sunny boy and Tigo

[Ai4px]

I have two sunny boy inverters from 2017/2018 time frame. They both support rapid shutdown and I have Tigo TS4R-F modules. I'm testing with my panels leaned against the side of the house for now. I can select Rapid shutdown mode OFF/ON/TS4 shutdown. I selected TS4 shutdown mode and the inverters just stopped working. So I selected ON and they work again. Do they get feedback from the TS4 modules? Do they need to see at least one on a string? Is there a marrying procedure like with SolarEdge?

If I run in rapid shutdown ON mode, does the multifunction relay allow to pass 12v thru it to power the tigo modules? (external 12v from another power source of course!). If not, why even bother putting rapid shut down mode ON in this at all?

Anyone got any insights? I can't frigging wait a month for SMA support to answer a tech question.

 

[Ai4px]

Adding to this.... I just put the sunnyboy in TS4 mode with TS4R-F modules in the string and it didn't even activate them. I had another string that was making a few hundred volts and it wouldn't make power from that string. I turned on the TIGO exciter module and the string came on with 200v on it, but Sunny boy still didn't make power even with two strings @ >200v. I reset the rapid shutdown setting to simply ON and sunny boy started making power.
I really thought the sunnyboys had a TIGO exciter inside them.--- apparently they do NOT.

 

[Ai4px]

Sum of yesterday's learnings:
1) Sunnyboy 3.8 and 6.0 -40's will not turn on TIGO TS4R-F modules. You must use an external exciter.
2) DEVICE SETTINGS->rapid shutdown OFF/ON/TS4... OFF and ON make power from the strings, TS4 will not make power from ANY string with or without TS4 modules.
3) I am unsure if other TS4 modules will actually work with the SB's.

It would appear that on the sunny boy -40 units, the rapid shutdown is a half baked idea.

 

[Kuma]

Not sure if this helps. Their is a minimum and max RSD requirement per string. My 5.0-41 SB requires a min of 6 SMA RSD's. When other RSD's are used, that number may be more, or not. I cant remember, its been several months when I researched this, but I think "Tigo" required 7 RSD's? The SMA RSD output voltage is 1 vdc. I think Tigo is .7vdc. The inverter needs to see 6 volts min in the case of a -41 inverter and Sunspec.

I'd contact SMA and or Tigo. fwiw, SMA was responsive both times I contacted them last summer.

 

[Ai4px]

Thanks! I certainly only had four modules in play. So that’s interesting to experiment with next week!!