What generator works with SMA sunny island?

[callmeburton]

Will have to check if my small digital meter can do 240v but it can read current and voltage at 120 for sure. I suspect it can as I use to use it as part of my electric motorcycle charging circuit which had a 240v standard J plug input.

The generator mentions you can't change the voltage / frequency without adjusting manually the speed of the motor. I don't have a tachometer either to do this safely. But I do know where the screw is located to adjust this IIRC based on someone else's post in another forum with the same generator, but different issue.

Add to this the gen hasn't even "broken in" yet ... I think I am sitting at 3 hours of run time, break-in is 8hrs for this gen then I change oil out.

Going to run the gen a little today to charge batteries up ... heavy cloud cover today and we are at ~39% SOC according to JK (SI thinks we are 23% SOC :/ ... really wish this would sync closer to reality but hooking up the charger inline with the shunt would be a royal PITA right now so it is what it is)

The GN AI or AL (not sure which it is) Sns (sensitivity) setting is something I think I might play with if I can ... tried to change when gen was on and it didn't let me BUT the setting isn't present now with the gen off or with a manual start of the gen mode on the SI. Thinking of trying to set it to low but haven't found documentation explaining what it is sensing and how it might affect sync. It might only affect the SI knowing there is a Gen hooked up but that doesn't help as I have manual start enabled right now and it isn't connected to the grid.

My GnCurCtlMod is also stock at Droop, which seems counter to the regulation mode but the reg mode is only freq+cur or cur (current setting) so likely changing it wont help, and it isn't a CCCV device so ...

 

[callmeburton]

UPDATE:
Was looking at settings. Changed #234.07 GnStrMod to Manual from GenMan ... started generator and it "works" ... kinda ...
it seems to be taking on the loads only and not charging the batteries from inverter ... so ironically I plugged in the RSP2000 to the grid and the gen took up the load ...

This is "good" and "bad" I guess. It likely means I still need a stronger external charger but the gen would pick up the load.

Do I need to do "emergency charging" to get the inverter to charge from gen power?

Update to the Update:
Something left out of previous update. Actual SOC was 55% and SI said 23% so I recommissioned battery so it would be closer to reality before starting tests above ...

Tried something, SOC in SI indicated 90 with Full chargemode so decided to recommission battery to reset to 50%
Restarted, turned off solar input (AC coupled via SB), turned on gen without any extra load and it sync'ed no problem BUT still didn't charge battery.

So figured I would go change battery charge settings at least while I was there, Default was like 304 max charge amps so I changed to 90 ... and the gen sound changed, I went to meters and sure enough the SI is charging the batteries now at 6kw ... so no external charger required. Then I turned the solar AC line back on and it is still charging from gen so so far so good.

This Confirms the duromax XP13000HP connected via 14-50 should work with the SI with gen set to manual ... will try to gather all settings later.

 

[callmeburton]

Another oddity ...
It is sunny today which is great considering the clouds to come ... batteries were getting like 1amp but when I ran big loads the PV took up the loads no problem ... I changed the max battery amps from 90 to 89 to 90 again and now it is charging from solar ... what type of bug is this 0__0

 

[Hedges]

Were the batteries basically full? In which case, after bulk it drops to float?

But when you change settings it cycles again?

 

[Calvin98]

You don’t need a tachometer. Just a voltmeter and something that will measure frequency. A kilowatt plug-in wall meter will measure frequency. Many volt meters will also have a frequency setting. You just adjust the RPM of the generator to give you something like 62.5 Hz with no load. With a load, depending on how heavy it is, the generator will run just above 60 Hz. The frequency will change as the load decreases. Just adjust the RPM so that the heaviest load always stays a bit over 60 Hz. With no load, it will run a bit faster anyway so could be 62 1/2 Hz.

Not sure exactly what the problem is, but I just ran my 20 kW diesel with auto start for like six hours at a 15 kW load no problem. Charged the batteries from 20% to 100%. Everything worked fine. Asked the batteries were reaching 100% SOC, the current on the generator kept going down from 75 A down to like one or 2 A. I did notice that the RCV was one volt higher on the generator than it was on PV. That also let the batteries charge higher state of charge and let the balancing happen a bit longer than normal.

I also had an old Coleman 5000 W with manual start that I used several years ago. No problems. Start up the generator and then the Sunny Island would connect after a few minutes.

 

[callmeburton]

Were the batteries basically full? In which case, after bulk it drops to float?

But when you change settings it cycles again?

Charge mode was set to FULL and it had not reached the set voltage yet, not even close.

 

[bolek_bolek]

what type of bug is this 0__0

Maybe it's not a bug it's a feature...I think it's time to start looking for the service menu , won't be easy and may require some money for the password/code/etc...SMA hides the most important settings in there, it's called Installer menu and it requires installer password which may need devices S/N.

 

[callmeburton]

Maybe it's not a bug it's a feature...I think it's time to start looking for the service menu , won't be easy and may require some money for the password/code/etc...SMA hides the most important settings in there, it's called Installer menu and it requires installer password which may need devices S/N.

You mean hook it up to a laptop and log into it with the certified installer password? I have that for the SB but IDK if I did it for the SI's yet. Haven't had a need to hook them up in a very long time they just "work" ...

We will see the next sunny day I get when I look at the BMS and see lots of amps going into the battery or nothing at all ... if the latter then there is a problem as it didn't have this issue previously.

 

[kommando]

SI6048 and SI5048 just need the code outlined in the manual using the total on time to create the code. There are a further 4 Generations of SI which as the generations progress have more security in place. There is no single answer to the level of security in place until you specify the generation of the SI.