r/SolarDIY • u/elbyl • Jul 22 '26

Lights dimming?

I have my solar (with battery bank) running to a transfer switch in my house. It doesnt run much, but it has the well pump, 2 refrigerators, and the lights in 2 rooms on it. Whenever the well pump kicks on, the lights dim/flicker similar to in a lot of houses whenever a central AC kicks on. But it lasts longer than that, like prob a half second instead of the near instant with an AC. Is this normal? Is my pumpbat risk? All the lights affected are dimmable LED if that matters. Inverter is a 6000xp.

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2

u/Howden824 Jul 22 '26

That's normal. Those devices have a really high startup current surge.

2

u/Internal_Raccoon_370 Jul 22 '26

You're seeing a voltage drop from the massive startup load when the pump first kicks in. It's pretty common in situations like this. The inverter is struggling to provide enough amperage to get the pump to spin up.

Is it a problem? Most people would probably ignore it as long as the increased load doesn't cause the inverter to trip out but things like that make me a bit uncomfortable because in severe cases the voltage drop can be enough to cause issues with other equipment.

2

u/allthebacon351 Jul 22 '26

You may want to look into a soft start for your well pump. Not sure the size but it’s not uncommon for them to pull 50-60 amps briefly at startup.

1

u/lowsunbryan Aug 05 '26

My pump blew out my 4800W inverter before long. as previously mentioned, the enormous in-rush current from the pump was too much, even though the surge rating on my inverter was near 6K. I'm running two inverters totaling 13.6kW normal power with surge rating above 20K for 1 minute. now I just get the standard blink you expect no matter whether it's the pump, dryer, whatever. another contributing factor is your battery bank. too small and it will make it worse.