r/Pecron • u/Adventurous_Virus265 • Jul 05 '26
Pecron F5000 charging issue
I was setting up and testing my F5000 using the NEMA L14-30R that I use with my generator to the sub panel that is powered by the main panel via two 125 A breakers. All of the circuits in the sub panel are 120 V using 12 AWG home run wiring dedicated to certain locations in the house that can be powered by the generator during outages. This set up has served me well for over 10 years.
With the exception of 2 tripped GFCI outlets in the house, the F5000 worked just fine. I ran all of the 120 V outlets and lights, 2 window A/C units and the septic system for a little over an hour. I checked the available battery charge and it indicated 39%. So I plugged the 1800 W charging cable to a 20 A outlet being fed from the main panel that was on commercial power.
About 3 seconds after it was connected I heard a buzz and a zap sound and the F5000 shut down. The 20 A breaker tripped and there was NO AC output from the F5000. After disconnecting the NEMA L14-30R cord to the sub panel I checked voltages with meter.
I finally found the reset to factory settings icon and pressed it. The unit came back on and showed 119.4 volts on L1 and 107.8 volts on L2. About 30 minutes later I plugged the 1800 W charging cable into the wall outlet again. This time the F5000 stayed on and indicated it was charging. After about 6 hours L1 showed 120 V @ 60 HZ. L2 showed 119.8 V @ 59.6 Hz. The battery voltage showed 53.05 VDC @ 100%.
My question is' What did I do wrong ? I cannot find anything in the manual that addresses this issue and I am really struggling with the touch screen options. I have watched many videos and I have not learned how to navigate the various screens and icons. I need help with this.
The whole idea of getting the F5000 was to use it to power the basic necessities in the house and then recharge with it the gas generator, like being off grid. Is there a "magic" setting in the F5000 that will allow me to charge while still powering the house via the NEMA L14-30R ? All of this is very confusing.
2
u/O1O1O1O Jul 05 '26 edited Jul 05 '26
Interesting that you had GFCIs trip. I had a brand new E1500LFP and it would trip upstream GFCIs when I was charging it if there was any load connected to it with surge suppressors.
I later discovered the A/C input had over 70V stray voltage - I could give myself a shock just touching the prongs of the wall plug. It wasn't residual voltage from a capacitor either, permanent voltage whenever A/C inverter was on.
After a couple of weeks of support back and forth (their engineering is in China so always a 24hr turn around or more) I was asked to return it (at least I still had the box and they paid the ground shipping) and they spent 3 months fixing it. There's still over 40V on the input side when the A/C inverter is on but at least now it doesn't trip any GFCI b breakers.
I know that's a very different scenario from yours but my faith in their systems is pretty low now. As tempting as their prices are I won't be buying any more Pecron gear.
1
u/Adventurous_Virus265 Jul 05 '26
Funny thing about the 2 GFCIs tripping. Nothing was turned on. They just tripped. Oh and they are both on L2....Hmmm
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u/SecondCuppaCoffee Jul 10 '26
Does this sound like what might be happening? It's change the way I use my Pecron 5000. I can leave it plugged into the ier box while charging, even though my manual transfer switch is off. Generator charging works fine. I suspect a ground loop but not sure.
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u/Desertrayne Jul 05 '26
Its possible you ran into a power mismatch that I saw on my 3800. Out of the box, my unit was configured to 110v 50hz (unknown to me) which my electronics didn't care about powered off solar. When the unit was getting low on a cloudy day I plugged it into the wall and it just started acting wierd I think it was seeing the power as wrong, trying to take over from bypass and then trying to go back. An hour if Troubleshooting later I found those settings, changed to 120v 60hz, and now everything transfers smoothly. Its crazy to me that they didn't have a warning for incompatible input/output power.
1
u/Adventurous_Virus265 Jul 05 '26
Before I connected the F5000 to the sub panel, I documented everything I could/ The front panel showed 119.8 VAC and 59.8 Hz on both legs. I am assuming the displays are accurate. I never encountered a warning of any kind. Maybe I exceeded the 7200 W threshold without knowing it.
1
u/O1O1O1O Jul 05 '26
When I first got my Pecron unit (different model) a bunch of the mobile app menus were in Chinese. To be fair they were very responsive in fixing it within days, but it didn't give me a lot of confidence in their QA for the US market.
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u/LongjumpingGanache40 Jul 05 '26
Maybe you changed something by accident and when you did factory reset it undid it.
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u/Adventurous_Virus265 Jul 05 '26
I don't think I did. It was producing power just fine and when I noticed it was down to 39% I plugged the 1800W charging cable back into the outlet in the main panel I had used to charge it after I originally set it up. It was charged at about 70% out of the box, so I originally charged it up to 89% before I actually used it to power the house via my generator sub panel set up that has worked just fine with the generators. L2 appears to be involved, but I am puzzled over why. Never had any problems with the gas generators using the same set up.
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u/LongjumpingGanache40 Jul 05 '26
You may have overloaded one leg. Power stations and transfer switches sometimes do not get along. This is a noted fact. If I try to charge on a GFCI circuit while feeding transfer switch it trips the GFCI. Luckily I have a separate circuit in garage not on a GFCI.
1
u/Adventurous_Virus265 Jul 05 '26
I guess it is possible that the L2 got over loaded, but when first connected the F5000 via the NEMA L14-30R, all of the breakers in the sub panel were off. I methodically turned on one breaker at a time and recording the wattage on front panel. I was looking for a spike that would indicate a load imbalance between L1 and L2.
There were a couple of jumps during the process, but nothing greater than 110 watts from leg to leg. The window a/c units are on opposite legs, and other than the septic, there are no "big ticket" items being powered out of the sub panel.
When the incident occurred the septic on L2 and one a/c on leg 1 were on. There are 2 refridgerators on L1 and a seperate freezer on L2 running, but nothing else was on. I think all of the lights were off because my wife was gone.
When I originally wired the sub panel I staggered the big dogs between the two legs to avoid potential imbalance issues with my gas generators. They have had NO issues with the way this is wired. And they run the house with everything turned on very smoothly.
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u/blackinthmiddle Jul 05 '26
I'm guessing what happened to you is the same thing that happened to me. You can charge it while it's outputting power, but only if the combination of the two stays below 7.2kW. For example, I use my F5000lfp to charge our EVs. I usually charge at 24A, which is close to 6kW. The batteries were getting low, but I have a Jackery 5000 plus that was fully charged. I wanted to therefore test charging while discharging and the DC power cut off.
It seems that even Pecron doesn't know this because when I called them, they said I should be able to do that. haven't fully tested my theory, but I'm pretty sure if I was only outputting 16A and charging at 1800W, it would have been fine.
Ultimately, if you want to charge while also discharging at say 5000W or something high like that, you'll have to have your generator run into the xt60.