abd7

@Langeraat advised that there were a batch of shoto batteries with faulty BMS that would be replaced under warranty. Perhaps he can provide further input, maybe these are from that batch.

Gone

Gone

@PeterGuttidid you manage to get this sorted out and if so, how? Having a similar problem with new Axpert max II, the usb seems to be flaky, just stops comms to the pi (solar assistant). Restarting the pi doesn't solve it, neither does changing usb ports. Connecting another one of the inverters immediately brings up the comms, (but the inverter with BMS comms doesn't work if reconnected). The only thing that solves it is a complete restart of the inverter. This has happened a few times, sometimes lasts a month, sometimes a few days before comms cut off. Going to try the rs232 to usb cable and see if that sorts out the problem.

If the meter is one of the old ones, exporting to grid will work fine and the meter will turn in reverse. But as iiznh says some meters will turn forwards instead of reverse, charging you for exporting to grid. Just Check with his installer

No idea unfortunately

With one battery, manual says all dips down.

Try the latest solar assistant software update, it should have some updates for shoto batteries to process the data its recieving. Let us know if you get it to work, I no longer have shoto batteries so cannot provide feed back regarding this.

Good luck. Very finicky with comms

Perhaps it's your dip switches, check that they are 100% as per the manual based on how many batteries you have

The actual manual showed things wired slightly differently (1st image) , but contradicted itself further on in the second pic (shows pin 1,2, 8 connected, 8 must be ground then.

I used pierre (solar assistants) cable, which is wired as per this image Note, 7 is a duplicate and is skipped out

BTW I see solar assistant doesn't require 30/80 % voltage settings anymore on the emulated BMS option. Just asks for battery capacity and I'm sure it works it out automatically. Cool

Those settings seem fine and as per what my installer had set, those are set on the inverter When solar assistant is connected it will take over the back to grid / discharge etc based on the % SoC, so those settings won't affect day to day functionality, however if solar assistant device gets disconnected or something, it will still use those battery settings on the inverter.

Ps I can't remember what settings I eventually used as the 30/80 SoC, you can do some research regarding that

Hi If you get the comms working then you don't have to worry about any voltage settings on emulated BMS.. Emulated BMS is an option on solar assistant when there aren't any comms, so it does something called coulomb counting and estimates the % SoC. If there's communication then it won't need to do that, battery will tell it exactly what the SoC is.

PS with the shoto batteries we did eventually manage to get it to output some data, solar assistant at that time said 'invalid data recieved'. Then pierre did some coding updates to solar assistant, and apparently it should work now as he managed to decode the data recieved, but by then we had changed the batteries (for other reasons) and didn't get a chance to test it out. My suggestion is to follow your specific manual that came with your batteries, and set up the dip switches as stipulated, then you'll need the cable from solar assistant as well to connect the RS485 to usb.

The main reason as mentioned above is to read an accurate state of charge from the batteries, so that the inverter can switch back to grid at an accurate battery SoC, eg 20%. Without it your equipments' capabilities won't be maximised. Solar assistant will do this for you since direct comms with the inverter in this setup isn't supported.

AwPower https://www.awpower.co.za/ https://mybroadband.co.za/news/energy/441926-goodbye-eskom-the-true-cost-of-going-fully-off-grid.html

To prevent PCs restarting during the slight dip in power as the inverter switches between SUB etc, we have multiple small ups on our pcs. Say there's 10 of these. The input current rating on the sticker shows 10a each. That's 2.4kw each, 24kw just on the UPSs. Although the devices behind the upss are rated around 400w max. What would be a reasonable kw value to use in calculating loads for the inverters, obviously 24kw is way too much

Yes

Check this thread

Check the manual that came with your specific shoto batteries. Shoto dip switches are a bit different from other batteries. And different models differ from each other. Checking the manual is essential

https://solar-assistant.io/ Best investment i could make for our solar install. Excellent software.

Try carbonite classifieds, networking section