Anyone use the Sol-Ark 15K with bed 30-amp outlet?

[wighty]

if there is any additional capacity it will charge the batteries.

Any idea if the solark can be configured to not charge the batteries through the generator port?

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[eopiela]

Any idea if the solark can be configured to not charge the batteries through the generator port?

Yes, just turn down the amps under Battery Charging Gen to 0, I think that should work.

 

[Dolomasi]

It's been a long time since I've posted to this thread, but I wanted to give an update since we just suffered an ice storm here in Maine that knocked out power to my town for about 40 hours.

We did install the Sol-Ark 15K along with 11KWH of batteries in the house and 13KW of solar panels. A generator port was wired to the Sol-Ark's GEN port from the garage. I disconnected the ground wire in that outlet and I'm able to power the house using the 30A/240V outlet in the bed of the truck.

During the outage the house batteries kicked in immediately and after a short time I activated the truck's outlets. The Sol-Ark was thus getting power from the house batteries, solar, and truck.

While we had a few issues charging the house batteries from the solar and truck, they were due to a communication issue between the batteries and Sol-Ark and solved with a restart of the house batteries themselves.

The truck's additional power worked fantastically and combined with the house batteries, I only used 25% of the truck's capacity in the 40 hours. I was very pleased the truck did so well and am happy I invested in the truck instead of putting that money towards a whole-home generator, which I originally planned for the house.

 

[Dino]

Just curious, I have a 12k Sol-Ark combined with 7kw solar panels and a 9kw battery back-up.
You mentioned this (A generator port was wired to the Sol-Ark's GEN port from the garage) is this GEN port Sol-Ark's Smartload connection?
I had my solar company hook up a 50 amp plug to that Smartload to charge my electric vehicles off the excess solar production during the sunny afternoons. That Smartload is a configurable input or output.
I have been wondering if there is a way to also hook up my truck bed 240 outlet to the same Smartload outlet and change the configuration. But of course I would rather use it almost daily to charge my vehicles from solar than for it to be used very rarely (10-20 hours a year) as a power backup.

 

[Dolomasi]

Just curious, I have a 12k Sol-Ark combined with 7kw solar panels and a 9kw battery back-up.
You mentioned this (A generator port was wired to the Sol-Ark's GEN port from the garage) is this GEN port Sol-Ark's Smartload connection?
I had my solar company hook up a 50 amp plug to that Smartload to charge my electric vehicles off the excess solar production during the sunny afternoons. That Smartload is a configurable input or output.
I have been wondering if there is a way to also hook up my truck bed 240 outlet to the same Smartload outlet and change the configuration. But of course I would rather use it almost daily to charge my vehicles from solar than for it to be used very rarely (10-20 hours a year) as a power backup.

I'm not sure about the 12K model, but on the 15K the port can be configured as a generator input or a Smartload output. That sounds similar to your from what I understand.

 

[Dino]

It is exactly the same. I have a NEMA 14-50 50 amp outlet wired to it to charge my ev's from my solar panels.

 

[intensifi]

Suggest you switch to Enphase. It is simply a better approach without a single point of failure.

And for the time being you want one of these to use the 240V 30A outlet in the bed for home backup. You can use a standard EVSE to charge the truck when the sun is up during said outage.

 

[bluebaron]

Has anyone actually done this yet? I have a Sol Ark 12 I have yet to try this with.

I have got it setup with 4 Solark 12's in parallel...works great.

I had to not connect the ground to the solarks to prevent the ground fault. We have run the house for a few days from the truck with no issues.

 

[Zaptor]

Suggest you switch to Enphase. It is simply a better approach without a single point of failure.

And for the time being you want one of these to use the 240V 30A outlet in the bed for home backup. You can use a standard EVSE to charge the truck when the sun is up during said outage.

Ugh, this is such an elegant solution, but I called about it and it's not approved by my utility, or I'd already have one. Lucky you!
-Zap

 

[AmpLee]

So, I understand being able to charge the house batteries through the gen input on the soil-ark, however I have a slightly different scenario I’m trying to tease out.

Just a little background setup, my sol-ark connects to both my main panel and my critical loads panel. When grid goes down, it shuts off power to the main and only connects to the critical loads.

What if the lightning plugged into the main via a generator outlet. With grid power off, would the soil-ark energize that panel, and with the limited to home setting, prioritize solar > home batteries > Lightning battery.

In theory, this would provide a higher capacity to the loads which would be the sol-ark 12k’s 9kw plus the ford’s 7.2kw, essentially creating a 16.2kw combined inverter.

Basically, my sol-ark 12k is using grid power for this function in grid up scenarios to fill in beyond the inverter’s 9kw to my loads. So if I’m running my instant hot water heater, my inverter provides 9kw of energy, while it instructs the grid to fill in the rest. So can the Lightning function as the grid in a grid down scenario?

 

[v2h8484]

It won't work because the sol-ark most likely works in grid-tied mode when it sees qualified power from the truck on its grid port which means it will push all excess solar power to the truck and trip protection shutoff.

 

[AmpLee]

It won't work because the sol-ark most likely works in grid-tied mode when it sees qualified power from the truck on its grid port which means it will push all excess solar power to the truck and trip protection shutoff.

But not in the zero metering “limited to home mode”. Its function in this mode is to zero out the meter and only allow grid power in (no export) to supplement when needed. But there are micro exports here and there as it’s not a perfect meter zeroing to my understanding.

 

[v2h8484]

But not in the zero metering “limited to home mode”. Its function in this mode is to zero out the meter and only allow grid power in (no export) to supplement when needed. But there are micro exports here and there as it’s not a perfect meter zeroing to my understanding.

Zero export limiting is way too slow to prevent momentary reverse power from tripping protection shutoff.

 

[AmpLee]

Zero export limiting is way too slow to prevent momentary reverse power from tripping protection shutoff.

Good to know. Thanks.

 

[AmpLee]

Zero export limiting is way too slow to prevent momentary reverse power from tripping protection shutoff.

One thing I do remember on the Sol-Ark, is you can add in a buffer of grid power to avoid sending in a reversal of power back to the grid. I keep mine at zero, which means you can see on my screen that when a load turns off, sometimes the grid will pick up a few watts. But if you are always importing a few watts from the grid, this might provide a buffer for any sudden reversal. I wonder if it would work in this scenario.

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