Hi @pW0lf1 , Which solar panel are you using? Can you take a picture to see how the machine is connected to the solar panel? Thank you very much for your cooperation.
I have exactly the same issue. Solar panel isn’t the issue, if its bright sun it will come to life and charge at close to its panel rated output. Day one with my panel I was seeing 70+ Watts from a 100W panel in directly sunlight (pretty good for Scotland in Autumn).
Next day overcast and it was doing as you’ve said, flickering the Input light (in the app it will say [Alarm : PV Low Voltage) even if the voltage is fine. Well publicised on here and other sources the EB3A won’t work if there is less than 1amp doesn’t matter if the panel works.
Seems every post ends with Bluetti asking for panel rating and then silence after that.
Pretty sure this could be fixed with a firmware update just to allow the MPPT controller to turn on at lower amps. It will charge at low Watts (and presumably low amps) but only if you can get it to start charging. I.e. its sunny it will start and continue down to 1Watt if cloud cover increases (although it will say 0 on the EB3A, the app gives a truer picture of Watts), but if you unplug the mppt cable and plug in it will go into this panicked state and not work. In fact, it’s worse than not working it will actively discharge the EB3A.
In my case;
Day 1 - Sunny, added 30% to the pack
Day 2 - Discharged 10% from the pack with the low PV error then in the last hour of the day the sun came out and added 7% so a net loss on day 2 over day 1 gains.
Day 3 - Cloudy all day - discharged 10%
Various fixes that folk tout and then report they don’t work. Discharge the EB3A a bit, then charge on AC to 100% then discharge a few % and try the solar… doesn’t work. Seems like a delaying tactic so you then test when the sun is out again.
In typical cloudy conditions you should still expect 10% of rated output, in my case maybe 10W but I’m getting a net loss of 1% per hour (so a loss of 2.6+Wh/h).
Should be a crazy easy fix, drop the Amp threshhold of the MTTP in the firmware and then test with people reporting the issue. I’ll happily test if they want me to. Otherwise they’re going to get a heap of returns from people following the YouTube frenzy of “buy the EB3A and a solar panel to combat rising energy prices” videos.
Hi there!
I also have the same issue on both of my 2x EB3A.
I have 5x 50-100W panels in parallel attached to 2x EB3A, 1x Poweroak AC50S and 4x EcoWorthy PowerCan 750Wh.
So I am also sure that the solar panels are not the problem for EB3A not starting charging when there is low light outside.
With claw measuring I can see that the EB3A needs at least 2 amps to start charging while the AC50S charges already with only 1 amp with around 50 watts!
For the EB3A there is a trick that could be a SOLUTION for starting PV charging:
If the light is not too low just start dual charging with PV AND with AC-net and switch AC-charging off again! Sometimes it worked fine with me.
So I hope that this idea is useful for you too.
I’ve found that if you get even a minute of bright sun the EB3A will happily kick off solar charging then it will keep going even now (like right now, 16:49 in Scotland) the sun is gone, clouded over and the sun if it was out would be hitting side of house and not the 100W panel I’ve got out. Still putting 1W into my EB3A. If I unplug the MPPT cable and plug in it will result in instant low voltage error… oh the irony! Its charging fine at 1W though… clearly something that can be tweaked in firmware I don’t doubt.
Are you seeing the same issue as myself? I’ve captured in app and actual footage from my EB3A that sounds identical to your issue.
Today the sun came out briefly and the EB3A was pulling 80W from a single 100W Eco-worthy panel then it clouded over and it carried on charging at 20W for most of the afternoon, eventually dropping to 3W late in the day. The day before however it just flashed away with the “INPUT light” and discharged the pack at 1% an hour, why? Because it was clouded over all day and never got enough AMPS to start the MPPT - ironic that the MPPT will happily charge at very low Wattage, but only if it starts high.
Hi @pW0lf1 , thanks for the pictures.
Car charging and solar charging have the same circuit. Have you ever tried to charge a machine with a 12V car charger please?
If this is part of the problem solving process shouldn’t the £19 Charging cable be included in the package?
I did however buy one, and in my case I can confirm it works fine. But like @pW0lf1 I get the flickering “INPUT” light and “PV Low Voltage” in the app… but only when plugging in and the panel output is lower than 10Watts.
Hi @pW0lf1 , Thank you for your test feedback.
We have the following recommendations.
Use a multimeter to test the solar panel for voltage
Confirm that the car charger cable has been plugged in tightly
If the solar panel has voltage and the car charger cable is plugged in, then the machine has a problem and needs to be repaired. (You need to contact the support department to return for repairing).
First of all, the car charger is plug into the DC output, wrong! Bluetti make a cable that plugs into your car and then plugs into INPUT/MPPT PLUG. Second, the solar panel must produce at least ONE AMP before the eb3a will start charging. I tested the input/mppt with a variable power supply and it works with 12,15,18 volts AS LONG AS IT HAS GREATER THAT ONE AMP OF CURRENT.
I had three eb3a unit and sent two back because of other problem. The third EB3A works fine as the UPS power backup.
I did some tests this afternoon, quite interesting.
In spite of not having a multimeter as requested, I noticed the car charger works, but very very low (500maH). In fact, I recorded, but somehow I’m not allowed to upload videos here (would make it easier).
So, the car charger port in fact works, but very low charge.
The solar panel is the situation I told you already.
How can we fix this? I bought the Pack (Solar panel + EB3A) to take advantage of the solar feature to charge the powerstation + devices.
The specs indicate that the solar charging happens with a minimum voltage of 12 volts. Maybe the typical 100w solar panel outputs less than that on a cloudy day? I’m guessing that it uses a buck mppt, with no boost. If the LiFeP04 cells are configured as greater than 12v, then you may be SOL. In that case, two 100w panels in series might have offered a solution, except that the upper limit on input voltage is 28v, so you’d run the risk of overvoltage if the sun came out.
Hi @pW0lf1 , Thank you for the reconfirmation. Based on this issue, please contact our support department via service@bluettipower.com for repair registration process.
Sorry again for the inconvenience.
