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Connecting multiple epever controllers together?

off.the.grid

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Will one of these work?


I have an epever tracer 6420AN that connects to my main bank of panels and want to add the couple of existing banks of older panels to a pair of smaller epever models.
They only have one rj45 port on them so they can't be daisy chained.
I'm unsure how mixing different models together will work, but i don't want to have a bunch of extra wiring for seperate temperature sensors and wifi modules if this can be avoided, that would be great.
If I can have my 6420 as the master controller and then have the other 2 as slave units that can communicate, that's all I really need.
 
Never done it, but it looks like that that one will handle 1+2. The manual mentions a 6-way paralleling adapter (PAL-ADP-50AN) which may or may not be related to what you want us to do.

Please let us know what you find out.
 
Perhaps I misunderstand the question, but seems like you're just wanting to add additional charge capacity with additional charge controllers.
If so, you can connect independent charge controllers to your main bus in parallel without issue. Just know that voltage is affected by other charge sources, so you may need to adjust charge parameters accordingly.

AFAIK, Tracer SCC's don't communicate with each other. The data port is for programing and data output.
 
Never done it, but it looks like that that one will handle 1+2. The manual mentions a 6-way paralleling adapter (PAL-ADP-50AN) which may or may not be related to what you want us to do.

Please let us know what you find out.
TBH, im trying to make head and tail of it all myself.
Been looking at the datasheets here, but neither seems to show such a configuration, here is the datasheet for the product in the link i posted:
It looks like you can connect 2 master units and 2 slaves.
Im hoping I can connect 2 smaller epever controllers such as the 1206AN to this, using my 6420AN as the master controller along with my wifi module.
The parallel adapter you mention looks like they still need to be daisy chained together, perhaps I still need this alongside the other unit?
Basically I was hoping that that the unit I was looking at was like a "hub" that allowed all the controllers to communicate together, since I cant daisy chain them with them only using a single RS45 port
Here is the datasheet. https://www.epever.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/PAL-ADP-50AN-Manual-EN-V3.0.pdf
Im not entirely sure what this is ever needed for, as I thought the controllers were capable of doing this themselves.

Perhaps I misunderstand the question, but seems like you're just wanting to add additional charge capacity with additional charge controllers.
If so, you can connect independent charge controllers to your main bus in parallel without issue. Just know that voltage is affected by other charge sources, so you may need to adjust charge parameters accordingly.

AFAIK, Tracer SCC's don't communicate with each other. The data port is for programing and data output.
I thought they were designed to communicate together, hence why they can be daisy chained together and you need to set one as the master controller.
Ive been reading that you can have issued by just simply connecting several in parallel, and you need to adjust the voltages slightly so they are not exactly set to the same charge voltage, or else they shut off or thats how i understood it anyway.
I also wanted to reduce the complexity of it with several temperature probes and wifi modules to communicate with them all individually.
 
Will one of these work?


I have an epever tracer 6420AN that connects to my main bank of panels and want to add the couple of existing banks of older panels to a pair of smaller epever models.
They only have one rj45 port on them so they can't be daisy chained.
I'm unsure how mixing different models together will work, but i don't want to have a bunch of extra wiring for seperate temperature sensors and wifi modules if this can be avoided, that would be great.
If I can have my 6420 as the master controller and then have the other 2 as slave units that can communicate, that's all I really need.
there's no such thing as master / slave , all epever scc are slave device. What you have to do first is to assign an uniq id to each scc with solar station.

The rj45 port is a RS485 interface , you can connect them all together (on pins 4,5,8) as long as you assign to them a uniq id.

Then you have to build a custom cable for the scc with one interface or a breadboard with 3 rj45 female connector, you just have to connect all this pins with same number together.

pins 4 - RS485-A
pins 5 - RS485-B
pins 8 - GND

don't connect other pins



You should be able to connect your 6420AN and 2 other scc and a rs485-USB cable to your computer.


PAL-ADP-50AN has a limited list of supported device and won't allow you to achieve what you want.

You can't use a single BT or WIFI module to talk to all your device, but you can use a single usb-rs485 interface to talk to all of them.
 
there's no such thing as master / slave , all epever scc are slave device. What you have to do first is to assign an uniq id to each scc with solar station.

The rj45 port is a RS485 interface , you can connect them all together (on pins 4,5,8) as long as you assign to them a uniq id.

Then you have to build a custom cable for the scc with one interface or a breadboard with 3 rj45 female connector, you just have to connect all this pins with same number together.

pins 4 - RS485-A
pins 5 - RS485-B
pins 8 - GND

don't connect other pins



You should be able to connect your 6420AN and 2 other scc and a rs485-USB cable to your computer.


PAL-ADP-50AN has a limited list of supported device and won't allow you to achieve what you want.

You can't use a single BT or WIFI module to talk to all your device, but you can use a single usb-rs485 interface to talk to all of them.

if you don't want to build it yourself, you can also ask this vloger to sell you one of his board (see at 7:29) ;-)
 
there's no such thing as master / slave , all epever scc are slave device. What you have to do first is to assign an uniq id to each scc with solar station.

The rj45 port is a RS485 interface , you can connect them all together (on pins 4,5,8) as long as you assign to them a uniq id.

Then you have to build a custom cable for the scc with one interface or a breadboard with 3 rj45 female connector, you just have to connect all this pins with same number together.

pins 4 - RS485-A
pins 5 - RS485-B
pins 8 - GND

don't connect other pins



You should be able to connect your 6420AN and 2 other scc and a rs485-USB cable to your computer.


PAL-ADP-50AN has a limited list of supported device and won't allow you to achieve what you want.

You can't use a single BT or WIFI module to talk to all your device, but you can use a single usb-rs485 interface to talk to all of them.
Ok thats helpful. If I can't connect o er wifi, I guess it's no big deal. The main issue I was wanting to address was to get the main controller to share the data to others such as temperature from the probe.
Are there typically many issues having them in parallel if they cant communicate with each other?
 
Ok thats helpful. If I can't connect o er wifi, I guess it's no big deal. The main issue I was wanting to address was to get the main controller to share the data to others such as temperature from the probe.
Are there typically many issues having them in parallel if they cant communicate with each other?
if using lifePO4 temp prob it is useless, with this scc (temp prob don't work with this chemistry on this epever inverter) , any way your bms is taking care of it.

They are all slave device, there no main controller concept on this scc. There is no issue of having them in parallel. just be sure you stay under your battery max charge Amps.
Same setting on all your scc. They may not read the same voltage value from the battery and then not be in the same state every time, but its ok.
 
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I have used a 4210AN and 2210AN in parallel without any communication method, They pretty much always went into float around the same time even though the arrays for each controller were positioned differently.

Another thing I tried doing was setting the 2210AN to Boost for only 10mins, while the 4210AN was left to boost for 180mins, which also worked well.
 
if using lifePO4 temp prob it is useless, with this scc (temp prob don't work with this chemistry on this epever inverter) , any way your bms is taking care of it.

They are all slave device, there no main controller concept on this scc. There is no issue of having them in parallel. just be sure you stay under your battery max charge Amps.
Same setting on all your scc. They may not read the same voltage value from the battery and then not be in the same state every time, but its ok.
So they should be all OK if i set the battery settings all identical on all of them?
I use AGM batteries, so temperature is important, I guess if I need to have 3 separate probes, its no big deal.
 
No. Absolutely not.

Find something else to worry about ?.

Young Will in his RV can state this better than me :

All good, seems it should be OK then, I guess the only real benefit would be to grab all the charge data from the controllers so I can monitor it all over the internet on my app.
 
No. Absolutely not.

Find something else to worry about ?.

Young Will in his RV can state this better than me :

All good, seems it should be OK then, I guess the only real benefit would be to grab all the charge data from the controllers so I can monitor it all over the internet on my app.
 
So in summary two different same-model (6420 for example) Epever SCCs can be paralleled and administered by the PAL device but not be controlled by one unit; the device is ONLY intended to allow setting identical parameters for 2 or 3 devices with a single input session?

That seems a bit bizarre as I can’t imagine it would be a huge problem to write code for a peripheral device like that PAL, being that it’s connected to the ports that do let it interact with the devices and ‘see’ the saved data tables which should let it coordinate stacked/paralleled controllers. It’s not like nobody is stacking these controllers and desiring coordinated control and data.

So paralleled controllers with their PAL device has no practical purpose other than simplifying controllers according to my read of this thread and a couple others. Yet the manual linked above

PAL-ADP-50AN is a parallel adapter for adjusting the charging current of multiple controllers connected to the battery in parallel, which monitors the charging and operational status in real-time. The adapter automatically changes the controllers’ charging and operational status according to the battery level to prolong the controller lifetime

Which seems to me to say IT DOES dynamic charge control balancing. (and in my read of that disturbingly suggests that they apparently have a limited lifespan dependency related to kWh of charging?!!)
 
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