Communications between Sol-Ark 15k and EG4 Communications Panel

[Sennen]

Just prefacing this with: I searched extensively for the answers I needed, but couldn't find them due to weak google-fu, or it just not being available information. I have a newly installed Sol-Ark 15K on my house that was converted from an Enphase microinverter system as Enphase is super proud of their batteries. Ended up going with the LifePower4 EG4 batteries because the LL2 were out of stock when I pulled the trigger.

The Problem: As the 6x EG4 LifePower4 batteries that were connected to the EG4 Communications Panel and then Sol-ark 15K neared 100%, the PV input would get mysteriously limited and start bouncing around until the batteries reached fully charged. (All reference pictures are days with no cloud cover)

After trying a bunch of settings including telling the Sol-Ark not to communicate and setting battery parameters manually (didn't like that, wasn't accurate and seemed to defeat the purpose of having comms, though it ended up behaving better) I started tinkering with settings on the comms panel. Initially, the comms panel had charge voltage set to 57.6. I lowered this to the 56.4 called for in the battery specification. This yielded the below curves
The Solution: (At least the solution I found after research) Updating the charge voltage on the communications panel to 55.7 altered the behavior to be as expected. After the 'average' hit 99.5ish%, the inverter reduced power heading to the batteries and put it into the grid and has slowly brought up each battery to 100%. (A couple are at 99.7, will see if adjusting this 55.7 up to 55.8 or 55.9 resolves this on another sunny day)



And a question for the EG4 folks. Can we get an update to the communications hub to set absorb and float voltage separately? Only having the one entry point tells Sol-Ark that all 3 are the same.

 

[upnorthandpersonal]

And a question for the EG4 folks. Can we get an update to the communications hub to set absorb and float voltage separately? Only having the one entry point tells Sol-Ark that all 3 are the same.

@SignatureSolarJames @Markus_EG4 ^

 

[Sennen]

A few weeks have passed. I tested 55.8 and 55.9 and that caused the same limitation from the Sol-Ark. I ended up adjusting to 55.6. Right now, the batteries are nearly all full.

Debugging for a while and looking at the situation while the event was occurring showed that while the batteries weren't reporting 100% full individually, the CHMOS was OFF for all batteries. The Sol-Ark was attempting to push power, the batteries weren't accepting.

 

[robby]

Most companies won't have regular Customer Service running until 2nd Jan.
I would recommend you back off the charge voltages to 54.5V max for regular charging.
Also chasing 100% SOC is kind of a waste of time. Getting to 98% is pretty much the same thing without the added stress to the batteries.

 

[shortman]

Most companies won't have regular Customer Service running until 2nd Jan.
I would recommend you back off the charge voltages to 54.5V max for regular charging.
Also chasing 100% SOC is kind of a waste of time. Getting to 98% is pretty much the same thing without the added stress to the batteries.

I partially disagree because the battery's BMS will never recalibrate which happens at 100% and 0% SOC so I would caution you to what for SOC drift.

 

[robby]

I partially disagree because the battery's BMS will never recalibrate which happens at 100% and 0% SOC so I would caution you to what for SOC drift.

True, I was assuming that they are calibrated already and it's just daily charging.
Even if I go up to 55V the batteries will be at 100% but as soon as they are left to settle down for 30 minutes the SOC will drop to 99-98% @53.3V. That 1-2% is like Vapor in the Tanks.
I stopped chasing that 100% goal a long time ago unless the packs need recalibrating.
The Fortress batteries have no problem getting to 100% at 54V but the EG4LL needs to be charged to a higher voltage to hit 100%. It's kind of crazy the way the BMS behaves even when it's calibrated.
It will be reading 95% and then just 30 seconds of additional charging and it flips to 100%.
The eFlex batteries go up in a steady increment of time even from 98% to 100%. It's an Active balancer vs Passive balancer behavior.

 

[Sennen]

Final update; Had to change the voltage on the communication hub to 55.6 as the chmos was shutting off at 55.7 and the sol-ark was still trying to send current. Been running smooth now for a couple weeks. As I'm in Texas and it's below freezing, I've temporarily set the batteries to remain at full charge in standby (turned off tou), but will adjust this back to its normal Time of Use settings after we're above freezing.

 

[shortman]

Final update; Had to change the voltage on the communication hub to 55.6 as the chmos was shutting off at 55.7 and the sol-ark was still trying to send current. Been running smooth now for a couple weeks. As I'm in Texas and it's below freezing, I've temporarily set the batteries to remain at full charge in standby (turned off tou), but will adjust this back to its normal Time of Use settings after we're above freezing.

A new EG4 CommHub firmware was just published which might help your original problem if you want to run closed loop through the CommHub on the SolArk.

 

[jarred125]

A new EG4 CommHub firmware was just published which might help your original problem if you want to run closed loop through the CommHub on the SolArk.

Good to hear, I haven't updated any of my batteries or the control panel since purchase ... I am in line to do it I guess.

 

[dkyork]

Just an update on my 18 eg4 batteries through the comm hub to the solark. My comm hub defaults to 57.6v for all charging categories. All batteries stay pretty much at 99% idle, with the solark 15k drawing 100w idle.

I still would like to get the comm hub to feed individual battery Socs to the solark or to my SA somehow, without manually hooking my SA to the batteries directly. I have 18 batteries, so there's not enough unique settings to read all my batteries in SA. Some batteries overlap on dip switch settings. Especially when I buy another rack of 6.

Let me know if you can get individual battery socs from comm hub to solark?

Thanks,

Dale

 

[Sennen]

Short version, you can't

 

[niccolosartor]

@Sennen Super helpful and detailed post - thanks. Can you tell us how you programmed the Sol-Ark settings? What "Battery type" did you choose and what boxes did you check ( you click BMS Lithium Batt you get an option to choose batt type 00 through 06)

 

[Sennen]

First time I'd gone into settings on the unit itself

 

[niccolosartor]

First time I'd gone into settings on the unit itself

Thanks. That's what I had it set at and it seemed happy.

 

[solarmyk3]

First time I'd gone into settings on the unit itself

Can you look at the settings in PV pro? I keep getting a DV overvoltage fault with these settings..

 

[Sennen]

DC overvoltage? Is it a single unit faulting or random units? Might need to let that unit balance itself.

 

[Sennen]

PV Pro is offline for me. Flaky since last 2 updates.

 

[solarmyk3]

I think my batteries were just overcharged yesterday.. They drained over night and now everything is looking more better..