curiouscarbon
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Let’s build a bigger town
Sol-Ark Inverters 8 and 12K
- Thread starter Super Fly
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I have to know what's more simple than:
1. Buy a BMS that communicates via CAN
1.5. SolArk has a CAN interface
2. Connect the two together.
Seriously. How much more simple do you want?
curiouscarbon
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Perhaps an open source arduino sketch and a simple circuit diagram could be a valuable community resource?
A core question I have is: what specific types of messages on CAN bus are being used by SolArk to determine charge cutoff?
Packet traces of this happening with normally supported hardware could be helpful towards a basic charge cutoff DIY CAN Bus Messenger.
A core question I have is: what specific types of messages on CAN bus are being used by SolArk to determine charge cutoff?
Packet traces of this happening with normally supported hardware could be helpful towards a basic charge cutoff DIY CAN Bus Messenger.
That does look like a good starting point. It will definitely be a challenging project because the only reason I would start on that is if my BMS protocol does not successfully talk to the SolArk.@Haugen https://github.com/teachop/FlexCAN_Library
This is what I would start withTeensy 3.2 & 3.1: New Features
www.pjrc.com
Was thinking a simple circuit that receive multiple optoisolated charge enable/disable lines from N number BMS and output CANBus messages that convince the sol arc that it’s stop charge time
I am a Test hardware kind of guy, so the new world where software is used for everything is a real pain for me. I get the advantages, and I fully support things like CAN bus because the hardware alternative is terrible due to the limitations of physics. Huge hairballs of wire, voltage drops depending upon the gage and length of wire, Electromagnetic interference, and a host of other issues plague those solutions. Sensors living on a communication bus is elegant and simple.
I just want the software developers to test out their solutions and getvon the same page for the industry so that questions of protocol aren't left to the end user to figure out.
curiouscarbon
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I’m interested in DC PV and solark seems pretty good at that, so this sort of DIY battery communicator circuit is of interest to me.
Paying a premium for a fancy CAN bus enabled battery is unappealing to me. I prefer to parallel connect multiple DIY LFP packs and scale that with a well thought out disconnect scheme.
E.G. arduino reads battery good indicator from some generic BMS output pin 5v/12v logic high/low. multiply this times number of packs. if more than X% disconnect, just immediately disconnect the rest. a reader could probably think of more optimal disconnect strategies.
edit: that said, if anyone wants to suggest a great DIY BMS that supports the proper canbus protocol, that would be rad!
Paying a premium for a fancy CAN bus enabled battery is unappealing to me. I prefer to parallel connect multiple DIY LFP packs and scale that with a well thought out disconnect scheme.
E.G. arduino reads battery good indicator from some generic BMS output pin 5v/12v logic high/low. multiply this times number of packs. if more than X% disconnect, just immediately disconnect the rest. a reader could probably think of more optimal disconnect strategies.
edit: that said, if anyone wants to suggest a great DIY BMS that supports the proper canbus protocol, that would be rad!
SolArk won't send me their protocol.
They DID tell me several be ands that they have tested and found to work with their system. I have the protocol, but I don't know enough to compare my BMS protocol to the one that definitely works. I asked SolArk to do it, but they declined. I figure they are a fairly small outfit, they probably bought a solution.
The SolArk is the ECU and it mostly just listens on the CAN. The BMS is going to transmit messages about cell voltages, etc. I don't have the resources to go buy these other batteries and reverse engineer them.
I bought a $200 Heltec BMS for my SolArk system. It has CAN and RS485. I have to wait for my cells to arrive before I can power it up.
I'm hoping that is before my solar install, so I can leverage the expertise of the installer.
The Alibaba vendor sent me their CAN info, but most of it is in Chinese. I think there is enough English for someone who knows how to read the protocol to decipher it. I'm just not that guy.
curiouscarbon
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any resources on these protocols are welcome. i write firmware, so data sheets are readable. the overkillsolar bms has only uart, so for my case i will be writing arduino software to read https://github.com/FurTrader/OverkillSolarBMS/blob/master/JBD Protocol English version.pdf that stuff into data frames and log them for future failure mode diagnosis
anyways thank you for your input on the topic of CAN Bus with SolArk, it seems that standards are still frankly emerging for inter module communication for energy storage systems
anyways thank you for your input on the topic of CAN Bus with SolArk, it seems that standards are still frankly emerging for inter module communication for energy storage systems
Midnite solar,Victron,Samlex and probably some others allow for a voltage from the BMS to enable/disable Charging/inverting. Its signal if that input on any of those devices reads a voltage they charger or discharge if that voltage goes away they stop their respective job. There is no middleman necessary its a simple binary solution. on or off. All BMS thatI know of can be made to send a voltage or not without any external interface. The Chargery is designed this way and all other BMS can use the main full pack input/output to send this signal.
I think if you can write code for an arduino or other device that is great. I fortunately am able to as well. But most people cant or do not have the time to learn it. This is why I look for a solution that is not reliant of someone hacking together an intermediary device. I have done that rout and it works well for me but it is also not by any means "idiot proof" to use a phrase from the 80's
Thank you for making my point!!! Not everyone can easily create an interface. I wouldnt have a problem with Canbus or any other protoicol if there were an industry standard.
I learned that SolArk has proven the BMS from the following makers work with their system:
Pylontech
Dyness
Discover
Blue Ion and
Storz
Digging around, it must have been the JK BMS I had the protocol for and not the Heltec. I'll request it.
From my very quick search it looks like these are all battery systems? Not stand alone BMS
ArthurEld
Solar Wizard
I think there is a JK BMS that is exactly the same as the Heltec. I also saw some JK items on the Heltec site.
They might be related
I think Im realizing I do not have the money to compete with what you are looking at. All those systems look like they cost about 5x what a DIY EVE cell battery would cost.
BobH
New Member
@solardad mentioned on 2nd Life Storage forum that "Batrium can tailor communication protocol for a number of inverters so my hope is that one of those will work with the Sol-Ark (Sol-Ark mentions they support 'Sundraft v4' which I believe is open source based on SMA inverters which is one of the inverter profiles that you can select in the Batrium software)." - https://secondlifestorage.com/showthread.php?tid=9226&pid=68035#pid68035 Sooooo. it may be possible to use the Batrium ($$$!) BMS system and use the Sundraft v4 protocol to talk the the Sol-Ark, but no one has reported that working. If I ever pull the tirgger on a grid-tied residential system with battery backup, I'll be looking at Batirum as a contender for the BMS. Buy once, cry once (hopefully).
That is what I have stated previously.
The idea here is that @curiouscarbon is a firmware developer, and with this information they might be able to help us determine if a more DIY friendly solution will be able to communicate on the same bus.
curiouscarbon
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It’s annoying and less accessible to hack stuff together, when there’s a solution waiting right on the shelf. Budgets are budgets, and I personally want my money going towards good battery chemistry, not ambiguous nascent BMS protocol hell (ahem, opinion). There’s a low chance I might solve this for myself, and it seems others have need for a battery babelfish as well.
Open source is good, even if nobody makes the design because it’s DIY or challenging?
People get pretty philosophical, but it’s as simple as having a single “may i charge?” and a single “may i discharge?” ports on devices would make integration easier for end users. Requiring CAN Bus opens the CAN of worms of cards to the chest hidden protocol garbage.
Open source is good, even if nobody makes the design because it’s DIY or challenging?
People get pretty philosophical, but it’s as simple as having a single “may i charge?” and a single “may i discharge?” ports on devices would make integration easier for end users. Requiring CAN Bus opens the CAN of worms of cards to the chest hidden protocol garbage.
curiouscarbon
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basically yea i wanna have compatibility but absolutely no ecosystem lock in and no canbus protocol match premium. and i’m willing to do some DIY. and willing to share code and circuit designs if they happen.
(re)doing the job of industry people is silly, but to me it’s better than paying businesses to hide critical operational details from me. the standard is still emerging..
(re)doing the job of industry people is silly, but to me it’s better than paying businesses to hide critical operational details from me. the standard is still emerging..
Perfect description of what is needed!
Love the pun! ?
It is definitely unfortunate that we adventurous types end up having to push the design of some products to their natural end.
In a way we are helping decide which protocol is VHS and which one is Betamax. When we blaze the path through this wilderness and come back here to inform many others which product has the best compatibility, a lot of people who are only now considering solar will stand on our shoulders to use our research and information to drive the industry to a standardized format.
@BobH I heard from Sol-Ark and they suggested the following setting (Batrium Watchmon 4 to Sol-Ark 12k via CAN Bus) but it didn't work for me:
The pinout for the inverter's CAN port is CANH = pins 2 & 3, and CANL = pins 5 & 6. The inverter already has termination, so you shouldn't need to worry there. For the inverter to talk to the batteries in CAN bus mode, it needs to have "BMS Lithium Batt" enabled and set to "02".
I need to get back to my contact to see if they have other ideas. The problem is that both Batrium and Sol-Ark are not talking directly. At least Sol-Ark has been open to working with an end user is making this communication work.
On a related note I have been trying to sort out the monitoring data that the Sol-Ark produces and writes to the Powerview site, https://esem.cc/stations/management . The site is ok but the update frequency is crap, every 5mins. too slow especially now that I have the Batrium reporting via NodeRed to a Grafana dashboard:
Long story short the Sol-Ark is just a rebadged DEYE inverter with a few tweaks to the UI I think. The sister to the Sol-Ark is the SunSynk which is sold in South Africa and has a strong online following. I stumbled across a site where the users are able to read the inverter data directly. Just came across the info last night so I have not had a chance to dig in but I am excited to possibly be able to read / store / graph the inverter data REAL TIME like I did for the battery side.
https://powerforum.co.za/topic/6875-software-for-sunsynk-pylontech-combo/#comment-84896
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curiouscarbon
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I read that thread and got lost about the time MQTT and Grafana were mentioned. I know that's software speak, because its like Greek to me. I'm certainly impressed!
I have done some simple Arduino stuff on the NodeMCU, so I recognized the esp8266 part number.
It would take me quite a while to figure out how to set that up.
The best thing I saw was the CAN protocol for the SunSynk was posted. When I clicked it, it said that the attachment was not available. Did you happen to download it?
I read that thread and got lost about the time MQTT and Grafana were mentioned. I know that's software speak, because it's like Greek to me. I'm certainly impressed!
I have done some simple Arduino stuff on the NodeMCU, so I recognized the esp8266 part number.
It would take me quite a while to figure out how to set that up.
The best thing I saw was the CAN protocol for the SumSynk. When I clicked on the link, it was not available. Did you happen to download it?
fisherus
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Gentlemen, Gentlemen, It can easily be fixed with a lot more money, a little more ingenuity and a huge demand by the buyers but, unless these three things line up, work around what is available and make it work. My Sol-Ark 12k can only charge to a minimum of 63V but my batteries were made for 64.8V. By controlling the maximum cell amperage through my BMS, I am not going to be concerned about one cell. If the charging or inverter show any minor amp overflows or under flows, the Sol-Ark 12k will issue a warning and can be programmed to shut down. I am using DALY BMS'S I had DALY make and they seem to be doing what they are supposed to in the trial runs I have made.
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