That is a valid point I was trying to think of a way to run a bus bar up and down all the terminals it would block some of the ports and would be covered by heat shrink but that would be the easiest way to do it. May even put a bend where it gets closer during the terminals but then bends away a little bit.
The interesting thing is; EW provides a much heavy (larger gauge) cable for the battery to battery connections than most other server rack batteries. CyccleVolt provides a bus bar for the battery to battery connection and I am willing to bet both exceed the current capability of the "internal" bus bar. Most other server rack batteries provide a 4awg battery to battery cable (rated for 100 amps) that when installed in a stack without a bus bar, the capability of the cable can be the cause of a catastrophic failure.
It looks like this is the new version of the batteries with the handles on or closer to the ears. The rack looks like the 4-battery rack still no bus bar or doors. Should not be too $$$.
2 AWG cables are adequate and not overkill. I am using the 2AWG cables, and when charging my car (at 240V/32A), it draws around 163 A from the 6 batteries, and the top two red and bottom two white cables do get very warm (probably over 100F in around 55F environment). I have them running upstream into a 2/0 AWG cable, which still gets pretty warm.
I have been considering this too. On the negative side there should not be any interference with the busbar, the breakers are fairly shallow. On the positive side, I am wondering if it is possible to find or fabricate some thick copper washers (1/4" or so) that lift the bar up.
I was considering this also but it would be nice to remove one battery if you had too. What if the buss bar was two runs of red and two of black 2 AWG. Have their size cut better and put it on both terminals. Since we double the quantity we could go down to 4 awg.
If you have one "Master" and all your batteries are addressed 1 thru xxx and all are connected by cat5 via the battery to battery RJ45 jacks then hopefully you can connect SA to the Master RS232, set SA as I indicated above and SA will see all of your metric butt ton of batteries.
I haven't tried it since downloading the new SA software. I guess I could do that. I have 2 strings of the rack batteries and the 4 280ah strings with the JK BMSs which are closed loop with the 18kpv. The other inverters are open loop but handle 1/3 of total PV charge power and one of them runs the conventional water heater, the other is for EV charger. I could connect SA to any one of 3 battery strings (maybe both jbd strings at the same time) or the Smart Shunt. I have the serial cables already.
What happens if you connect multiple Masters and select them under JBD RS45
Won't work if you are using the RS232 jack. You are limited to 15 (might be 16 but address 0 is not used so...) batteries connected via the cat5 battery to battery jacks. The EW Software connected to the Master (using the RS232 jack) should see all batteries as will SA.
I did the RS485 master one right after Bill announced it. It is back a few pages on the thread. Works like a champ.
Do you still need an RS485 to USB (or the four port one) for each battery?
Ok, I just tried it and not as I remember it.
How many connections for each of those options you identified.
Each Rack has it's own RS485. Master connects to slaves via right connectors. I took of the RS232 and put it on the beast.
I use the EW software ( ES-UP-V1.22.16) on rs485-1 of the master to see all the batteries in the string from the master (one at a time). That has always worked for me. If I remember correctly, it worked with rs232 on the v1 battery that I installed the cable in as well. SA was the only problem for me. If they could add support for multiple BMS brands to be read sequentially, I would be more interested in going back to looking at all 21 of them in SA. I have the 7 new JBD BMSs that EW sent me, so I could swap out the JKs. They use the same sense leads now. I hate to go down to a 100a bms on those big cells though. I like the 2amp balancer for them too.
If you connect the EW software to the Master Battery using the RS232 jack on the Master (no other connections or converters to your computer), the EW software will scan the batteries and turn each of the numbered buttons to Green when it finds the battery. All you have to do is click the numbered button to view the battery. SA, if connected to the master via the RS232 (only one connection) will individually show all batteries as well.
Are you using 1 RS232 connection on the Master Battery?
I agree. I would like to see busbar capable rack to handle 6 batteries. I have the 4 rack and side mounted 2 signature Solar bus bars to each side until the 6 battery rack is available. Still testing the communication to SA. Just downloaded the new SA 3-14-2025 version. @BarracudaBob - Did you use a RS485 to USB from the Master 485-1 port straight to SA Pi with JBD RS485 as your battery setting?
I have an RS45 going to each battery. But I did test the R's 232 and it works from just the master. I also had the VATRER battery connected through USB and it's JBD so I can configurations pretty wild.
