Kodak OG 5.48 inverter

[joker08]

Hi, 

have a kodak OG 5.48 inverter. Came with the house, the previous owner used it for a year and I am using it for a year, with no complaints.
The only issue is the configuration. So when there is full sun I want it to use solar first but unless I set the priority to solar -battery -utility
It will continue to use utility. If I use this setting, the problem is the battery drains in the evening, and if there is power failure I have no backup. So i have to manually go and switch it back to solar-utility-battery after sunset.

Second issue is I am trying to change the max charging current to 40A as I have a pylon battery but it keeps defaulting to 10A

Lastly cant find any info on where I can download the latest firmware. Please assist. 

 

 

[Steve87]

Hi Joker08, this system will benefit from a remote monitoring system. However, for the meantime you need some programming to be done to get you running smoothly. 

Do you have your Pylontechs already connected? If so are you making use of the Pylontech Comms in Menu option 5? Do you have the correct Pylontech cable to the inverter ? 

The above answers will help me to assist you. 

[joker08]

13 hours ago, Steve87 said:

Hi Joker08, this system will benefit from a remote monitoring system. However, for the meantime you need some programming to be done to get you running smoothly. 

Do you have your Pylontechs already connected? If so are you making use of the Pylontech Comms in Menu option 5? Do you have the correct Pylontech cable to the inverter ? 

The above answers will help me to assist you. 

Yes the cable to the battery is connected and I have PLY on option 5

 

 

[Coulomb]

16 hours ago, joker08 said:

if there is power failure I have no backup. So i have to manually go and switch it back to solar-utility-battery after sunset.

I believe that you can schedule output source priority changes to occur at one of 24 hour changes.

16 hours ago, joker08 said:

I am trying to change the max charging current to 40A as I have a pylon battery but it keeps defaulting to 10A

My understanding is that a single US3000 should be capable of charging at 37 A, so the next lowest setting would be 30 A. Using battery type = PYL, the BMS will over-ride whatever you choose. It presumably has a good reason for the lower current setting; perhaps being new, the battery hasn't equalised all its cells yet. If that's what is going on, it should gradually increase the current limit to 30 A, and perhaps to 40 A, as the cells equalise.

16 hours ago, joker08 said:

where I can download the latest firmware.

Your inverter is a rebranded Axpert VM III. So the latest main firmware is 41.17, available below. The BMS communication involves the removable display firmware, which is up to 02.66 or 02.70. It should also be available from the files section of this forum.

Don't worry about the 3 kW in the above file description; the same binary firmware is used by the 3 kW and 5 kW models. They do a test at start-up to determine which model the hardware is, and run different limits accordingly. 99% of the code is identical between the two power levels.

 

 

[joker08]

10 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

I believe that you can schedule output source priority changes to occur at one of 24 hour changes.

I dont know how to change this.

11 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

My understanding is that a single US3000 should be capable of charging at 37 A, so the next lowest setting would be 30 A. Using battery type = PYL, the BMS will over-ride whatever you choose. It presumably has a good reason for the lower current setting; perhaps being new, the battery hasn't equalised all its cells yet. If that's what is going on, it should gradually increase the current limit to 30 A, and perhaps to 40 A, as the cells equalise.

Its not a new battery almost 2 years old. But now it did pick up 30A as charging option. 

 

[joker08]

20 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

Your inverter is a rebranded Axpert VM III. So the latest main firmware is 41.17, available below. The BMS communication involves the removable display firmware, which is up to 02.66 or 02.70. It should also be available from the files section of this forum.

Don't worry about the 3 kW in the above file description; the same binary firmware is used by the 3 kW and 5 kW models. They do a test at start-up to determine which model the hardware is, and run different limits accordingly. 99% of the code is identical between the two power levels.

 

 

Whats the best way to do this upgrade ? I dont have a USB or serial cable. Is it a standard miniUSB cable I can use ? 

[Coulomb]

4 minutes ago, joker08 said:

What's the best way to do this upgrade ?

Instructions here: https://forums.aeva.asn.au/viewtopic.php?p=87767#p87767

5 minutes ago, joker08 said:

I don't have a USB or serial cable.

You should have an RJ-45 to serial (D9) cable come with your inverter. if not, you can make one yourself; pinout is in the above link.

For the main firmware only, you can use a USB on the go cable and a thumb drive. Details in the above link.

[WernerM]

Hi,

I have the exact same setup and similar questions. 

I got my system up and running yesterday afternoon and itsbeen running great, however this morning when I checked the inverter status I saw that my battery was on 30% and that the utility had started charging the battery. 

Is it possible to have the inverter supply power from the battery until its flat, then switch over to utility and once the solar panels are ready use that to charge the batterys. 

You mentioned remote monitoring system. Where can I get more information about this?

[Jacques Ester]

Have a look at Solar Assistant. This will control the inverter for you and you will be able to monitor it remotely and make change if need be.

[joker08]

so I have set the "back to grid" voltage to 50(this was 49 before) and back to discharge voltage is 51 so I have kind of achieved what I wanted ... 90% of battery incase there is load shedding and then 10% of buffer for the inverter to work in battery mode. 
What I am not able to do is get the power directly from the pannels without battery in between, its always either Line mode or battery mode. 

 

 

[Coulomb]

7 hours ago, joker08 said:

What I am not able to do is get the power directly from the pannels without battery in between, its always either Line mode or battery mode.

My understanding is that this is normal, if you have a battery connected at all. If there is sufficient PV power available, it should effectively power the loads from them, using very little battery or utility. 

[Beat]

20 hours ago, WernerM said:

Is it possible to have the inverter supply power from the battery until its flat, then switch over to utility and once the solar panels are ready use that to charge the batterys. 

Yes, it's possible with the "back to utility bypass" setting very low, i.e. 44 or 45V. But not advisable if you want to always have a reserve for black outs.

[WernerM]

Hi,

Could you possibly help met set the basic settings correct on my Kodak inverters to get the maximum out out my system without hurting the batteries?

Setup:

2x Kodak 5kw inverters

2x Pylontech 2.4kw lithium batteries

6x 370w solar panels (2 stings of three)

I would like to use the least amount of utility power possible as well as prevent Eskom from charging the batteries. 

Any help would be appreciated.

[Ben Harper]

Hi @WernerM,

You should be able to find a manual for your inverter. You'll want to read through the various settings available to understand them. There isn't actually very much.

Basically, what you'll want to do is:

1. Set the "voltage point back to utility source when selecting “SBU”" - try 48V. Probably setting number 12.
2. Set the "voltage point back to battery mode when selecting “SBU”" - try 50V. Probably setting number 13.
3. Set the charger priority mode to "Solar First", aka CSO. Probably setting number 16.
4. Set the output source priority to SBU. Setting number 01.

You have a little bit of a problem here, because your inverters don't have the ability to switch between SBU and SUB on a timer. The newer ones have this timer mechanism, which allows you to switch to SUB when the sun goes down (eg 17:00), and then switch to SBU a little later (eg 20:00). Being on grid power at dusk ensures that you'll be able to "survive the night" on battery power, and by the time the sun rises the next morning, you want your battery to be at say 20% capacity remaining, and then charging and loads must be powered by the sun.

Your setup has a classic problem of being able to power 10kw of loads, but you don't have enough battery juice to power all that load between sunset and sunrise.. so your only hassle-free choice is to leave your system in SBU mode, and trust the inverters to automatically switch between battery and line mode. This is a nuisance when the sun is down, because the system will continually charge the battery, then drain it, then charge it, then drain it, ad infinitum.

My solution to this problem is to run software that I built myself, via a Raspberry Pi (https://github.com/bmharper/homepower). There is possibly other software out there too, which does the same thing. I've never had two inverters in parallel, so I don't know how the control logic works in that scenario.

In the absence of a timer based SUB/SBU switch mechanism, the only thing that I can think of is for you to try to reduce your power usage at night time.. to avoid that pointless charge/drain cycle.

Hope that helps a bit.

[Coulomb]

On 2022/06/07 at 1:09 AM, Ben Harper said:

You have a little bit of a problem here, because your inverters don't have the ability to switch between SBU and SUB on a timer.

My understanding is that a Kodak OG 5.48 (subject of this thread) is an Axpert VM II 5K-48,  [ Edit July 2023: that should read Axpert VM III, with the removable display ] which does have the output source priority timer. At least, the manual I have says that. Though Werner didn't say which 5 kW model Kodak model he has.

Edited July 13, 2023 by Coulomb

[Beat]

17 hours ago, Ben Harper said:

In the absence of a timer based SUB/SBU switch mechanism, the only thing that I can think of is for you to try to reduce your power usage at night time.. to avoid that pointless charge/drain cycle.

That's not the only thing he can do. The best alternative would be to increase battery capacity to at least 10kWh. I know, it's expensive, but worthwhile investment. It would also enable to harvest more solar energy for night use. Otherwise I support your settings advice.

[WernerM]

Hi, 

Thanks for the reply. 

I found a few default settings on another forum that I will try and give some feedback once I've let it run a few days. 

 

Another problem I ran into last night was to get my two inverters to run in parallel. When switching on the second inverter I get a warning U01 as well as warning 32.

 

Please see link below:

https://youtu.be/BwN6xkWAbZI 

Thanks

[Coulomb]

3 hours ago, WernerM said:

When switching on the second inverter I get a warning U01

That's "No USB disk is detected", but you don't seem to have anything plugged into the USB port.

3 hours ago, WernerM said:

as well as warning 32.

That's comms error between the removable display and the inverter. It's obviously getting some comms with the inverter, to display the AC-in voltage. But then it seems to go away. The connection seem flaky.

Is it only this way when you try to parallel them?

The common factor with these is the removable display. Perhaps you could swap the two displays to see if the fault follows the display or stays with the inverter.

[joker08]

I want to increase the battery capacity. Currently have a single pylontech US3000. How to add more batteries ? 
Do I connect another US3000 in series or parallel ? or I can get a 5KW one and connect in parallel ? 
How will the BMS connect when an additional battery is introduced ? 

[Scorp007]

10 hours ago, joker08 said:

I want to increase the battery capacity. Currently have a single pylontech US3000. How to add more batteries ? 
Do I connect another US3000 in series or parallel ? or I can get a 5KW one and connect in parallel ? 
How will the BMS connect when an additional battery is introduced ? 

You can only add in parallel. Use the same size as it is what I will do. Follow instructions you get with the new battery. 

Other members can give the exact details. 

[Coulomb]

23 hours ago, joker08 said:

How will the BMS connect when an additional battery is introduced ? 

My understanding, not owning one, is that the newest battery module has to be the master, and it talks to the others. The master connects to the inverter display. There will be short comms cables daisy chaining the battery modules. 

The comms cable may need to be different with new battery models.

Always equalise SoC before paralleling.

Always use "diagonal take-off" for the cables to the inverter. 

Edited December 18, 2022 by Coulomb

[joker08]

On 2022/05/30 at 8:55 PM, Steve87 said:

Hi Joker08, this system will benefit from a remote monitoring system. However, for the meantime you need some programming to be done to get you running smoothly. 

Do you have your Pylontechs already connected? If so are you making use of the Pylontech Comms in Menu option 5? Do you have the correct Pylontech cable to the inverter ? 

The above answers will help me to assist you. 

 

On 2022/05/31 at 3:13 PM, Jacques Ester said:

Have a look at Solar Assistant. This will control the inverter for you and you will be able to monitor it remotely and make change if need be.

I was checking solar assistant. I am adding more pannels and I want the pool pump to turn on when the solar generation is above a specific number. is it possible through this software ? 

[Jacques Ester]

Solar assistant can be integrated into automated systems.

[joker08]

4 minutes ago, Jacques Ester said:

Solar assistant can be integrated into automated systems.

How do I accomplish it ? is there like an idiots guide to achieve what I want 

[Jacques Ester]

I am not that clue up with it. But you will need another Pi running red node or something alike. Then you will need wifi switches such as Sonoff and contactors to switch the pump on and of. 

The other option is to monitor your system on Solar Assistant and then switch on the pump using something like the CBI Astute Smart Controller via wifi.