutral. I guess he knows what he's doing... His technician (somebody from deye? IDK) said it's ok to keep that connection while using a generator on the grid input. As my gen peak shaving is not working with my weak generator, I guess I'll end up using the grid input, where I can at least adjust the frequency range, and see what happens. Maybe then it does not disconnect the GEN with the load spikes and properly shaves. I have a feeling the inverter detects the freq. out of range when load spikes before prioritizing the peak shaving, and so disconnects the gen before it can shave.

@@unorthofox so, I got it to connect. When I loosen up the parameters, the residual current device (RCD) hits with the pump surge and turns off the power lol. Disconnected the ground from N for now, that's usable. It's a 40A (230V) one, never had these problems with outback. I'll study the settings closely and maybe get another less sensitive RCD... The inverter still disconnects the gen if a surge comes, so any peak shaving is a BS feature for now....

Sorry for the late reply, your comment ended up in the "for review" section and I missed it. Thanks for your advice here - I'm not an expert by any means, but I have found one way of solving my specific problem. I'm sure there are other/better ways to do this. If your generator is well-behaved it may not be necessary to adjust the tolerances for frequency/voltage. In my case I fiddled until it started working and then mostly left it alone - it may be that I can tighten the tolerances and it will still work but since it's working I'll probably just leave it as-is.

I want to be able to switch to my electric battery generator automatically from grid to benefit from cheaper rates and switch back during ceap night rates to charge ouse batteries. At the moment I'm physically having to shut down the grid connection. Has anyone got experience using an ATS so it will auto switch based on batt % settings?

@@aldozilli1293 You can do that by changing the settings in your Work Mode settings