Solar iboost system - being charged for 'free' hot water

Solarchaser

Heedtheadvice said:

You are quite right Mr Chaser....what you suspect is a possibility  but some of the descriptions  of the 'fault' and answers to questions don't really give enough detail to be definitive. There has been, for example, only an indication that the problem exists when PV  is being generated. That would imply CT OK and main unit faulty - or something else!

So that should be answered by Test 2 that I copied into a post.

I wish Reggieboy  would have answered the questions 'in full' ( to quote Martin Lewis ) and be more descriptive and post pictures where that would help for us to see.

Several of  us have been helping and suggesting along similar lines to check/test and rule things out.

I am wondering if I am wasting time and I am  near the stage of stopping  hitting my head off the brick wall.

Reggieboy please do what Solarchaser suggests. It might be the problem but if it is not the problem lies elsewhere.....and do bear in  mind that it sometimes takes a few seconds for readings to show up correctly.

I guessed from your earlier replies (that i liked) that you were getting a little... frustrated with lack of answers,  that's why I figured a quick test may confirm one way or the other.

I mean from a service engineer point of view it's pretty clear from the replies from folk who have read the manual, the device doesn't (shouldnt) do full power for any excess, it should be excess power only.

So as has been stated a few times, either the clamp is in the wrong place, or the wrong way round... hence the unanswered picture requests, or the unit is faulty.

Solarchaser

Qyburn said:

Reggieboy2025 said:

Hi guys

Problem still exists, been advised from Marlec (the manufacturer) to try the clamp on a different tail, but cannot fit it on specified cable as there's no room for the clamp, don't know what to do next

Cheers again

The CT clamp is labelled to show which way round it should go, assuming it's on the Live tail. It will work equally well on Neutral but would need to be fitted the other way round.

This is probably true, but its more common than you would want to think, to have your live and neutral tails mislabelled / wired wrong.

My house was the wrong way round for years without me knowing, I only found out when a different smart meter was to be fitted, and the lad pointed out my first smart meter was wired with neutral in live and vice versa 🤷‍♂️

Heedtheadvice

Solarchaser said:

Heedtheadvice said:

You are quite right Mr Chaser....what you suspect is a possibility  but some of the descriptions  of the 'fault' and answers to questions don't really give enough detail to be definitive. There has been, for example, only an indication that the problem exists when PV  is being generated. That would imply CT OK and main unit faulty - or something else!

So that should be answered by Test 2 that I copied into a post.

I wish Reggieboy  would have answered the questions 'in full' ( to quote Martin Lewis ) and be more descriptive and post pictures where that would help for us to see.

Several of  us have been helping and suggesting along similar lines to check/test and rule things out.

I am wondering if I am wasting time and I am  near the stage of stopping  hitting my head off the brick wall.

Reggieboy please do what Solarchaser suggests. It might be the problem but if it is not the problem lies elsewhere.....and do bear in  mind that it sometimes takes a few seconds for readings to show up correctly.

I guessed from your earlier replies (that i liked) that you were getting a little... frustrated .....

Yes it's the Victor Meldrew coming out in me 😀

Qyburn

I think it would misbehave even more wildly if the clamp was the wrong way round.

Dave_Fowler

Qyburn said:

I think it would misbehave even more wildly if the clamp was the wrong way round.

Absolutely correct. It would turn on whenever the house was drawing power from the grid.
It is behaving as if the clamp is on the solar output cable - as soon as there is any solar output the iboost is turning on, and without any feedback from the grid cable it would ramp up the current sent to the immersion to maximum using the time-constant designed into the iboost. In my setup this is about 8 seconds.

paul991

Best way to sort this out would to be a photo of the  cables and where the clamp is situated. Is it on the right cable . ie not on a dual supply cable

Qyburn

Dave_Fowler said:

Qyburn said:

I think it would misbehave even more wildly if the clamp was the wrong way round.

Absolutely correct. It would turn on whenever the house was drawing power from the grid.
It is behaving as if the clamp is on the solar output cable - as soon as there is any solar output the iboost is turning on, and without any feedback from the grid cable it would ramp up the current sent to the immersion to maximum using the time-constant designed into the iboost. In my setup this is about 8 seconds.

Right, so the clamp could be on the inverter output, not the meter tail.

Reggieboy2025

Hi guys,
 Quick update, so electrician called round today , he moved the clamp onto the mains cable where all the electricity enters /exits the property,he also turned the clamp the other way round (meter arrow pointing away from the meter) and hallelujah it's finally working as intended.

Many thanks for all you guys help

Much appreciated 

Reed_Richards

How do we explain this?

QrizB

Reed_Richards said:

How do we explain this?

Clamp was on the wrong bit of tails. Whichever bit it was on, it was measuring solar generation but not measuring the load applied by the water heater.

A photo would make everything clearer (and might have let us spot the problem on page 1 of the thread).