Solar sensor placement

Talk Electrician Forum

Help Support Talk Electrician Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
The CT is fine being loose on the cable, it's a transformer and works by induced current (magnetism). What make and model inverter do you have? convention is the arrow on the CT points towards the consumer unit, a few inverters are the opposite. It does seem odd that it's fitted to a meter tail that isnt covering your whole property supply.i

It’s a Solax X1-hybrid-G4
 
So I accidentally figure it out. I went into my office which is a converted garage and has its own fuse box, switched on the heating and the watt use increased. So fuse box on the left is for the garage. So basically it’s only picking up use from there via the CT sensor. I don’t really know now where to place the sensor so it picks up both.
 

Attachments

  • B12D2C68-1B40-4EB5-B7C6-922AEAEE7634.jpeg
    B12D2C68-1B40-4EB5-B7C6-922AEAEE7634.jpeg
    734.2 KB
At a rough guess it needs to be on the nice new brown bit of meter tail, next to the other CT clamp. I keep seeing stuff like this done by meter fitters who either have no idea about solar, or just take out anything they don't understand the reasons for being there.
 
At a rough guess it needs to be on the nice new brown bit of meter tail, next to the other CT clamp. I keep seeing stuff like this done by meter fitters who either have no idea about solar, or just take out anything they don't understand the reasons for being there.
Hi, tried that. I found that it started to discharged my entire battery into the grid. Also tried it facing the other way same problem.
 

Attachments

  • 18A0C5CA-15AA-41A8-ABEE-D56EE8C59488.jpeg
    18A0C5CA-15AA-41A8-ABEE-D56EE8C59488.jpeg
    320.4 KB
  • 75211CE0-F6B2-433B-AF38-97E58BD14594.jpeg
    75211CE0-F6B2-433B-AF38-97E58BD14594.jpeg
    2.1 MB
Did you peruse the documentation for the CT clamp positioning😉
 
Well it shouldn't do that, but that's the only place it will see everything energy flow wise. Your meter tails are split at the meter tail blocks, so if you position the CT clamp after the blocks you aren't going to see everything that's going on.
 
Is there an option in the configuration to discharge into the grid thats enabled? My Growatt has such a setting, check through the configuration, on my Growatt it's aptly named 'Grid First'
 
Well it shouldn't do that, but that's the only place it will see everything energy flow wise. Your meter tails are split at the meter tail blocks, so if you position the CT clamp after the blocks you aren't going to see everything that's going on.
Actually scub that comment, I'm guessing the lower tails go off to the main cu, how is the solar board connected to the cu / meter blocks?
 
Actually scub that comment, I'm guessing the lower tails go off to the main cu, how is the solar board connected to the cu / meter blocks?
See attached
 

Attachments

  • C4D2A11D-28D3-4E51-818D-CEBD752C354D.jpeg
    C4D2A11D-28D3-4E51-818D-CEBD752C354D.jpeg
    827.8 KB
See attached
Can't quite read that, but looks like it's direct wired to the cu, in which case try ct on the lower meter tails, if that's what goes to the main cu. Trouble is that won't pick up whatever is happening in your office, so you are a bit stuffed either way, unless your inverter will take two CT clamps.
 
Can't quite read that, but looks like it's direct wired to the cu, in which case try ct on the lower meter tails, if that's what goes to the main cu. Trouble is that won't pick up whatever is happening in your office, so you are a bit stuffed either way, unless your inverter will take two CT clamps.
Why not on the meter tails?
 
Live Meter Tail before Henley block
Arrow facing Grid as per documentation
It only takes seconds to undo and put back on. Do kettle test to see if battery is discharging 3000w
 
Live Meter Tail before Henley block
Arrow facing Grid as per documentation
It only takes seconds to undo and put back on. Do kettle test to see if battery is discharging 3000w
Sorry not to sure what that means
 
The CT clamp on the brown Live cable but turn the Clampp around so the Arrow points towards Grid and do a Kettle test to se if the battery discharges at 3000w depending on your kettle wattage power output
An Quick test
 
The CT clamp on the brown Live cable but turn the Clampp around so the Arrow points towards Grid and do a Kettle test to se if the battery discharges at 3000w depending on your kettle wattage power output
An Quick test
Aaa ok already done that one and it did exactly that.
 
Aaa ok already done that one and it did exactly that.
So just to be clear to all of us here, with the CT clamp on the brown cable and the arrow pointing towards the meter, the inverter started discharging the battery into the grid i.e. you could see you were exporting? Where are you seeing the export level?
 
Did you check the inverter lcd screen when you turned the kettle on, Did the battery discharge at 3000w? if so good.
the phone app is delayed by 5 mins so check that aswell.... screen shot of inverter screen lcd and phone app would be
nice to appraise the connections
 
Top