Sidewinder

@Markpower , Don't have your problem, 'cause I don't use either old or new Sunsynk apps any more. Too little info, data updates too slow, and not enough granularity/stats to make good decisions. Depending on your needs, these are some of your options: 1) Stay with Sunsynk Connect (or even the old one - even worse) - and live with what they give you (bear in mind this is a cloud service, so your data no longer belongs to you) 2) Use Solar Assistant - if you have mild OCD about what is going on in your system. Use this if you are not interested in Home Automation. It can interact with HA, but then you need another computer, hence option 3) that only needs 1 computer. A good solid option. I also like to support "Made in South Africa" 3) Use Home Assistant + smarthomeintegrations.co.za dongle - if you have acute OCD (like me!)😁. All the installation instructions/videos are available for the average person to install. The customization is endless. Also a proud South African product!. With options 2 & 3 you can still keep your dongle connected, and the cloud app will still function, but I would just remove it altogether, and only re-insert it to the inverter, in case you ever need to upgrade the software on the unit. (if it ain't broke, don't fix it). Option 2 & 3 ensures that your data never reaches the cloud, it's private and can't be sold. There are other options for 3) detailed here on PF, just search, but I found it the easiest to implement. I have used all 3 options. Option 1 for about a month after my installation, and it just frustrated me, like you. I used Option 2 for about 2 year, but also ran out of info, as SA, even though it gives you your Battery packs detail, it still lacks crucial info, like graphing of Battery Cell Voltages, and tracking Cell Delta Voltages, which is what you need to monitor in a battery pack. Now I'm on Option 3 for the last year, and loving it. If Option 2 is your poison, just a word of caution. The Raspberry Pi / etc. uses a SD card, which will wear out after about 3 years, rather replace the SD card with a SSD drive. Either way, just do regular backups.

Also, did you read https://powerforum.co.za/topic/13599-dyness-a48100-solar-assistant-config/ Here the solution was to go to SA Beta. A common mistake (i'm guilty as well) is to reset the battery every time you change the dip switches.

@JasonC , You may come right using the software mentioned in this post: https://powerforum.co.za/topic/12112-dyness-rs232-protocol-for-a48100/ In theory, you install this software on your PC, then use the SA cable plugged in the "COM" port of the master battery, configure the software according to what comm port the device manager has assigned when you plug the SA RS232 cable into the USB port. Hopefully you can then monitor the batteries in real time. If you keep the old one the Master, some info may be wrong/incomplete, as the slave with the newer F/W is probably sending more/additional info, that the Master does not know how to process/processes incorrectly, leading to incorrect data, but I'm just guessing here. I did a lot of research on BMS's and the ability of getting info into other system like Home Assistant, and hence my choice of batteries. Getting real time data into HA was a breeze, but that was 2 years ago, and people have made integrations/add-on's etc. for all sorts of batteries and inverters these days. Hence my reason for moving from SA to HA.

@Parrot , I'm more or less in a similar boat. Have 2 x 5kWh BLS's, and want to add another. I have a 24U cabinet for my 2 BSL's, so continuing with rack mounts seems the correct thing to do. I can fit 4 x 5kWh with 1U space between the batteries. However, when looking at the price per kWh, the bigger the battery, then better the unit costs go. 15kWh is cheaper per unit than 5kWh. As @Bobster. mentioned. If you 15kWh battery misbehaves, you are helpless. I=The installation, however is easier and less costly. Multiple Batteries is more effort and costly to install, but offers good redundancy. So each person need to decide what is important/their needs. Personally, I would first calc/decide what is the capacity required to run the house, then the config (single/multi) and then of course the budget. As battery prices have dropped considerable in the last couple of years, I am leaning towards another 5kWh unit.

PS, I only noticed now that your Solar Assistant cable is not plugged is to the master (or slave), so how does you SA setup get info from the batteries? Maybe you just had the SA cable unplugged whilst taking photos.

Hi @JasonC , Disclaimer: I'm not a Mecer/Dyness fundi, so take my comments with a pinch on salt, but hopefully it may take you into a positive direction. My Thoughts (and open too correction): 1) I read from the manual that the max charging voltage is 53.5V - that indicates to me that these Dyness Batteries are 15S, so your charging voltage is too high. You can see this that your highest cell voltage is 3.61V. Too close to the V cell max of 3.65V. These Voltronics (Mecer OEM) based Inverters are well known for there charging "overshoots". 2) The manual (only glanced through it), has a conflict in how to set up the dip switches. In the beginning of the manual, it states that (all) the slave battery must be 0000 (as your slave seem to be set at), yet where the parallel setup pictures are, it clearly shows 0010 for all the slaves. 3) Normal rule of adding newer batteries is as follows: a) Check firmware of old and new, and upgrade the old F/W to new. Haven't checked to see if there is F/W available on the net for these batteries. b) Make the newest battery the master. You can use the Solar Assistant battery cable plugged to your laptop to do this, once again, you will need the Dyness BMS monitoring software to do this. 4) the dip setting on the master = 0100, indicating you are talking to a "Axpert-king/VMIII/MAX, Growatt SPH/SPA(CAN comm), GMDE" via CAN @ 500k. Hopefully this is how your inverter is setup. There should be an indication on the LCD screen that the comms is OK. normally a "Li" symbol. 5) Before adding an additional battery, you need to ensure that the new and the old battery is at the same SOC level. Easiest to do that is by charging up the old, then disconnect it and replace it with the new one and charge it up to 100%, and then parallel them. Hopefully other can add/suggest alternative things/methods, as I don't have your setup, so I'm just going on gut feel and old experience. BR

👍

The quick answer in my mind would be as follows: East facing bias would mean nice early production, but after midday, it will drop off quicker that a pure north installation. West facing bias (as to your question), is the opposite. Will shift the power curve till after noon, (so poor(er than east) production in the morning). I have a separate string pointing west, so that we can extend our solar production for longer cooking with electricity, instead of using gas. See the attached graph. The blue part is the extra energy I get from having west facing panels. The rest are north facing.

True that... Any load that you currently have on the "Aux" port, could either be moved to "Essentials" side (and controlled via a Wifi Switch) or Move then to the "Non-Essectial" side, so they only work from Solar when Grid is available i.e. just before the CT-coil location. Then the "Aux" port is free to use as "In" port permanently for Genny, Micro Inverters, or even Wind power.

Hi @Johan_Steyn , I did exactly your inverter upgrade a few years ago, just with 5kVA Infini's VII's. Just follow the installation instruction to the T. Question's? Are both Infini's on the same firmware? If No, fix first. Have you set one Infini up as the Master, and the other one as the Slave? If No, fix first, as this step is quite tricky with the screen/buttons setup menu. Check you parallel & Current sharing cables are plugged in correctly? If No, fix first. Startup sequence. Do it according to the manual. Maybe there is something else I have missed, as it's been a couple of years ago I did this. PS, maybe add your City/Region on your signature, so potential installers/helpers can respond

@Sc00bs , I would like to know what the delta mV were on the unbalanced cells. Just for comparison to mine. I monitor all battery parameters directly, so that I know what goes on. I must say, so far my Bulls are also almost 4 years old, and going strong, but I have stayed away from sub 20% SOC levels. It does look like you are using HA, why not let it monitor your batteries?

Does that imply the Sunsynk battery mentioned has a PACE BMS inside?

@tsf , I recon, seeing that you are feeding into the grid @ 3286W average, that is the number programmed into you inverter for max wattage during feed-in. You can adjust it. 1) You panels will only generate as much as the load + Feed-in + Battery charge requires. In this case your battery is full, and your load seems low, hence the +- 4k PV limit. 2) However, the spike in load just before 15h00 would have increased the PV production (with a few second lag), which I don't see. So I would like to think/agree something is amiss, unless you are suffering with the good old winter "low solar PV production blues", like the rest of us.

No, SS, which is the same Hardware as a Deye, just with yellow screens, instead of blue one's.

Irrespective of the battery capacity, the 8kW will only take 128A max from the battery for 5 minutes before tripping, when the grid is unavailable, and no solar available (at night). That equates to 6800W of power, so roughly 3 large appliances simultaneous. But in mitigation, it's only happened once in 4 years, so I can live with that comfortably.

@Madone69 , The answer is in your requirements. I have a 8kW SS, with the whole house on UPS (Electric stove, washing machine, tumble drier, big air-fryer, microwave, 7kW HP (draws 3 kW), pool pump. And I get by with 10kW Battery. 4 in the family. You will become the power police😁, or else get HA automations to optimize HP & Pool and Inverter behavior. The only thing I would add is to max your panels. 8S2P at least.

Hi @concierge_at , Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt😁. Easiest solution is to get the Smartdeyedongle from smarthomeintegrations.co.za with the correct/appropriate software, and follow the instructions on Heinz's Github : https://github.com/tomatensaus/DeyeSolarDesktop Been running this dongle and HA for almost a year without problems, and there are many such installations.

@Dry_Reef , Not sure if I understand your "These I put in a 7/1 layout series parallel." statement correctly. Sounds like 7 x 600's in series in parallel with 1 x 600's. That is not a good match at all, as parallel strings must always match in Voltage. Would be nice to use the 330's in a string parallel with some 660's, but chances of matching the voltage of the 2 strings to within a few Volts are going to be tough. Here's what I think. If your roof layout allows it, an option is to try 4 string of 3 x 300's + 2 x 600's. Then all string voltages with match 100%. You will loose the extra Amps on the 600's, so also not ideal. Only problem you might have is a visual problem. I'm sure the 600's are a bit (+-10cm) longer and wider that your original 330's. Best bet would be to run 2 strings of 6 x 300's (6S2P) on one MPPT, and the put 8 x 600's (8SP1) on the second MPPT. Going 8SP1 will result in Voc = 47.7 x 8 = 381 V, without Temp Co-eff changes. You are still 69V below MPPT Vmax, so plenty of headroom for very cold winter mornings. I run a 2 x 8P2S x 365's on my 8.8, and Amps rarely go over 17A (& 350V) - per MPPT. (18.5A with cloud edge effect). Well below the 22A current limit. Spec on these 365's are Isc = 9A. Note to self: As my 8.8 is one of the early models with 18A max. MPPT's, I have upgraded the FW a year ago or so for the 22A capability, but have no means of getting to test if the HW can indeed run to 22A. I've seen 451V on 10 x 550's, but that's on a Deye 12kW 3PH, which has got higher voltage MPPT's than the 8.8

@ibiza , The photo you've posted gets a bit blurred when one zoom's in. The following comes to mind: 1) The Isolators seem to be AC ones. You should not mix AC & DC. 2) To terminate cables, one should use ferrules. 3) Fuses. Please include those as well (or are they located in another DB) 4) Same with SPD's. General: The DB seems too small to house a 6 into 2 PV system. - Unless you have the real protection elsewhere. Here is what a typical 2 into 1 PV system could look like.

Mmmm.. 90mW difference by itself shouldn't shut down a battery. Can't remember if the BMS has a specific Alarm/Shutdown for Diff Voltage parameter, more likely that cell 8's Cell Voltage has gone down below the UCV (Under Cell Voltage) limit, and triggers a shutdown.

@Francois Taljaard , Isn't a Genny supposed to be connected via the AUX port? That's what I thought it can be used for. Other than driving Loads via settings. Just read up about the settings.

@JFDosReis , Irrespective of make and model of Inverter/PV/Battery, just make sure you leave enough space to expand the system (not necessary the Inverter - too costly), but space for additional batteries & PV - specially the cabling & protection side. E.g. seeing that most Inverters these days have 2 MPPT's, install the protection etc for a 2 string setup, so you can just add the remaining infrastructure later, without have to forklift the protection box, if it does not have space for a 2nd string.

@openmind , Just be careful regarding serial batteries. Most of the standard batteries can't be serialized, only parallel. The only make that I've come across so far that can do both is the Weco ones. There may well be others. Most HV stacks that I've seen (Deye) has a "controller hub" thingy on top.

The 12kW 3ph units can actually accomodate 3 strings, even though it only has 2 MPPT's. One just need to make sure that the 2 strings in parallel is in the same direction. Depending on how many kW (and units) of battery you are installing, HV may be a much easier install.

For fear of hijacking, let me get rid of my OCD 😃 As I did not read the tread when it started, I only stumbled across it now, due to the recent activity. I'm sure the original problem of differential SOC's have been dealt with OK. However, when looking at the Battery Cabling Picture, my little brain doesn't agree so lekka... I recon the cables from the battery to Busbar and the cables between Busbar and Inverters are the wrong way round. Think of it this way. Not sure what C rating the Revov is, but let's say it's between 0.5 - 1.0. So each Battery can deliver 50-100A. That's 200-400A !! Pushing that (even 200A) through a 35mm2 cable.😬 Conversely, from the Busbar, the same 200-400A is now split between the 2 inverters. That's 100-200A per inverter, so those cables could be half the size of the cable between batteries and Busbar. (i.e 35mm2). I recon the Battery to Busbar cable should be 70mm2, in order to make things safe(r). Or is my OCD getting the better of me? What say the experts?