Solar Assistant and EG4 Batteries

[medic149]

I just got off the phone with signature solar tech support who just wanted me to know that solar assistant has been shown to have issues with the eg4 batteries and burning out the BMS circuit boards.

Has anyone else heard of this or had this issue happen to them?

I did find the thread below and was wondering if this correlates to the issue between solar system and the eg4 batteries.
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/solar-assistant-power-backfeed-from-eg4.69755/

I would hate to get rid of my solar assistant especially since it took me so long to finally get it to work correctly with the multiple batteries but if it's going to damage the BMS in the batteries I'll get rid of it immediately.

 

[wildbillpdx]

Signature Solar HATES Solar Assistant:

Solar Assistant (Possibly) Voids Warranty on EG4 Inverters?

I just received this from EG4/Signature Solar support: "I'm glad to see the system is running again, although I would personally not advise using Solar-Assistant as it will burn up the communication card of EG4 inverters. It sends an additional 32V back into the port it's connected to. Also it...

diysolarforum.com

Signature Solar refuses to honor a warranty for a defective product! (And Solar Assistant Discussion)

So I buy an EG4 3000 after watching a lot of Will's reviews. I buy it from Signature Solar since of Will's discussion and reviews of them. Not a great company but not a bad company and clearly not a company who's willing to screw people over. They're a US based company after all. WELL I was...

diysolarforum.com

 

[dmkjr]

I just got off the phone with signature solar tech support who just wanted me to know that solar assistant has been shown to have issues with the eg4 batteries and burning out the BMS circuit boards.

Has anyone else heard of this or had this issue happen to them?

I did find the thread below and was wondering if this correlates to the issue between solar system and the eg4 batteries.
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/solar-assistant-power-backfeed-from-eg4.69755/

I would hate to get rid of my solar assistant especially since it took me so long to finally get it to work correctly with the multiple batteries but if it's going to damage the BMS in the batteries I'll get rid of it immediately.

They have been known to say random things about Solar Assistant. If you aren’t backfeeding power to the BMS, not sure how that is possible.

Secondly, I would think if they just upsold their communications hub that would be sufficient for them. You wouldn’t directly communicate to the batteries.

 

[wildbillpdx]

Sadly, using the communications hub solves nothing. You still have to choose between inverter or SA communication. You can't do both, to the best of my knowledge. To work with the hub, the first battery needs to set the DIP switch to 1, which changes the communication protocol and doesn't work with SA. To work with SA, the battery IDs need to start at 2 which doesn't seem to work with the hub.

 

[Crowz]

I just got off the phone with signature solar tech support who just wanted me to know that solar assistant has been shown to have issues with the eg4 batteries and burning out the BMS circuit boards.

Has anyone else heard of this or had this issue happen to them?

I did find the thread below and was wondering if this correlates to the issue between solar system and the eg4 batteries.
https://diysolarforum.com/threads/solar-assistant-power-backfeed-from-eg4.69755/

I would hate to get rid of my solar assistant especially since it took me so long to finally get it to work correctly with the multiple batteries but if it's going to damage the BMS in the batteries I'll get rid of it immediately.

OMG they need to get over their SA hate.

Since solar assistant is software and not hardware and doesn't "control" the bms what so ever so it can't burn up anything or do anything at all to the batteries.

Last we heard they were telling customers it fried inverters now its batteries.

I guess next it will transform like a transformer from the movies and sneak outside and cut the base off their solar panel mounts.....

Heck maybe they will get lucky and it write better firmware to prevent backfeeding to the grid for their customers !

 

[dmkjr]

Sadly, using the communications hub solves nothing. You still have to choose between inverter or SA communication. You can't do both, to the best of my knowledge. To work with the hub, the first battery needs to set the DIP switch to 1, which changes the communication protocol and doesn't work with SA. To work with SA, the battery IDs need to start at 2 which doesn't seem to work with the hub.

You may be right about it not working but my battery stack does not start at 2. It starts at off off off off or “zero” and works with SA just fine. I was going to try and split the signal to see if I could get Comm hub working with SA. Comm hub when received wouldn’t work but now I see the bad rate was not correct out of the box.

 

[wildbillpdx]

You may be right about it not working but my battery stack does not start at 2. It starts at off off off off or “zero” and works with SA just fine. I was going to try and split the signal to see if I could get Comm hub working with SA. Comm hub when received wouldn’t work but now I see the bad rate was not correct out of the box.

Yes, direct communication between the batteries and SA can start at 0000, but not via the hub. The hub needs 0001 for the first battery which won't work with SA. The hub baud rate needs to be reconfigured to 19200.

 

[dmkjr]

Yes, direct communication between the batteries and SA can start at 0000, but not via the hub. The hub needs 0001 for the first battery which won't work with SA. The hub baud rate needs to be reconfigured to 19200.

I have 6 batteries today with the comm hub but won’t need it too much longer. Ordered 6 280ah battery kits from Jenny to build my own. Need more capacity and much cheaper this way.

Luckily I have friends that are taking the 6 batteries off my hands.

 

[bones1]

Who is Jenny?.

 

[dmkjr]

Who is Jenny?.

Docan battery rep. Most of us order our cells from her.

 

[bones1]

Thank You. I'll take a look.

 

[dmkjr]

Thank You. I'll take a look.

jennywu896@gmail.com

That is the reps email.

 

[medic149]

I was actually able to get Solar Assistant to work fine with the new battery.

It now shows all 3 battery packs and no issues......so far lol

I had to set the new v2 battery dip switches to #2. Second v1 batter dip to #3. Third v1 battery to dip #4.
Connected to SA first try.

 

[dmkjr]

I was actually able to get Solar Assistant to work fine with the new battery.

It now shows all 3 battery packs and no issues......so far lol

I had to set the new v2 battery dip switches to #2. Second v1 batter dip to #3. Third v1 battery to dip #4.
Connected to SA first try.

When you say shows all three battery packs in SA, what do you mean? I don’t see but the batteries as a total.

 

[medic149]

When you say shows all three battery packs in SA, what do you mean? I don’t see but the batteries as a total.

 

[dmkjr]

View attachment 174626

View attachment 174627

Ahh, hold on. What kind of inverter do you have? Is your inverter seeing the batteries as well? My inverter sees the batteries.

 

[wildbillpdx]

Ahh, hold on. What kind of inverter do you have? Is your inverter seeing the batteries as well? My inverter sees the batteries.

SA connected directly to the batteries with no battery/inverter communication. Separate cables to inverter and first battery. Inverter setup to User defined as batteries type.

 

[Kenny_]

View attachment 174626

View attachment 174627

Interesting. I just got Solar Assistant as well as a second battery running and connected to my new SunGold 10K48...and I'm not seeing but one? battery.... you think I need to change the switches to 2 and 3 instead of 1 and 2?

 

[medic149]

Interesting. I just got Solar Assistant as well as a second battery running and connected to my new SunGold 10K48...and I'm not seeing but one? battery.... you think I need to change the switches to 2 and 3 instead of 1 and 2?

I would try changing the DIP switches. The one closes to the inverter set at "2". Then next 3, then 4 and so forth.

 

[marionw]

EG4 LifePower4 batteries actually have two RS485 (modbus) serial busses (as well as a CAN bus).
Pins 1 and 2 (orange/white and orange) form one bus.
Pins 7 & 8 (brown/white and brown) form the second bus.

If using the EG4 Communications hub:
The hub polls the batteries on pins 7 and 8. Any other communications on these pins such as to SA will generally fail due to traffic congestion on the bus. SA will work fine if you use pins 1 and 2.

If using one EG4 Battery set to Address 0 (all dip switches down):
This places the BMS in host (or master) mode. The BMS polls the other batteries on pins 7 and 8. Any other communications on these pins such as to SA or the inverter will generally fail due to traffic congestion on the bus. SA and/or the inverter will work fine if you use pins 1 and 2. The inverter must support the EG4 BMS (Narada) communications protocol. SA does support this protocol, SunGoldPower does not.

I have six batteries in a rack. Battery addresses are 1 thru 6.

I am using an EG4 communications hub between the battery stack and a SunGoldPower 10kw inverter as the inverter does not support the BMS (Narada) communications protocol.communications protocol.
Most inverters want to see 0x46 as the device code in the communication data and EG4 uses 0x4A. There are several other differences in the data as well. The hub solves these issues.

I have the Wifi RJ45 port on the inverter pins 7 and 8 (ensure pins 1 and 2 are cut/not connected as they have 5vdc and ground for the dongle power) into an USB to RS485 converter plugged into one SA usb port.
I have one RJ45 port on the bottom battery in the stack using pins 1 and 2 into an USB to RS485 converter plugged into one SA usb port.

I use two USB to RS485 converters. I have cat5 cables (pre-made commercial) in which I have cut off the RJ45 connector on one end, stripped back the insulation and connected the required two wires (orange/white and orange or brown/white and brown). I use short USB cables from the converters to SA for my use as the SA ports are to close for two converters as I use one port for a 10 inch touch screen display.

SA shows all six batteries and also shows all inverter stats including the SOC as reported by the hud to the inverter.
The hub also lets the inverter know what the bulk charge voltage is and this is settable on the hub as "Max Charge Voltage". The "Max Charge Current" can also be set at the hub.