I am in the east of Pta and we’ve had plenty of strikes near me. Never had any lightning damage to anything in the 10 years I’ve been here.
I get that lightning sometimes comes from the ground, but it does not seem a problem here. With regards to strikes from above, there are many houses higher than me in close vicinity which I suppose “shelters” me somewhat.
It sounds like you have an actual earthing problem - like your solar earth and utility earth is not close enough or impedance too high. A master electrician should be able to detect and fix this before signing off on the CoC.
That said, the Quattro itself is likely also easily repairable, what happened to the first one?
Hi, i’m thinking the same but Inverter earth is on the same earth line as Eskom so not sure - will have to chat to some clever sparkies to have a look.
This is the same unit, was repaired on the last occasion - guess we heading there again…
Can I give you a call. Please unplug your pan cable from the GX and try again. Did you try unplugging the ve-bus cable and restarting the Quattro.
I have seen many things pop during lightning, but never an inverter (Victron). Replaced a Cerbo two days back. Lightning took everything in the house except the inverter and mppt. Direct hit.
Thanks for your thoughts and i’d be happy to take yr call. Will pm you later.
Assume “pan” means LAN cable? - GX was connected on WiFi, no LAN cable
Did not try that… When inverter is switched on, Low Battery light is on (Batt at 54v), sounds like grid input relay engages immediately but grid not connecting
Seems GX was also damaged. Put my spare inverter up and GX not seeing any other devices. Replaced GX and we up and running.
I feel your pain. Last year January during a lightning storm my inverter was damaged beyond repair. At the time both my AC and DC circuit breakers were switched off. I use the Eskom earth and an additional two earth spikes for the panels and the battery. The same day 11 inverters in my area were damaged. I asked a sparky how on earth the spike managed to get to the inverter. His reply was that switching off a double pole circuit breaker does not guarantee the spike will not get through. I replaced the inverter and installed a 32amp caravan plug in front of the inverter AC input. This is only used during cloudy days to assist in recharging batteries. After batteries reaches acceptable level, I unplug this plug. I know it sound extreme, but it is the safest way for me since the area where I live experiences frequent lightning storms. In my humble opinion, the spike came through your Eskom input via the DB Board.
Question: Is this to code?
You can do a proper 3 pole AC Breaker which will be I’m sure, but a Caravan plug will also be disconnecting the Earth (or is it not).
Had that one before with a direct hit on a neighbours solar install but on this occasion, can confirm it was a ground strike on an old tree stump, actually saw the strike and smoke
We were running on Eskom at the time - inverter and GX only items that sustained damage.
Good point. Surely the inverter still needs an earth to operate correctly in off grid mode? But then if earth remains connected, the strike will still reach the db.
I have the same in my setup. I have two, in fact, one for the AC input, and one for the AC output, plus a changeover that bypasses the whole thing.
My system is mounted in a network cabinet, on wheels. It can be unplugged from everything (battery has big Amphenol connectors) and removed entirely. A backup generator can be connected to the house or the inverter input using the same sockets. The system could even be, in an emergency, loaded onto a vehicle (you will need two strong men to move the 120kg battery!) and used elsewhere. During heavy weather, it can be disconnected entirely, although disconnecting the various MC4 connections from the solar panels will probably be the most painful part of the lot, so probably not something I want to do too frequently.
The cabling is protected by 30A breakers, as it should be. And I don’t have the whole house going through there (the big loads are input side).
