Anyone use the Sol-Ark 15K with bed 30-amp outlet?

[v2h8484]

One thing I do remember on the Sol-Ark, is you can add in a buffer of grid power to avoid sending in a reversal of power back to the grid. I keep mine at zero, which means you can see on my screen that when a load turns off, sometimes the grid will pick up a few watts. But if you are always importing a few watts from the grid, this might provide a buffer for any sudden reversal. I wonder if it would work in this scenario.

That's a common misconception. The screen display is showing average over many mains cycles. The actual instantaneous reverse power can be up to many kW's (e.g. when a large load like electric heater, microwave or dryer turns off) for a short time before the export limiting kicks in within 2s (UL standards requirement). Export limiting is fine for meeting interconnection metering requirements but much too slow to prevent tripping protection shutoff.

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[AmpLee]

That's a common misconception. The screen display is showing average over many mains cycles. The actual instantaneous reverse power can be up to many kW's (e.g. when a large load like electric heater, microwave or dryer turns off) for a short time before the export limiting kicks in within 2s (UL standards requirement). Export limiting is fine for meeting interconnection metering requirements but much too slow to prevent tripping protection shutoff.

I appreciate you taking the time to explain this.

 

[AmpLee]

One more question you may or may not be able to answer:

If the Pro power is hooked up to the gen input in the sol-ark, then I’m I understanding correctly that while it is charging the home’s batteries, the loads will be powered by ford’s inverter as opposed to the sol-ark’s inverter.

Or maybe better put, limited by the capacity of the Ford’s inverter minus what wattage is being used to charge the home batteries.

 

[v2h8484]

One more question you may or may not be able to answer:

If the Pro power is hooked up to the gen input in the sol-ark, then I’m I understanding correctly that while it is charging the home’s batteries, the loads will be powered by ford’s inverter as opposed to the sol-ark’s inverter.

Or maybe better put, limited by the capacity of the Ford’s inverter minus what wattage is being used to charge the home batteries.

If the sol-ark can work with a bonded neutral generator on the generator port then Pro Power should work. Sol-ark can be configured to have a generator power all loads and battery charging or some partial combinations (e.g. generator assist mode).

 

[Doug in Ann Arbor]

I am hoping for some clarification on the Sol-ark generator plug usage. I have read a bunch of posts and as still a bit confused. We are having panels, battery and a 15k Sol-Ark installed soon and shopping for a Lightning.
1) if you hook the 30 am bed plug to the Sol-ark, does this go two ways (charge vehicle and power house depending on settings) or do you also use a charging cable to the vehicle's charge port?
2) based on the answer above, it sounds like you can use the Ford Charge Station Pro between the vehicle and the Sol-Ark generator port. Is that correct, and is it two way?
3) if you use a more generic cable from the bed port to the Sol-Ark, can you then charge the vehicle at the same time using any appropriate charge cable (assuming the generic cable is not going two ways.

For context, our goal is to have the truck serve as a backup to the home battery when we are away for extended periods, in case of an extended outage. Feel free to direct me to other posts I may have missed.
It sounds like it is also important to buy a lightning with the high output bed plug, which I understand may not be standard.
Thanks!

 

[tearitupsports]

I am hoping for some clarification on the Sol-ark generator plug usage. I have read a bunch of posts and as still a bit confused. We are having panels, battery and a 15k Sol-Ark installed soon and shopping for a Lightning.
1) if you hook the 30 am bed plug to the Sol-ark, does this go two ways (charge vehicle and power house depending on settings) or do you also use a charging cable to the vehicle's charge port?
2) based on the answer above, it sounds like you can use the Ford Charge Station Pro between the vehicle and the Sol-Ark generator port. Is that correct, and is it two way?
3) if you use a more generic cable from the bed port to the Sol-Ark, can you then charge the vehicle at the same time using any appropriate charge cable (assuming the generic cable is not going two ways.

For context, our goal is to have the truck serve as a backup to the home battery when we are away for extended periods, in case of an extended outage. Feel free to direct me to other posts I may have missed.
It sounds like it is also important to buy a lightning with the high output bed plug, which I understand may not be standard.
Thanks!

1) Pro power has nothing to do with EV charging. It is a Vehicle to load inverter. You can hook the Pro Power 30A outlet to the generator inlet of the Solark, but it is a one way transfer (from truck to Sol-ark).
2) The Ford Charge Station Pro can not be used with the Sol Ark generator inlet in any way. In on-grid mode the FCSP can only be used to AC charge the truck. In off-grid mode the FCSP pulls only DC power from the truck, but requires a separate external inverter and only the Delta Ex-BDI would work. If you had the delta inverter, it may be possible to feed that to the Generator inlet of the Sol-Ark. I am actually testing this tomorrow, but that would be thousands of extra cost for you.
3) The Pro-power system is completely independent of the trucks charging system. Both charging the truck and using pro-power can both be done at the same time. That being said, I don't see why you would charge the truck from a system that you are trying to power from Pro-power at the same time. You are just wasting at least 10% of your energy for no reason at all.

 

[Dino]

Your 15k Solark should have a Smartload connection which can be configured to be an output or input. I had my solar co. attach a 50 amp plug to the Smartload and configure it to supply power when my home batteries are 65% charged and cutoff when my home batteries drop down to 25% charged, I use this plug to charge my EV's during the day at 16 amps via an adjustable amp cable.

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