I recently purchased a KLNE Sunteams GTI. The specs say it's a 240vac single phase output, however there is only L1 (Live wire in) L2 (Neutral) and PE (Ground). I thought 240vac systems had two hot wires not just one. So my question is am I supposed to wire tie the two 120 hot wires together as L1? http://kinglongpower.com/UserFiles/UploadFile/File/20120425101807_78.pdf section 5.3 is the section that describes the utility electrical hook up. I have the 5000 model. So far I've tried wiring it with both hots to the L1 & L2 with PE to ground and blew 30a fuse, then PE to neutral still blew fuse. Then L1 hot and L2 neutral and PE ground (120vac) and the GTI doesn't turn on. Any ideas/suggestions?
Have to talk to Leamy. From what I see down the page on 21. L1 to one hot,L2 to the other hot and PE to separate ground not the one out of the electrical box. These 2 hots will come from a 240 breaker out of the electrical box you are tying into.
Thanks Tom for your response. What you described is what I thought as well, however wiring that way immediately blows a fuse. I tried the two hots on L1 and L2 and using neutral or ground on the PE terminal and the result is always a blown fuse, and being this is a 30A fuse I'm concerned. I'm not getting any email response from the company (KLNE) and when I call there China phone support I get put on hold then disconnected, this company clearly does not value customer support. It's unfortunate because there product is half the cost of a compatible SMA inverter.
Here is a picture of what the inside looks like. If you zoom in, you'll see on the PC board it's printed NEUT & LINE, and the third connector (ground) is clearly connected to the chassis.
I am beginning to think you have the wrong one and it is now fried. Also this manual is SCREWED UP. It calls both AC and DC connections. DC terminals. What is up with that? Also this is what the 240 VAC setup should be labeled as. Not L1 and Neutral. That should be 120 VAC line connection. I would want it replaced with the right one.
Hey guys I noticed in the manual the frequency rating.......................... it says 50Hz not 60Hz. That may be your problem right there?
From what I see at the site. The ones with the Red cover are 50-60 HZ and the ones with the Black covers are 50 HZ only. So what is the cover and what frequency are your mains?
Hi Tim, I assume your are in the USA using 60Hz? Does it have to be switched to 60HZ or does it do it automaticly? What is your OCV input from your array? Was your solar hooked up to the inverter and feeding the inverter before you hooked up the AC power? Was the AC power off before you hooked into the GTI? Just a few questions to try to help out.
Yes I'm in the USA, the side of the GTI states 60hz, and there is no selection for anything else. I have not finished wiring my panels, as such I have not plugged anything into the DC inputs yet. I did get ahold of the reseller I bought it from on eBay finally, and he said to wire it up as one hot to L1 and the other hot to L2 - but that blows a fuse so he gave me his phone # so I need to call him and he said he would walk me through it. Stay tuned....
Ok, yes better to go straight to the source first. We can speculate all day. Hell it might just be defective. Good luck.
Has he said anything about the one labeled Neutral? I do not see where they have a 120 volt model. But I am still wondering why as the site shows L1 and L2.
Yes he said the label "Neutral" (L2) is supposed to have one of the hot legs connected to it and ground (PE) actually gets the neutral. The guy was very helpful in explaining the situation, basically he is the largest distributor for KLNE and has installed over 100 of these inverters himself and has never had one go bad. What he explained was that he has to configure these for USA electrical before shipping and the manual is written for non-USA electrical so that explains why you wire a hot wire to neutral. It would be nice if he just mentioned that or it was mentioned somewhere. Now an update: Turns out the reason I kept blowing fuses was because of the old stove wiring I reused (it was 8 gauge and the distance was perfect for what I needed) and that wiring was old and either already had a slit in the insulation or when I tightened up the restrainer I over tightened and caused it to short out to ground. I found this out by completely disconnecting the inverter and it still blew my 30A fuses, that's when I said ahhhh it's my fault not the inverter. However, after fixing that issue I was still not able to get the inverter working properly, it detected the 240 VAC grid connected analyzed it then began to count-down when it would cut-over. As soon as it cut-over it immediately blew both 30A fuses in the safety disconnect box. So I trouble-shooted it with the guy and tried a few other things and still could not get the inverter to work correctly (my total PV amps was 5 and voltage was 438v). So I sent it back to him for an exchange and now I'm waiting for a new one. One thing I did learn is that KLNE inverters must have DC input FIRST then turn on the AC grid power otherwise it won't do anything. I thought it would at least turn-on with grid power on it (like my other Sun GTI cheapo inverter) but it doesn't. So when I get everything dialed in I'll post my summary and results with KLNE inverters..... stay tuned....
Dito thanks for the update, now we do not have to bang our heads trying to figure it out. Hey an easy fix at least. Good luck!!
Good news, I plugged in the new KLNE 5K inverter and it works perfectly. So the combination of problems is now resolved. Still overall I'm not that impressed with KLNE Sunteams GTI mainly because of the poor documentation and the simple fact that the connection block for the PV voltage and the grid AC voltage are so small you can't even get a 8 gauge wire in them, the max it can handle is 10 gauge, to me that's kinda poor design. However, the price is 1/2 of that of SMA, so you get what you pay for. Now my next dilemma is where to put my solar panels, I just have them temporarily propped up as you can see in the picture. My house faces south-east so the roof is not ideal, plus I have many tall trees that obstruct the sun. Does anyone know of a product or method for determining the best location to mount solar panels? It's not as simple as pointing it south and set it for 43 degrees, because of the trees and location on my property it may be better to point it south-west because the tree obstructions. So ideally some product that I could place in a variety of locations (roof, yard, shed, etc.) to see what location gets the maximum amount of sun for an entire day. Thanks in advance!
Looks like dirt is already getting on the bottom of some panels. WOW pretty big setup.. Without waiting for late fall to see how the sun rays fall in your yard. Got mine from Roof Genius. You could buy one of these and get the winter angle for your area and walk around and check by line of site where they have to be for the winter. I have also used a paper one that you can download and put on cardboard.
A Solar path finder is what we use but pricey An inverted large glass bowl and a solar path finder chart with your locations long. and Lat. on it may work? You need something to reflect your sky line when checking all your installation options. That will tell you what obstructions you have, the chart will tell you in which month-anaully they block production-need to be removed.
I found another very simple way to see what locations on my property have the most sun exposure. It's very simple, I bought a time lapse app for my iPhone and set it to take a picture ever 10mins for 24 hours. Now I know my roof gets the most exposure (10 hours). Time will tell if that is the case in the winter.
Well I have an update on my KLNE 5K GTI.... I went out to check on it last week and noticed an error message "Grid F Fault" and upon searching the Internet and manual it means the frequency (60hz) is out of range. After watching the menu scan through the status I noticed my serial # was now all 0's and the total energy produced was 0 kw, basically everything got wiped. I'M NOT HAPPY! However, the KLNE tech support in China responded quickly to my email and provided some (vague) guidance as to what to do next, fortunately I'm very computer savvy and was able to get my old USB to Serial (RS-232) adapter working so I could connect to the device and reconfigure it. BTW: The password to configure the Sunteams GTI is "KLNEPARSET" (see attached instructions if anyone ever runs into this issue). Right about now is when I'm saying to myself - I shoulda just bought an SMA SunnyBoy inverter. It cost twice as much as KLNE but you get what you pay for, I cannot recommend the KLNE inverter at this point.
