TjObie

Thanks Coulumb... having the mppt board replaced this week...

I installed a 5kw Synapse (Axpert) inverter yesterday and now have a very strange issue with the pv panels. System is 5kW Synapse with 1 X 5.3 Weco Battery 48v and 8 X 545w panels wired 4P2S The system works fine except solar feed acting strange. Panel Voc is 90volt and when i switch the pv dc breaker on, then as soon as the inverter connect pv, the pv voltage drops to 50v (Battery volts) and 3/4 seconds later the pv cuts off on the inverter. 10 seconds later the cycle starts again...pv connect and voltage drops from 90 to 50 and after a short time cuts out.This happens at early morning as soon as sun comes up with just about no pv current only supplying 20watts as well as at full sun with pv at over 10 amps - 2000 odd watts. I suspect the drop to 50v causes the inverter to kick out due to low operations Volts (60-110v) and restarts at 90v after reset.? What baffles me is that it is not current dependent and i have tested with panels diretly connected to inverter. Can this be a faulty inverter?

Sorry for late reply... I have 3 installations with the batteries and solar performing as expected... their cable info and setup instructions is good so no prblems there... can read the batteries with their app and USB serial cable... i just wishing could get the protocols so that onecan integrate with icc, etc

Has anybody used this combinations? I cannot get the Inverter and battery to work - communicate BMS and have to run the inverter on the User settings and not Pylon?. I'm not sure if the RCT uses the RS485 or Can protocol ? as the standard RS485 pins 8 & 7 on battery and 3 & 5 on inverter don't seem to work? Any help will be appreciated

Does anybody have the Weco Battery protocols for reading on the RS232 port? I have a couple of installations now with Weco batteries and RCT inverters. I can use their battery monitor software but would like to read my own readings if possible. I tried contacting Weco directly but they don't seem to be interested to help

Hi Not sure if this still relevant... if you interested... I just connected a 8kw RCT inverter and 2 Weco 5k3 batteries and it is working fine...

I don't know if this has been posted here before but I noticed that once I connected and registered my Axpert MAX wifi and I can access it on watch power, it is also registered and data is captured on a website http://shinemonitor.com/ You can login with the same username and login. There is a lot of your system/inverter data there and all your historical inverter/solar data. Not everything on the site works but I haven't configured all the inputs. Also, before you login there is a link to a Andriod App you can download on the top of the page. The app looks like it has Push messaging available but I haven't tested it yet. Hope this helps somebody...

Hi @ThatGuy ICC is great but a few reasons... ICC will read the MAX data but do not have all data on the trends for two MPPT's... both on the Main dashboard but only 1 in the PV trend graphs ie Watts/Volts/Amps per MPPT... I prefer to have my own visual layout with the dashboards that gives me only the data I want to look at the moment... ICC don't keep yesterdays data graphs if it reboots, etc. and sometimes I like to look back at graphs from last week... I can look at the data on my tablet/phone without having to use econcms or vnc and even manipulate it in grafana and then also I started playing with the mqqt plugin which will allow me to write my own rules for switching the fridges geyser and other devices on and off when PV power varies. The features in Grafana is numerous ie alerts, etc I just feel I have more control over the installation if I do my own software.

I'm got a Axpert MAX with 3 Pylon 3.3k batteries and use ICC to monitor and that works ok. BUT I am now trying to create my own simplified panel with Node Red and Grafana. I managed to setup the Raspberry Pi with Node Red, Influx DB and Grafana and created the Dashboard. This works quite well now and I can monitor the inverter basics on the RPi via VNC or on my local network with the RPi - IP on port 3000. I used and adapted the Node Red code (thanks to Tejota) to pull data from the MAX RS232 port via a USB - Serial adaptor and the inverter supplied RS232 cable. My next challenge is to read the Pylon batteries via the console port as I want start using some of the battery stats and switch some Sonoff switches . I have the cable (USB-Serial to RJ45 - Pylon 3000C console port) that works with ICC and that works fine. Can anybody help me to setup the Serial Port to read the Pylon Data into Node Red. I did find the Pylon info where you setup a terminal at 2400 baud rate and send a 7E 32 30 30 31 34 36 38 32 43 30 30 34 38 35 32 30 46 43 43 33 0D ... then switch to 115200 baud and do the rest... this is above my capability. I don't know how to dynamically switch baud rates, etc.... I found that when I start to fiddle with the 'serial in' node or create a second 'serial in' node in Node Red it screws up all my invertor data. Any help will be appreciated. Tj

Hi Coulomb, I don't have any way to measure it but the utility meter crepes up slowly all the time ie. from 61 777.7 to 61 778.6 the same time next day. I did not expect it to consume any utility as the inverter is fulltime in SBU mode and always had enough PV or battery to cover load. I have disconnected the mains switch to stop it as I currently don't need utility backup. May be different in winter time. As for the OTG update not working could be anything. At least got the update done with the serial cable.

Some feedback.... 1. Since the firmware update I can now confirm that I did not get anymore F55 errors. Looks like the firmware resolved that issue. 2. As for the feedback issue... I'm not sure if it is feed back to Utility as I seem to get Utility usage of 0.5 kWh even at night. It starts to look more like some leakage as I do not see any numbers in the ICC monitoring software. I do not need Utility at the moment during the summer months so will switch off my Main Switch and see. Other than that the inverter perform fine and on sunny days my three batteries are fully recharged after 3Hrs and on cloudy days 5 - 6 Hrs @Coulomb - That was after Pressing the 'YES' option on the the MCU. The 'No' disappears after that.

Morning @Coulomb I tried with varies versions of the software (both from the one you mentioned and another I downloaded) to do the OTG cable update by only copying the DSP.HEX file to a USB stick, then plug it into the USB port. You then select the USB function with the top left panel button and Upgrade as per the menu's. The display did power down and show UPG YES and then sat there for 10-12 minutes after which it returned to normal display and when I checked the unit was still on the old version. It tried this with only Battery connected, then Battery and Utility, then only Utility, then Battery, Utility and PV but no difference. Also tried with three different USB sticks. None of the optioned worked. Could be a error in the older versions of the firmware to handle OTG updates? Somehow the only thing that worked in the end is the Inverter update with the software via cable from 45.02 - 90.19 and then the MCU via cable from 12.02 - 12.03. @Schnavel I have got two of the MAX 7.2kW inverters installed. (One at my house and one at my neighbours) The one installation is configured with MPPT1 2 x 5 panel 335w and MPPT 2 x 4 panel 335W (4 strings total 18 panels) The MPPT voltages is 200v and 165v which is well below the inverter maximum's of 500voc and 450 operational. Connected to 3 x 3.3k Pylon batteries (No problems except for some Utility feedback during charging at high current.) I used ICC on this install. The second installation is configured with MPPT1 1 x 7 with panels 335 and MPPT2 with 1 x 7 panels 335. Both with MPPT voltages of 280 V (This is below the spec maximums) Connected to 2 x 3.3k Pylon batteries. This installation kept on 'tripping' with F55 errors (required full reset) when the sun got strong or spiked due to clouds and charge current exceeded 50A. I'm not sure if it was due to the higher PV voltages? I tried ICC on this install when I had the F55 problem but didn't make any difference. I set the max charge current to 50A but the Pylon BMS kept on resetting it back to 70A. The only thing that fixed the F55 fault was the Firmware update. I updated both the inverters with a new serial cable as wtjadens post above (2 other USB to serial cables I had did not work for the upgrade although they work fine for Pylon battery monitoring) connected to the serial port from my laptop and using the respective software update tools for Invertor and MCU. Both inverters is now on Firmware 90.19 and MCU on 45.03. Since update had no more F55 errors on the second installation. Jury still out on the feedback into utility. I will monitor over the next few days and let you know. I am using ICC on a Raspberry PI4 on the one installation and MultiSIBControl control on the second and both sets of software seems to work well although had to make up both cables for the Pylon battery monitoring to the Invertor and ICC. Yani from MultiSib fixed the software to pickup the Dual MPPT's of the MAX. Only issue is you need a PC nearby. I'm using a old laptop. The cooling fans on the units is quite 'loud' when under load so make sure you install somewhere away from living area 🙂 I have ordered two Sonoff switches which will hopefully arrive tomorrow and I can try them out as well. want to switch of my fridges at night to reduce load on batteries.

I tried the OTG cable but sadly that did not work either. I have now tried OTG cable and 2 different USB - Serial cables and yesterday got the Mecer one suggested by wtjaden and it WORKED first time!. The Serial port on the inverter seems to sensitive to the serial chip in the USB-Serial cable. Inverter now reads 90.19 firmware after 10 min update. I have also noticed that the version 45.02 was feeding back into the Grid causing a 1-2 kWh POSITIVE reading on my meter per day. I will check today if the Firmware update resolved my F55 error and if the unit still feeds back into the grid. Thank you all wtjaden and all others for the input and suggestions!

I do have a OTG cable so will give that a try tomorrow. I have done the Main display upgrade with the serial cable... just the main firmware that is giving me error messages. Thanks for your help.

@Coulomb Thanks for your input ... Only just saw your response🤦‍♂️ Have you done a Firmware upgrade on the USB port on a 5kW model? or is this just something new on the 7.2 kW? I am curious to find somebody that knows how that works?