About This Manual

This manual is your reference for the Indie 12, a 12kW split-phase off-grid solar storage inverter. It covers installation, wiring, the touchscreen control panel, every setting the panel exposes, and what to do when the unit reports a fault. It is written for installers, technicians, and owners who want to understand the system they are running.

Read this manual before you install, wire, or power on the inverter. This equipment switches high voltage on both its DC and AC sides. It is safe when installed correctly and dangerous when it is not. Most field failures trace back to a skipped installation step rather than a manufacturing defect.

Specifications

Inverter Output

AC Input

Solar (PV) Input

String Voltage Calculator

Panel Voc is rated at 25°C, and Voc rises as temperature falls. A string that measures comfortably under the limit on a mild afternoon can exceed it at dawn in January. Enter your panel figures and the coldest temperature the site sees to check the worst case.

Battery and Charging

Communication

Physical and Environmental

Enclosure dimensions are pending confirmation and are struck through until measured on a production unit.

Safety Instructions

Signal Words

Four signal words appear throughout this manual and on the product labels. They are not interchangeable.

Who Should Install This Equipment

Installation involves service-entrance-rated conductors, high-voltage DC strings, and a bonding decision that interacts with your service panel. This work should be carried out by a qualified professional who is licensed for electrical work in your jurisdiction and familiar with battery-based energy storage.

Owners who want to understand and adjust their own system will find every setting documented in this manual, and the touchscreen is designed to be used without training. Operating the panel is a different task from wiring the unit, and this manual separates the two deliberately.

Required PPE and Tools

Do's and Don'ts

Shipping & Receiving

What's in the Box

That is the whole box. The display is built into the unit and is not a separate item to fit.

Recommended Accessories, Sold Separately

Order these alongside the inverter if your installation needs them.

Inspection After Receipt

Inspect the unit before the carrier leaves, and before you sign anything. Shipping damage claims are far easier to resolve when the damage is noted on the delivery paperwork.

1. Photograph the packaging as delivered, including any crushed corners or puncture marks.
2. Check the carton and the unit for dents, cracks, and impact damage.
3. Confirm the model and serial number on the label match your order.
4. Check the touchscreen glass for cracks or delamination.
5. Confirm the quick start guide is present, and that any accessories you ordered separately have arrived.
6. Note any damage on the delivery receipt before signing, then contact your distributor.

Installation Planning

The Indie 12 is rated IP20 and is for indoor use only. Choose the location before you drill anything, because the wrong spot causes problems that are expensive to correct later: nuisance over-temperature shutdowns, a screen nobody can read, or conductors that are longer than they need to be.

Mounting & Mechanical

Wall Mounting

1. 1

   Mark the four mounting holes. Use the mounting template or the unit itself to transfer the pattern to the wall. Check level before drilling, because the unit is heavy enough that correcting a crooked mount means re-drilling.

2. 2

   Drill and set the upper anchors. Install the two upper expansion anchors and leave them proud enough for the unit to hang on them.

3. 3

   Lift the unit onto the upper anchors. This is a two-person lift. Keep the unit upright and do not use the touchscreen bezel or the terminal cover as a handhold.

4. 4

   Secure the lower fasteners. Fit and tighten the two lower screws, then confirm the unit sits flat against the wall with no rocking.

5. 5

   Verify clearances. Re-check that the ventilation clearances are still satisfied now that the unit is in place, including anything the installation added such as conduit runs.

Terminal Cover and Ventilation

The terminal cover comes off with a screwdriver. It stays off during wiring and goes back on before the unit is energized.

Ventilation is through open vent holes along the top of the enclosure. There is no filter or screen to remove, and nothing on the outside of the unit is a serviceable part. Keep the vents clear and unobstructed, and do not set anything on top of the unit.

Electrical Installation

Conductor and Breaker Reference

About the AC Terminals

The AC input and output terminals are DIN rail terminal blocks. Ordinary stranded building wire lands bare, with no ferrule needed, and none are supplied with the unit. Strip 6 mm to 8 mm and clamp the conductor directly.

Wiring Order

Ground first, then the high-current DC, then AC, then signal wiring. Working in this order means the chassis is bonded before anything else is landed.

1. 1

   Grounding. Bond the chassis grounding screw to the grounding bus bar with a conductor sized to code. This connection is made first and removed last.

2. 2

   Battery. Land the positive and negative battery conductors on their marked terminals through an external disconnect. Verify polarity with a meter before the disconnect is closed. Reversed polarity damages the unit and is not a warranty repair.

3. 3

   PV input. Land each array on its own tracker, PV1 and PV2, observing polarity. Confirm each string open circuit voltage with a meter before connecting, and check it against the maximum in the specifications using the coldest temperature the site sees.

4. 4

   AC input. Land line, neutral, and ground from the utility or generator in the marked sequence. In split-phase the input must be split-phase, matching the output configuration.

5. 5

   AC output. Land the load conductors in the marked sequence. Strip 6 mm to 8 mm, no more, so no bare conductor is left outside the terminal.

6. 6

   Signal wiring. Land the battery BMS cable on the RS485 or CAN port, the parallel cable if used, and the dry contact wiring. Signal conductors take 0.2 mm² to 1.5 mm².

7. 7

   Torque and close up. Torque every terminal to specification with a calibrated tool, re-check polarity on the battery and PV connections, then refit the terminal cover before energizing.

Neutral and Bonding

Which arrangement applies depends on whether the source feeding the inverter is already bonded upstream.

Dry Contact Port

The port carries two separate things: a low-voltage status signal output that follows the battery, and a voltage-free changeover contact intended for generator control. Only the status output is driven by firmware today.

Status Signal Output

A 5 V logic-level signal between pin 3 and pin 1. It reads 5 V while the battery is charging or discharging normally, and falls to 0 V when the battery reaches the Discharge Limit Voltage set on the Battery page. Use it to tell external equipment that the pack has hit its floor.

Changeover Contact

A voltage-free relay contact with three terminals. It carries no voltage of its own and switches whatever circuit you wire through it.

Wiring the Port

Push the terminal release back with a small screwdriver and insert the conductor. Signal conductors of 0.2 mm² to 1.5 mm² suit this connector. Wire it during installation if you expect to use either function later, since running the cable now is far easier than pulling it after the unit is commissioned and the terminal cover is on.

Parallel Systems

Up to six units can run together, either paralleled on the same phase for more power or arranged across phases to build a split-phase or three-phase system. Each unit is told its role through the Phase Configuration setting on its own System page.

Rules That Apply to Every Parallel Build

Assigning Phase Configuration

Each unit is set individually on its own touchscreen, under System, then Phase Configuration. The nine options cover standalone operation, paralleling for power, and multi-unit phase assignment.

Power Up & Shutdown

Power-Up Procedure

1. 1

   Inspect the installation. Confirm the terminal cover is refitted, the top vents are clear, every terminal is torqued, and battery and PV polarity have been verified with a meter.

2. 2

   Close the battery disconnect. This is the first source to bring up.

3. 3

   Switch the inverter on. The touchscreen and indicators light up. The panel shows Waiting for initialization while it establishes its link to the inverter, then the home screen appears with Live Data, Settings and Graphs.

4. 4

   Watch the DC bus come up. Open Live Data. During soft start the unit sits in standby and reports DC bus soft start, N% complete. This is normal and clears on its own.

5. 5

   Close the PV disconnect. Solar input comes up next. The MPPT box on Live Data should begin reporting voltage and power.

6. 6

   Close the AC input breaker. The Grid box should report voltage and the input relay should show as closed if the source is within the accepted window.

7. 7

   Close the AC output breaker. The output relay closes and the loads are live.

8. 8

   Start loads one at a time, smallest first. Bringing up the largest motor load into a cold system is the most likely way to trip an overload on first start.

9. 9

   Check for alarms. Confirm the Alarms screen reads No active alarms. If anything is showing, resolve it before leaving the system unattended. See the Alarms section.

Shutdown Procedure

1. Shut down the connected loads.
2. Open the AC output breaker.
3. Open the AC input breaker.
4. Open the PV disconnect.
5. Switch the inverter off.
6. Open the battery disconnect.

Touchscreen Panel

The panel is the whole interface. There are no buttons to press and no numbered parameter codes to look up. The home screen offers three apps: Live Data, Settings, and Graphs.

The Settings Dashboard

Settings opens a dashboard of eight tiles. Five of them read and write the inverter itself, and three are panel-local, meaning they are stored on the display and survive independently of the inverter.

Pages Reached by Tapping a Row

Some pages are not tiles. They appear as a row on another page and open when tapped, and they only appear at all when they are relevant.

• BMS Settings, from a row on the Battery page. Appears only when the battery type selects a BMS.
• Fallback Settings, from a row on the BMS Settings page.
• About and Firmware Update, from the System page.
• Wi-Fi, from the Communication page.

The Status Line

Every page that talks to the inverter carries a status line at the top. While a page is loading it reads Reading settings from inverter.... Values are read live each time the page opens, so what you see is the inverter current state rather than a cached copy.

Live Data Screen

Live Data is a power-flow diagram of the whole system. Each box is a real stage inside the unit or a real connection outside it, and tapping one opens a detail popup with its measurements. The prompt on screen reads Tap a box for details.

What Each Box Represents

Operating Mode

The screen reports one of four operating modes: On Grid, On Battery, Standby, or Starting up. The battery separately reads Charging, Discharging, or Idle.

Why the Relays Are Where They Are

The input and output relay states come with a plain explanation, which is usually the quickest way to understand what the system is doing.

Standby Explanations

When the unit sits in standby, the panel names what is holding it there, in the form Standby, held by: reason. The reasons all concern the internal DC bus.

Startup Messages

Waiting for initialization appears while the panel establishes its link. No response, check inverter link means the panel cannot reach the inverter at all: check that the inverter is powered on, that the RS485 link is intact, and that USB tool access is not holding the link.

Output & Charge Modes

Two settings decide almost everything about how the system behaves day to day. Output Priority decides what powers the loads. Charger Source Priority decides what refills the battery. They are independent, and choosing them together is what tunes the system to a site.

Output Priority

Charger Source Priority

Settings: Output

Every row on this page writes to the inverter. These settings shape the AC output itself and decide how the unit reacts to an overload or an over-temperature event.

Settings: Charging

This page covers where charging energy comes from and how much the grid may contribute. The battery charge profile itself, meaning the voltages, times and stop conditions, lives on the Battery page instead.

Settings: Battery

This is the longest page on the panel and the only one where most rows are conditional. Battery Type is the master control. It decides which of the rows below appear at all, so the page you see depends on the battery you told the inverter you have.

Choosing a Battery Type

Selecting a preset seeds the charge voltages and hides them, because the preset already knows the right values. Selecting User Defined exposes every voltage for manual entry. Selecting CAN BMS Control or RS485 BMS Control is what turns the BMS on and reveals the BMS Settings row.

Battery Page Rows

The Shown when note on each row is not a footnote. An owner with a lithium battery never sees the equalization rows at all, and rows move out of reach entirely once a BMS takes control.

BMS Settings

Reached from the Battery page, and only when the battery type selects a BMS. There is deliberately no bus picker on this page: the choice between RS485 and CAN is made by the Battery Type setting, so change it there rather than looking for it here.

Fallback Settings

These are the values the inverter runs the battery on when the BMS is not in control, whether the link was lost or the pack has no BMS at all. They are the same underlying settings as on the Battery page, so the two views always agree. They are split out so you can see plainly what the battery does without the BMS.

Settings: Grid

How the inverter treats the incoming utility or generator supply, and two protective functions that sit on the AC side.

Settings: Schedule

Two independent sections, one for charging and one for discharging, each with an enable switch and up to three time windows. Use them to line the system up with time-of-use pricing: charge when energy is cheap, and run the house from the battery when it is expensive.

How the Time Entry Works

Settings: System

Mostly navigation, plus the one setting that decides how this unit shapes its output. The page stays reachable while the USB port holds the inverter link, but Phase Configuration grays out in that state because it needs the inverter.

About

A read-only page with three cards. Firmware shows the panel version and the inverter version, read live. Security shows secure boot, flash encryption and download mode status. Credits carries the product wordmark.

Settings: Display & Sound

Everything here is stored on the display itself and survives a restart, with one exception: the Beeper row is an inverter setting and writes through to the unit.

What Each Beeper Setting Covers

Settings: Communication

Wi-Fi

The Wi-Fi page is a status and action screen rather than a settings list. It reports the connected network, IP address, signal strength and network time, and lists saved networks alongside the ones it can currently see. Scan for networks refreshes the list, and any saved network can be removed with Forget this network.

Firmware Updates

The Firmware Update page, reached from System, has two independent sections. One updates the touchscreen panel. The other updates the inverter. They are separate processes with very different consequences, so check which section you are in before starting anything.

Updating the Panel

The panel checks for updates over Wi-Fi, so connect it to a network first. The sequence runs from Check for updates through Download and install, and the status line reports each stage: checking, downloading, verifying, then installed and restarting. If a new version causes trouble, Revert to previous version goes back.

Panel Update Messages

Updating the Inverter

Inverter firmware is delivered by the panel across its link to the inverter, in three steps: Check inverter firmware, then Download to panel, then Install to inverter. Downloading to the panel is safe and can be done at any time. Only the final install step stops the inverter.

1. Shut down or accept the loss of every load on the inverter output.
2. Confirm the supply to the unit is stable and will not be interrupted.
3. Download the new firmware to the panel first, and confirm it has arrived.
4. Start the install and leave the unit completely alone until it reports completion.
5. In a parallel system, update every unit so the versions match. Mismatched versions raise alarm code 42.

Alarms & Fault Codes

The Alarms screen lists everything currently active, and reads No active alarms when the system is healthy. A new alarm interrupts with a popup that can be silenced or opened into the full list. Each alarm carries a code, a severity, a headline, and a description of what to do.

Severity Levels

Inverter Alarm Codes

Panel-Generated Alarms

These are raised by the touchscreen itself rather than by the inverter. The three shutdown warnings exist to give you a chance to act before the inverter trips.

Protection Functions

These protections run automatically and are not user-configurable. Knowing they exist explains a lot of behavior that otherwise looks like a malfunction, particularly the ones that reduce power rather than stop.

How Overload Protection Is Graded

Troubleshooting

Maintenance

Carry out the following checks twice a year, and more often in dusty, agricultural or coastal environments. Isolate every source before touching any wiring.

Clearing Dust from Inside the Enclosure

The top vents are unfiltered, so dust reaches the inside of the unit and settles on the heatsinks and the fans. A layer of dust acts as insulation, which raises operating temperatures and eventually causes the unit to derate or trip on over-temperature. Clearing it is straightforward, but it must be done with the unit completely dead.

1. Complete the full shutdown procedure, then isolate every source at its disconnect.
2. Wait for the DC bus to discharge, and confirm with a meter before opening anything.
3. Use dry canned air at low pressure, and keep the can upright so no liquid propellant is discharged into the unit.
4. Blow from the inside outward where you can, so dust leaves through the vents rather than being driven deeper.
5. Hold the fan blades still while blowing them. Spinning a fan with compressed air can overspeed and damage the bearing.
6. Do not touch the board, the heatsinks, or any component with the nozzle, and never use a wet cloth or solvent inside the unit.
7. Refit the terminal cover, then bring the system back up following the power-up procedure.

Commissioning Checklist

Work through this before handing the system over. The settings half matters as much as the wiring half, because a correctly wired system with the wrong battery profile will still damage a pack.

Mechanical and Electrical

• Unit mounted level on solid structure, at a height where the screen is readable
• Ventilation clearances satisfied on all sides, with nothing stacked against the unit
• Chassis bonded to the grounding bus bar
• Battery polarity verified with a meter before the disconnect was closed
• PV string open circuit voltage measured and confirmed below the maximum at the coldest expected temperature
• Each array landed on its own tracker, with no arrays paralleled across trackers or units
• AC input phase relationship matches the configured output mode
• All terminals torqued to specification with a calibrated tool
• Terminal cover refitted and top vents clear
• Disconnects and overcurrent protection installed and labeled

Panel Settings

• Battery Type set to match the installed bank
• For a smart battery: BMS Protocol set, and BMS Status reading Monitoring or In Control
• For a BMS system: Fallback Settings reviewed and set, since they cannot be edited later while the BMS is talking
• Capacity set to the actual bank size in amp-hours
• Max Charge Current set at or below the battery vendor recommendation
• Output Priority and Charger Source Priority chosen for the site
• Output Voltage and Output Frequency confirmed against the loads
• Max AC Input Current set to the breaker size, or the generator rating where applicable
• Neutral bonding arrangement confirmed: bonded in the load panel, or input and output neutral on a common bus bar for an upstream bonded source. Exactly one bond in the system
• Phase Configuration set on every unit, consistently across a parallel group
• Wi-Fi joined and network time confirmed, if schedules will be used
• Beeper set to something other than Silent where the unit is unattended
• Panel and inverter firmware both up to date

Function Test

• Power-up sequence completed in order, with no alarms raised
• Live Data shows sensible values on every box: grid, load, battery, MPPT
• Loads transfer to the inverter when the AC input is opened, and back when it is restored
• Battery charges from the expected source for the chosen charge priority
• Alarms screen reads No active alarms
• Owner shown the Live Data screen, the Alarms screen, and how to shut the system down

Warranty

What Is Not Covered

• Damage caused by improper use, or by installation in an unsuitable location
• Damage from a solar array whose open circuit voltage exceeds the maximum allowed
• Operation outside the specified temperature range
• Damage from reversed battery or PV polarity
• Disassembly, modification or repair by anyone other than authorized service personnel
• Damage occurring during transport or handling after delivery
• Damage caused by failure to follow the installation and maintenance procedures in this manual