Issues after installing Tesla powerwall 3

[richtimpa]

I’ve been running on for years with no issues and over the past year converted over eisy also with no problems.

I recently had solar installed on the house and two Tesla power wall 3s. 
Since doing that, I’ve noticed an occasional pulse of my nights which happens every 30 seconds to 1.5 minutes. I will also state when I do a query on a light switch. It takes slightly longer for the query to perform.  I do see this pulse effect with both led and in condition, light bulbs, running on Insteon switches  all switches are dual band.  My plm is also a dual band one and many years old if that has any bearing on the problem  

 

i’ve had the solar installer trying to isolate the problem with no results so far. I suspect there may be some noise generated on the line introduced by the power walls. Also don’t know of a particular whole house noise filter to be installed in the panel, that would help if that’s the case as I don’t have a a oscilloscope to put on the line to actually look at the waveform and power of that would help.  Is there a recommended whole house filter which would possibly help?

also, if there’s some software setting that can be done to the Tesla power wall to make this issue go away?

My question is has anyone else seeing this issue after converting their house to solar with power walls? Has anyone come up with any solutions or fixes which could make this problem go away.

any comments that anyone can provide would be seriously helpful.

 

[richtimpa]

Anyone?

[paulbates]

On 11/13/2024 at 6:50 PM, richtimpa said:

i’ve had the solar installer trying to isolate the problem with no results so far. I suspect there may be some noise generated on the line introduced by the power walls.

There are those here a lot more knowledgeable about electrical theory and problems than me, but they haven't chimed in, so here goes:

1. There are similar stories here on the forum. Here's one, a long read but worth it
    
2. Temporarily disconnect the powerwall from the house power long enough to confirm that the problem goes away when you do. If it does, see 3. below. If it doesn't, you'll need to go breaker by break to establish where it's coming from, then go to 3. below when you find it.
   
   It seems likely it's the powerwall given the timing, but powerline actual problems vs perceived problems have been a slippery, unpredictable slope in my experience.
    
3. Consider filtering options, which will be a guessing game.
   1. Insteon makes a plug in filter but I'm guessing that's not how your powerwall is wired to your house
   2. Insteon makes these. They are designed to go near the flicker light, but I would suggest trying it near the powerwall. There are 2 types and Insteon mentions that they can't say what will work in what situation, just try, This is the link to the install page. Not that expensive to try out.

Good luck!

[ELA]

Hello Richtimpa,

  I do not have a power wall but will try to offer some insights and/or questions you can ask the Tesla rep.

1) What type of lights are blinking more often?   LED or Incandescent or both?  Are the lights on Dimmers?

     From your description it sounds like it may be a combination of things. 

 It is likely the Power Wall (PW.) has internal filtering (across the line capacitors) to reduce the noise level it puts onto the power line.  We refer to those as signal suckers.   A signal sucker can make the communications less reliable and result in the sluggish query you see.    It would be somewhat difficult to find an Insteon filter large enough to "isolate" the PW signal sucker from your power line.  A large "Line Reactor" or inductor-only filter could possibly help but identifying that would be difficult without Tesla's help.    You may have had some other signal sucker issues in your home prior to the PW install so the PW may not even be at fault for that one.

     It also sounds like the Solar Install may be communicating with the PW over the power lines and sending signals near zero cross that cause the lights to Flicker.   LED would tend to be the most sensitive to this.

If the biggest issue were with LED then a different brand might be less sensitive.  If on Dimmers then adding a device such as a "Jasco lighting bypass" might help.

     If at all possible to get input from a Tesla expert that would be best as these types of issues can be difficult to resolve without knowing more about the Solar-PW interconnections.

      Having an Oscilloscope to observe the power line requires a device to filter out the large 60hz waveform in order to observe low level power line noise interference.   

Best of luck to you.

 

 

Edited November 20 by ELA

[btreinders]

I had two powerwall 3s installed this week and I am seeing issues as well.  Almost all insteon devices will have a pop up over time saying communication lost.  I did see one LED light in the house pulsing about once a second so maybe that isn't related and it's just about go out but it did start happening at about the same time.  Before seeing this thread I thought maybe it was the SPAN power service panel that was installed with the batteries as well.  I'll have to find out how to power them down and see if that solves the issues.  Even then, I doubt we will find a quick solution other than replacing all Insteon devices. 

[richtimpa]

I do not have a span panel, but I can attest. I have seen at least one inteaon  dimmer switch blink red for 10 or 15 seconds. This never seemed to have happened before the install with power wall three.
 

Again, I’ve mentioned my original post that most of my house lights are LED. I do have a few Encanto bulbs on dimmer switches, but I have noticed that they also blink on occasion as well. I would call it more of a short duration pulse.

Almost all of my switches are dual switches, which can communicate either rf or powerline

The installer has been trying to figure it out, but so far no success.

Because it happens almost everywhere in the house, it’s not like I can put a filter on an outlet and it goes away in one spot.
I don’t know if the problem is frequency related or powerline pike related.

Almost all of my dimmers are Insteon 2477D

again, any suggestions on what to tell either the Tesla or the installer would be greatly appreciated. 

Edited November 28 by richtimpa

[richtimpa]

On 11/28/2024 at 11:44 AM, btreinders said:

I had two powerwall 3s installed this week and I am seeing issues as well.  Almost all insteon devices will have a pop up over time saying communication lost.  I did see one LED light in the house pulsing about once a second so maybe that isn't related and it's just about go out but it did start happening at about the same time.  Before seeing this thread I thought maybe it was the SPAN power service panel that was installed with the batteries as well.  I'll have to find out how to power them down and see if that solves the issues.  Even then, I doubt we will find a quick solution other than replacing all Insteon devices. 

Have you made any progress on this issue?

[btreinders]

7 hours ago, richtimpa said:

Have you made any progress on this issue?

Not yet.  I did just turn off the batteries this morning to make sure those are what is causing the issue.  I also have an email out to the installer to see if they can get any information from Tesla.  I only sent that yesterday.  I will report back with any findings.

[richtimpa]

6 hours ago, btreinders said:

Not yet.  I did just turn off the batteries this morning to make sure those are what is causing the issue.  I also have an email out to the installer to see if they can get any information from Tesla.  I only sent that yesterday.  I will report back with any findings.

When batteries are off did you see a difference?

[btreinders]

I want to make sure by keeping them off overnight but so far so good.

[richtimpa]

On 12/6/2024 at 1:47 PM, btreinders said:

I want to make sure by keeping them off overnight but so far so good.

Any further info on your testing with them off?

[btreinders]

The batteries are definitely causing the issue. 

My installer says there will be a filter capable of handing the amps the batteries put out next year that would be for consumers.  Right now there are commercial grade filters capable of it but they are overkill and too expensive.  $2000.  My installer also suggested I try Clip-on Ferrite Ring Core RFI EMI Noise Suppressors on the circuits having issues as a temporary fix.  I purchased these and installed them today.  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08BPHCXR3?ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_fed_asin_title

I tried them on the problem circuits and even on the lines coming from the batteries themselves. It may have made things slightly better but definitely not acceptable.   They make a pretty loud buzzing noise or humming noise too. 

Since I really only have 4 to 5 Insteon switches that are exhibiting issues out of probably 30 or more I am planning to switch those with some of my other Z-wave switches and see if I can get all issues taken care of.  That's my new plan anyway, until there is an affordable solution.

Sorry I don't have better news.

[bigDvette]

I have exactly all of these issues you have.  I can confirm that turning off the batteries eliminated the problems.

I bought those little blue/yellow dimmer fixers Insteon sells and that didn’t help.

I swapped bulbs and that didn’t help.

i’ve seen haywire red flashing on the devices a few times.

i removed my Transient voltage surge suppressor as a test and that didn’t fix it.

while I knew it was doing some flickering I removed the dimmer switch and wired the light direct (no switch) and problem stops.

I’ve seen the little leds in the dimmer switch twinkle.

Putting on a large load like a hair dryer doesn’t make it do anything.

i downloaded the Tesla One app and paired to my PW3s to see realtime voltage and hz.  It doesn’t fluctuate much and doesn’t look strange.

i think it is happening as it switches to charging the battery.  It does this constantly, it doesn’t charge and then stop, it switches between charging and not charging constantly.

it’s kinda pissing me off.  I assume it must be noise which I can’t reliably diagnose.

i have 2 Powerwall gateways connected to a single meter.  If in turn off the pw3 on one gateway it still flickers in both houses so the noise or whatever is transmitting upstream of the gateway as well.  I’m wondering if it’s the gateway/

I know AC doesn’t care what is line 1 or 2 but can power going out line 1 and coming back as line 2 cause issues.  I don’t understand how the gateway is switching internally or if all power goes to the backup side circuits on pw3 and feeds loads from there.

anyway, you aren’t alone.  Tesla hasn’t been much help and they installed my system.

 

 

 

 

[IndyMike]

 

FWIW:  The following Reddit post is related to Enphase communication issues due to a powerwall installation.  The noise spectral plot shows noise peaks in/around the 120k to 130KHz region (X10/Insteon range).  The noise appears to be Worse when the Powerwall is lightly loaded.

As others have noted, not an easy problem to solve.  Caveats - this is a power from 2019.  Things may have changed on newer Powerwall versions/firmware updates.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Powerwall/comments/sr2j2l/powerwall_and_line_noise_affecting_enphase/?rdt=64923

[bigDvette]

3 hours ago, IndyMike said:

 

FWIW:  The following Reddit post is related to Enphase communication issues due to a powerwall installation.  The noise spectral plot shows noise peaks in/around the 120k to 130KHz region (X10/Insteon range).  The noise appears to be Worse when the Powerwall is lightly loaded.

As others have noted, not an easy problem to solve.  Caveats - this is a power from 2019.  Things may have changed on newer Powerwall versions/firmware updates.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Powerwall/comments/sr2j2l/powerwall_and_line_noise_affecting_enphase/?rdt=64923

I've also seen that it is worse when lightly loaded. At moment mine are in background mode only so always lightly used.  The flickers seem to happen when it shows it is lightly discharging and then recharging.  I don't know why it needs to do this 2 times a minute, but whatever.  Anyway, when it does a calibration and goes totally battery so all load on the batteries the flickering completely stops.  It's really annoying, I have like 15-keypadlincs and 35-2477D dimmers.  All of them with loads attached flicker occasionally.  I've divided my problem in 2 parts.

1)  Communication reliability - this doesn't seem too bad but I'm convinced my micro on-off problem is related to the batteries as only the v.43 versions have the problem and all of them have the problem. The .48 versions do not.  My PLM is being a little flaky so going to try a brand new one that some people say has better / stronger signal and see what happens.  

2) Light flicker.  I know these are triac dimmers.  The LED bulbs in the Switchlink ON/OFF don't flicker and neither do the insteon bulbs or the lamplinc, so assuming maybe it is the forward phase dimming of the triac. I found a known forward phase dimming bulb I'm going to test and see if it makes any difference.  If the flickering can go away, I can maybe solve the comm issues.

[richtimpa]

On 12/9/2024 at 8:48 AM, bigDvette said:

I've also seen that it is worse when lightly loaded. At moment mine are in background mode only so always lightly used.  The flickers seem to happen when it shows it is lightly discharging and then recharging.  I don't know why it needs to do this 2 times a minute, but whatever.  Anyway, when it does a calibration and goes totally battery so all load on the batteries the flickering completely stops.  It's really annoying, I have like 15-keypadlincs and 35-2477D dimmers.  All of them with loads attached flicker occasionally.  I've divided my problem in 2 parts.

1)  Communication reliability - this doesn't seem too bad but I'm convinced my micro on-off problem is related to the batteries as only the v.43 versions have the problem and all of them have the problem. The .48 versions do not.  My PLM is being a little flaky so going to try a brand new one that some people say has better / stronger signal and see what happens.  

2) Light flicker.  I know these are triac dimmers.  The LED bulbs in the Switchlink ON/OFF don't flicker and neither do the insteon bulbs or the lamplinc, so assuming maybe it is the forward phase dimming of the triac. I found a known forward phase dimming bulb I'm going to test and see if it makes any difference.  If the flickering can go away, I can maybe solve the comm issues.

Interesting. I also see that using AC on the computer it seems that some queries fail and if tried again, it works so definitely some level of noise from the powerwalls. Installer is coming back out to even try adding more ferrite cores from Tesla on the lines. 
I can share with you that the best ferrite cores to use are type 31. Others may not work as well at suppressing noise on the line and you may want to try those. I’ll keep you posted on what happens after installer call on Monday 

[bigDvette]

3 hours ago, richtimpa said:

Interesting. I also see that using AC on the computer it seems that some queries fail and if tried again, it works so definitely some level of noise from the powerwalls. Installer is coming back out to even try adding more ferrite cores from Tesla on the lines. 
I can share with you that the best ferrite cores to use are type 31. Others may not work as well at suppressing noise on the line and you may want to try those. I’ll keep you posted on what happens after installer call on Monday 

I would appreciate any help or advice you have.

I’m convinced it is made worse by having backup at 100%.  When backup at 100% the charging / not charging graph looks like left side of the picture attached. At 98% it doesn’t do the same thing and looks like left.  Essentially  I don’t ever see my batteries get to 100% and the constant switching on and off charger creates some of flickering and noise.

 

 

[ELA]

On 12/8/2024 at 5:59 PM, btreinders said:

The batteries are definitely causing the issue. 

My installer says there will be a filter capable of handing the amps the batteries put out next year that would be for consumers.  Right now there are commercial grade filters capable of it but they are overkill and too expensive.  $2000.  My installer also suggested I try Clip-on Ferrite Ring Core RFI EMI Noise Suppressors on the circuits having issues as a temporary fix. 

    Ask the installer/Tesla rep. if the Powerwall 3 is "CE" marked?  I took a quick look and it looked as if that is planned ?   Or maybe what I saw was old data so I am curious.  

      CE marking allows them to be sold in Europe and CE marking requires a much more stringent series of Electromagnetic Emissions testing.    It may be that they will need to install the filter the installer mentioned in order to meet the CE standards.   

Ferrite cores are generally only effective at higher frequencies, those much greater than the Insteon 131Khz.

To attenuate or isolate the emissions from a device in the Insteon range requires a larger inductance.  Like the Line reactor(inductor) I mentioned in my earlier post.

IndyMike posted an interesting link. 

It would be nice to have a plot of the emissions from the Powerwall 3 showing what the offending frequencies are.   If the installer/Tesla rep could provide some emissions test data that might be helpful.

Best of luck to you all.

 

[bigDvette]

Tesla says they can come look at it at the earliest date of March 31.  What a joke.  Told them they are on notice for damage and so far I have a failed soft start AC unit, a few automation devices.  I know for sure it only happens when batteries are in this charging / not-charging loop trying to get to reserve.  Ive had to set batteries below 100% as they never seem to get to 100%.   when neither battery is in this charge / non-charge loop there is no flickering.