MightyDee

650W panels are on the menu now. Lower cost-per-Watt for hardware, cheaper/simpler installation, and significantly less roofspace required. Significant win.

I have reached out to Luxpower Tek China and they have confirmed that the SNA5000 can indeed pass through 17A per mppt with firmware update. Inverters not older than 2 years would be able to handle 17A. Attached e-mail received from Luxpower Tek China.
 

Hi Colleagues,
I saw a post on Luxpowertek SA Owners Support group on Facebook.
Apparently all inverters with Serial numbers starting from 133.. can support 17A per MPPT if updated with the latest 2E8089 update.
I got my update this morning, hopefully it will squeeze the extra 0.11A from my JA 550W pannels. That is, if the inverter was clipping the extra current since Luxpower SNA 5000 supports up until 13A by default. My panels have a current at max power (Imp) of 13.11A.
I have 3 panels facing 15 degrees North, another 3 facing 195 degrees South (Due to limited North and East space). The extra oomp will go a long way 🙂 if this is true.
 
 

If looking at Dyness remember you also get a 15 cell SVolt of 48V 5.09kWh a lot cheaper than the SVolt 5.43kWh.
Svolt has higher discharge as it is a 1C battery. 

But then if those Imp=13.11A can only provide 13A then the latest 17A will make no difference. Only if one can actually see the clipping it might add a bit. 
Thinking of 0.11A extra on a 6 panels string say at 300V is only 33W. A small cloud has a much larger affect than this 33W😃. I think most people have much more than this as unused PV power every day. 
Would it really matter if a battery is say charged to 100% 5min earlier at 10h00 than 10h05?

The main issue was the MPPT clipping at 13A causing overheating of the IGBTs and possible failure of the MPPT. The hardware was updated some time ago (after serial no 133....), but now with the software also updated is it not clipping at 13A. So now it can support larger panels / higher current panels.

Sure 33W is tiny, but this also means people can now support larger panels if true, say 600W or so. 
I am more concerned with affecting Warranty,  when panels produce more power than an inverter can handle. An MPPT freed from frequent clipping would also be a bonus.

Suggest you get the technical updated datasheet from Luxpower themselves first. That would be a bonus if indeed it is true

Hi there,
CAN- L52
RS485- L04, works similar to L52.
Had issues with L02- limits charge current to 5A.
I have given up running on LI BMS mode, voltage is set higher at 54 V on both bulk and float( SVolt recommends 52.5 V and 51 V) and this is what leads to the OVP warnings on the BMS. I have been on USER2 ever since with less hassles.

Hi there
Thanks for getting me in touch with the SVolt guy, he was of great assistance and I finally managed to sort out the 5A charge limitation issue. Got it working under CAN protocol and it's now sitting at 95A.
The voltage was automatically set to 54 v on both bulk and float, slightly higher than what he recommended. I will monitor how it goes and hopefully it'll behave😕

@JoeMobstarr28 I'd suggest you reach out to Svolt support as the BMS used in these Svolt batteries is a Pace BMS and it has various protocols which can be set on the BMS - the default is Pylon although there may be a better one to use with the Growatt inverter.
 
@MightyDee I have noticed a similar issue with my batteries (16 cell version), at times it's at 100% SoC with a pack voltage of around 54v and at other times its at 100% SoC with a pack voltage of high 55v (ie. 55.7v). I played around over the weekend to see if I can try pin point when or why this happens, at first I thought it was the primary battery which would end up with the lower pack voltage but that does not seem to be the case.
I know that the cell OV alarm is set to 3.60v and OVP is 3.70v, this is only released at 3.38v though.
The other thing which is a bit peculiar is that the pack fullcharge voltage is 56v which is not technically a 100% full 16 cell LiFePO4 pack.
 
I have reached out to Svolt support and I will need to pull the logs for them from the BMS for them to send to their offices overseas. We will see what happens, I am tempted to make some changes to the BMS settings myself but would prefer to keep the warranty in place at this point and fear the changes could lead to a void warranty.

That sounds very odd. In Li BMS mode the charge current is set by the battery and cannot be changed by the user, correct.
The fact that your battery sets it at 5A sounds like an error of some sort. Maybe a non compatible Protocol.
That battery is either a 0,5C or 1C battery, meaning the charge current should probably be auto set to 50A or 100A.
Rather ask Growatt why the charge current is set to 5A if they claim Battery-Inverter compatibility.

Suggest you try the following to see what the results are.
Disconnect the comms cable.
Go to USE mode, not US2, i.e. voltage control mode.
Now set all your paramaters manually to what the battery specs call for. Test in this mode and see if the results are any different.

 

I have a slightly different scenario. Same battery with a Growatt ES 5000 communicating via RS485. The maximum charge current  is set at 5A  and cannot be changed in LI mode and I am forced to go to USER2 mode. This allows me to change the current and voltage limits, however, despite the recommended settings, as soon as it reaches the fully charged state- the OVP warning on the battery is triggered. I have tried lower charge settings and the issue still persists. What I have noticed though, is that as soon as the reaches 100% charge, the inverter inexplicably displays higher voltage settings, slightly above the preset ones. So,  what I have done is , once the battery reaches the 99% mark, I quickly revert back to LI mode on the inverter to avoid the OVP warnings. I know this is not an ideal way of doing things, but my frustration is the less than ideal charge current setting limitation on the Growatt. I tried reaching out to Growatt and pointed out the issue to them and they simply responded by saying to just go with the USER2 setting. So, my thinking is that the OVP warnings are more on the inverter side than the battery itself- stand to be corrected though. 

Hi @Scorp007 That question was for @MightyDee hence the 15 cells .  I see that svolt battery has a screen , i assume thats how the cell voltages were obtained . 

The inverter is probably trying to detect the voltage of the battery pack via the terminals it is connected to. The BMS is trying to do the same, but obviously the two don't agree. 

Can you put a comms cable between the BMS and the inverter. This is what I have, and it means that the sort of discrepancies I refer to above can't happen: The BMS tells the inverter what it wants.

Thinking about it, this is the way it should be. With any other setup you risk a two versions of the truth scenario. 

I remember the installation of my battery. All the battery related settings on the inverter were set to default. The cable was plugged in and the BMS took over and set everything the way it wants it. 

Thats not an inverter issue its a battery /BMS issue. If you are hitting OVP at less than 55V you have a very unbalanced battery.What battery do you have ?

Alright cool, found some monitoring software PBMS, people from youtube are using this for connecting similar batteries to Growatt etc: https://shop.thesunpays.co.za/pages/technical-support
I will also look for an RJ45 - serial - USB cable.

Hi,
Did you use the CAN or RS485 communication ports? Check your User Manual, then try a standard RJ45 cable on the RS485 ports.
If the PIN's on the inverter and battery do not match, you may need to crimp a customised communication cable.
The next step would be to try out the Battery Brands on the inverter: try Standard or Polyntech maybe
I bought an NEnergy 3.8KW 48V 80A battery, the pin layouts on the RS485 port seems to match the RS485 pin layout on the Luxpower Eco Hybrid SNA 5000 inverter:
PIN 1: RS485 B
Pin 2: RS485 A
I am still waiting for an installer to get the Certificate of Compliance. Hopefully the communication will work outright!
 

If anyone needs the software PM me your email address so I can send it to you, I can't attach it here because it's larger than 3MB.
Also watch out for the N Energy batteries. I returned mine cause the batteries inside were 80 Ah instead of the advertised 100 Ah and one of the cells were leaking! Whereas the Ultra Energy cells were actually 120 Ah. I replaced the damaged BMS in the Ultra Energy with a JK BMS and linked it with Home Assistant. No issues at all.