Install and Operation of the SUNGOLD 10KW 48V SPLIT PHASE SOLAR INVERTER

[CaliSunHarvester]

So what is the resolution?

Just have them at different fake SOCs?

Or disassemble everything every 6 months and manually balance them to the top with a charger?

As I sometimes mention, I have this other 24V system with 3 batteries of 24V/200Ah each. They have 200A BMS, so they can deliver as much as a 48V/100A rack battery.

But I have 0 knowledge what's going in inside. As the 3 are hooked up in parallel, I have 0 knowledge of actual voltage, SOC, number of cycles etc.

I just saw this morning that the battery bank had 27.2V while under charge (which means I would measure 27V at the contacts), and I figured, "good, I can charge my Prius twice"

No knowledge, no worries!!

 

[Kenny_]

I'm far from an expert, but this is the dead of winter and I'm not totally reliant on my system though it is powering at least 50% of my home and the most critical things - internet, computers LOL! and the fridge and furnace etc. but my plan for now is to just keep an eye on things as I have for the past almost two weeks and see if the system will take care of itself....going to grid when the voltage hit's the bottom and then fully charge and switch back to battery at the appropriate time. ... at least that is the way I'd love to see it work. I hate babysitting it which is what I seemed to be doing constantly when I was in Closed Loop mode.

I'm not going to pay much attention to the SOC unless it gets vastly different, but I am going to watch the battery voltages and cell voltages and
If I see things getting 'out of hand' I'll step in and give the batteries a full charge from the grid (which is what I'm seeing makes a difference - they gotta get that full 100% +++ SOC to push the batteries to the top and allow the cells to balance (at least without active balancing in my case with the Pace BMS on the Sungold Batteries).

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

My situation is similar. I have 9 circuits on solar, using about 4kWh a day. On worst days I think I get 2kWh out of the pv. Best day so far (in January) 13.5kWh
With 25kWh storage and the inverter sucking 2.4kWh a day I can weather about a week of rain no problem.

I'm hesitant to move more circuits over right now, as I have no AC input. My main panel .. that's a different thread. In the "Safety Section".

In summer I will need to have a solution to utilize the extra kWhs. And have some grid-input for January 2025. Hopefully my main panel is replaced by then.

 

[Kenny_]

Yep. I understand / agree!

Mine is 6 circuits connected via a manual transfer switch.

 

[42OhmsPA]

SOC is not accurate at low currents... With multiple batteries in parallel the BMS won't read accurate when each pack sees low current due to the load being distributed.

Forgot about SOC.
Focus on Voltages.

I've changed BMS settings numerous times trying to get mine to read evenly...
The 200A BMS don't read current as low as the 300A...

Notice how the pack with the lowest voltage is the highest SOC...

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

SOC is not accurate at low currents... With multiple batteries in parallel the BMS won't read accurate when each pack sees low current due to the load being distributed.

for discharge, my load is usually under 1000W .. so under 20A for the bank or under 4A per battery. Is that considered "low"?

For charge, it gets as high as 3000W but most of the time, after satisfying load, it's maybe just 1000W as well.

I recall you talking about calibrating. But that can of worms.. I haven't opened it yet. Literally need to "open" a .RAR archive, IIRC.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

Would it be helpful for calibration of SOC numbers to fully discharge all batteries with "high amps" (car charger? many space heaters?) and then -- from grid -- fully charge them again with high amps again?


Sounds stressful for the battery, although I recall that faster charging is better for them than slower charging.

 

[42OhmsPA]

for discharge, my load is usually under 1000W .. so under 20A for the bank or under 4A per battery. Is that considered "low"?

I tend to have issues under 100W per BMS (we are using different brands).

For charge, it gets as high as 3000W but most of the time, after satisfying load, it's maybe just 1000W as well.

I see the biggest issues when it's cloudy most of the day and I'm pulling in about the same as I'm consuming.

I recall you talking about calibrating. But that can of worms.. I haven't opened it yet. Literally need to "open" a .RAR archive, IIRC.

Yea. I may try it or just buy a different BMS.

 

[Kenny_]

Would it be helpful for calibration of SOC numbers to fully discharge all batteries with "high amps" (car charger? many space heaters?) and then -- from grid -- fully charge them again with high amps again?


Sounds stressful for the battery, although I recall that faster charging is better for them than slower charging.

I don't know about high amps, but after I 'force charged' my 5 packs a couple of times in Dec/Jan they straightened right up particularly #5 which I swore was defective.

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

Guys,
I’ll tell you one thing that is very impressive about having one of these inverters on your main panel… it will tell you if something is not right with your power…

Long story short. My batts got low and it was dark out, I heard inverter switch to bypass… but a minute later I heard it switch back… weird.. kept doing it… before I blame inverter I start checking my utility panels… turns out one of the manual transfer switches in my Connecticut Electric MTS (this unit came with house and is quite old) had a half hung switch and created a bad open circuit, heating up a bit even

The inverter was detecting the frequency irregularity/resistance of utility power because of this faulty circuit bridging and didn’t like the power I think

I replaced the MTS switch and it’s working flawless again.. smartttt little unit! I like that, it led me to investigate and find a problem I might not have noticed otherwise

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

I’m running no comms and user mode. Things seem to be going ok. If you guys get a minute could you take a look at my batt params and see if it looks ok? It’s the penciled in values @42OhmsPA

 

[Kenny_]

Well yeah, but 05 breaks that relationship so not sure about that...

but mine don't match that either....

15 - 41.6
12 - 44
4 - 47.6
14 - 48
35 - 52.8
37 - 53.6
5 - 53.2
9 - 55.6
11 - 54.8

I'm far from convinced that relationship should be the standard.

 

[42OhmsPA]

I’m running no comms and user mode. Things seem to be going ok. If you guys get a minute could you take a look at my batt params and see if it looks ok? It’s the penciled in values @42OhmsPA

View attachment 191687View attachment 191686

Doesn't look to bad. I'd drop 05 a bit, unless you want a completely full charge and potential over voltage cell disconnects before switching back to grid.
I'd also drop the float a bit below bulk.

Glad to hear things are going OK.

 

[CaliSunHarvester]

I’m running no comms and user mode. Things seem to be going ok. If you guys get a minute could you take a look at my batt params and see if it looks ok? It’s the penciled in values @42OhmsPA

View attachment 191687View attachment 191686

[9] seems high. I lowered mine to 54.8

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

Thanks guys, yes im going to have to drop these numbers abit. Inverter thinks I’m getting low on juice and BMS showing I’ve got a 60% SOC. My voltages must be high, I tried to split the difference between @Kenny_ values and what the default BMS values were set to, but these are too high above the knee I think @42OhmsPA

 

[Crowz]

Thanks guys, yes im going to have to drop these numbers abit. Inverter thinks I’m getting low on juice and BMS showing I’ve got a 60% SOC. My voltages must be high, I tried to split the difference between @Kenny_ values and what the default BMS values were set to, but these are too high above the knee I think @42OhmsPA

Thats how I did the victron chargers settings for my 12volt array that runs the cameras and such. I watched the state of charge on the victron smart shunt and set the voltages on the victron charger to kick in at the point I wanted on the soc the shunt was showing.

The smart shunt and the victron charger on not connected directly because I have a pi running solar assistant monitoring it.

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

I caught some sort of problem when I reached “voltage point of battery switch to utility” 04 51.6

I never switched to utilities and instead threw fault code 12
SpiCommErr Master-slave SPI communication failure
@marionw


I’ve enabled BMS comms and returned to L16 settings, not sure why that happened

I am going to leave it alone and let it run, it’s been doing fine, this machine stresses me out when I mess with it too much

 

[Kenny_]

I caught some sort of problem when I reached “voltage point of battery switch to utility” 04 51.6

I never switched to utilities and instead threw fault code 12
SpiCommErr Master-slave SPI communication failure
@marionw
View attachment 191770

I’ve enabled BMS comms and returned to L16 settings, not sure why that happened

I am going to leave it alone and let it run, it’s been doing fine, this machine stresses me out when I mess with it too much

Hmm.... I've had that error happen a couple of times for no apparent reason. Boy do I know about it stressing you out!!
Mine has been running well since I went to User mode.

 

[42OhmsPA]

I caught some sort of problem when I reached “voltage point of battery switch to utility” 04 51.6

I never switched to utilities and instead threw fault code 12
SpiCommErr Master-slave SPI communication failure
@marionw
View attachment 191770

I’ve enabled BMS comms and returned to L16 settings, not sure why that happened

I am going to leave it alone and let it run, it’s been doing fine, this machine stresses me out when I mess with it too much

Interesting info. I will attempt to replicate.

I need this to work in case I'm not around to flip. Now that I think about it I don't know that I've ever let it flip automatically since realizing I could use SA.

 

[42OhmsPA]

Interesting info. I will attempt to replicate.

I need this to work in case I'm not around to flip. Now that I think about it I don't know that I've ever let it flip automatically since realizing I could use SA.

Knowing it works using SA to flip inputs you could create a rule / automation in SA to automatically flip.

 

[Kenny_]

Interesting info. I will attempt to replicate.

I need this to work in case I'm not around to flip. Now that I think about it I don't know that I've ever let it flip automatically since realizing I could use SA.

I'm still waiting for the first test of hitting bottom and going to grid and grid charging....

I do know it will go off grid when it is fully charged though I'm not certain about going off bypass...

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

Knowing it works using SA to flip inputs you could create a rule / automation in SA to automatically flip.

Oh wow interesting I’ve got to look more into this

 

[Lighthouse Beacon]

Knowing it works using SA to flip inputs you could create a rule / automation in SA to automatically flip.

You do this @42OhmsPA ?
This is exactly what I am wanting to do
https://solar-assistant.io/help/automation/table

 

[42OhmsPA]

You do this @42OhmsPA ?
This is exactly what I am wanting to do
https://solar-assistant.io/help/automation/table

Yes.

Works great for reducing charge current when charge is nearly full...

 

[Kenny_]

Nice sun yesterday. Can hardly wait for summer....