I grew up on the Louisiana Gulf Coast and have been through several hurricanes since the 1960s, (I’ve since moved out west). Normally the skies are clear and sunny after a hurricane sweeps through, and it gets really hot without A/C. If anything, you’d want to use a genny to run fans and/or a small window A/C (as well as your fridge.) Recharging a solar generator would be far down the list if all you had is say, a Honda 2000i. Sure, if you had a large gen with power to spare, them maybe recharge your solar generator.
With all the solar generators now on the market I expect more and more people will have portable solar panels, to put out the day after. Except for rooftop panels, I can’t imagine people leaving panels exposed to the storm. If I still lived there I’d dismantle them. You usually have at least a 3 day warning if not more. Then, immediately after the storm start putting panels back up.
Gas generators as backup to charge a solar generator is standard procedure for emergency use, especially when the cost of fuel is not relevant. Blackouts are not always weather related and could last for extended periods and at night. The sun does not always shine and I can go a week or more here in Germany with no solar recharge possible. The other issue is noise. I can recharge in two hours and use the AC300 for 24 hours with a 300 watt average load for refrigerators, lights and TV and modem.
I recently setup my AC300 + 2x B300 system and am having a very similar issue with AC “grid” charging, but instead of using generator, I am using battery inverters.
I am trying to charge the AC300 system using an 1000w and 1100w inverter, connected to a 12V battery of a EV. The idea here is that the EV with it’s 80kwh battery, can charge the AC300 at around 800w while the AC300 B300 acts as a buffer and provide backup power for the house.
The problem is that when the AC300 is loaded (providing about 1500w of AC output), it would not accept the inverter grid power. It would make some clicking noise and then cut off, saying grid voltage low and grid voltage high. Strangely there is no error or overload on the inverter. The grid input is set to 7A and the inverter is a 1100w pure sine unit, so it should be well within the specs.
AC300 unloaded = everything is OK
AC300 outputting 1500w AC
1100w high quality pure sine inverter doesn’t work
1000w cheap pure sine inverter doesn’t work
Jackery 1500 (1800w max) AC output is OK
Real grid power is OK
Bluetti EB70 (700w max) AC doesn’t work in the same way
It seems that the AC300 is really sensitive to grid input, to make matters worse, once the alarm is tripped, it will never pull from the grid again until the alarm is manually cleared.
I don’t know what’s wrong, but it may be that the grid input limit function doesn’t actually perfectly limits grid input, under high load situation (especially with inductive load like a microwave) it may try to pull more for a limit period of time, causing disruption to the input AC.
Potential solutions?
Firmware to make the AC300 grid input more tolerant
Try a larger 2000w pure sign inverter
Instead of charging by grid, add a AC-DC adapter and charge by DC input, though that adds another conversion step
Ah that’s because your are running 220V in EU so each A is around 220W. I am running a 110V North American system so each A is only 110W. If the limit is working, 7A should be around 800W and shouldn’t overload a 1000W inverter. That being said, I did notice that this problem didn’t occur with the real grid or a 1800W inverter, so it is possible that the 7A limit isn’t strictly enforced for all times and the AC300 is super sensitive to temporary fluctuation. I would want to try a larger 2000W inverter but I would have to buy one first.
There might be a solution.
I emailed Bluetti support and they pushed to my machine DSP v4031.22 (I was running v4031.16). This turns on “grid enhancement mode”, which should really be called “dirty grid tolerant mode”. It seems to relax the limit that the incoming AC grid can fluctuate before falling back to inverter power. It allowed me to change using my 1100W inverter under low (100w), and high (2800w) load conditions, without the AC grid input cutting out. What did happen is that it did temporarily reduced the power it draw from AC grid, but then slowly ramped back up over the next 5 seconds or so without intervention from me. In the previous V4031.16 firmware, the AC300 would disconnect grid input when AC output spikes until I manually clear the alarms, making it impossible to use my inverter to feed AC into this thing.
There is a downside though. With DSP v4031.22, when the AC grid is disconnected, the switch over time from AC to inverter power doesn’t seem to occur as quickly. Before, it switches over without any hiccup what-so-ever. Now, out of the 20x I tried, once cut out for a few seconds causing my device to reboot, the other 19x, there seems to be a short reduction of AC output power, my lights dimmer a bit but nothing rebooted (router, switch and stuff).
I wish this firmware would make it a configuration option, but it is still a welcomed change for me in my specific situation. This is not good if you want to use the AC300 as an always on standby UPS, but is good if you want to plug it in to backup a load and want to partially charge it using AC.
I went round and round trying to figure out my 004 error before finding the forums, turns out will charge fine on mine at 7A, but fails at 10A and 15A from AC. Mine could be the Nevada power. To test this theory I will drag it to my Idaho location and try 10A and 15A. I do think some better troubleshooting guides could be written. Twice as long to charge but charging.
I’m having problems w Honda 2200 and my Bluetti AC300 and B300. First B300 failed and it was replaced but took 3 weeks without power. Poor return policy.
I’ve done multiple firmware updates but can’t charge about 4-5A or the generator surges. The generator works fine w everything but the Bluetti.
I think the BMS is not functioning properly.
I was working all night off the Bluetti until I got to 56 percent. I fired up the generator at 4A charging. My computer was pulling 275-300 and so I had about 480-500 input. By 7 am my computer project was 97 percent done and I had 100 percent charge.
I decided to shut off the generator and have some quiet. I shut off the generator and my computer shut down. The Bluetti was frozen.
The sun had not come up yet but to reset the AC300 I had to unplug the cord and hold the power button several times.
I got the Bluetti back and running and generator is running and starting my project again. Very little sun today.
I did a factory reset and then lowered the Amps back to 4.
I am guessing my AC300 is defective from my troubleshooting. The Honda brand new inverter generator and works nicely with other tools.
Anyone had their AC300 replaced? I dread the long wait period.
They are sensitive to the voltage and frequency and require a minimum amount of amperage. I kept having problems in freezing weather and running out of battery life, so I tried charging from my non-invertor generators. One, I can adjust the governor to get the frequency set to 60hz under load. That sort of works. Instead of doing that, I am now running the generator hooked to the RV. Then, using an AC to DC converter plugged into the PV input, to the Bluetti looks like solar. It’s not the most efficient, but now I do not have to even get out of bed (remote start generator), and I can get some charging going before the sun comes up and solar panels take over. I did a few factory resets and always get the firmware updates done after reading what they fix.
**New test of the AC300 with a 4000 W 50 hertz pure signal gasoline generator **.
A new function has appeared in the “Advanced settings” menu, menu, Network amplification mode.
Perfect for my generator 4kw.
It’s been around for a few months and I wanted to test it out. I activated this option before starting my test.
I limited the input to 7 Amps 250V, then activated the function: Standard UPS and Silent mode: Off.
I started the generator, waited 3 minutes for it to warm up, then switched to the AC300.
After about 3 minutes, it started charging and for 1h45 as that was enough. I went from 48% charge to 72%. Everything works perfectly. I’d like to thank the Bluetti team for solving the problem of switching off, then on, then off again, and now everything’s working perfectly.
