Good day,

I am newbie and would appreciate any advise, please.

I have the following installed:

• Phocos PSW-H 5kW 
• Shoto SDC10-Box5(16S) 5.12kWh battery
• 12 x 410w bifacial solar panels

The unit was installed without a BMS communication cable. I've done some research and found that Phocos does support the Shoto SDA10-48100 battery modules using RS485/Modbus. 

I made a cable as shown in the diagram below and updated the firmware on the Phocos inverter and display unit to 06.19 as recommended (latest firmware available from Phocos)

I have set the Battery type on the Phocos to RS-485 (MODBUS RTU) as recommended. However, an alarm goes off after about 5 minutes stating that the inverter was unable to communicate with the battery.

Do you know if the BMS in the Shoto SDC10 and SDA10 models are the same ?

I am also not sure if the cable must plug into RS485 A or B ? I've contacted Phocos as they say that port A must be used. I've tried both with no luck.

Secondly, all dip switches on the battery are off as I only have a single battery at this stage.

Any help or advise would be highly appreciated.

Best regards,

Jaco

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

2 hours ago, Jaco Ebersohn said:

Do you know if the BMS in the Shoto SDC10 and SDA10 models are the same ?

Welcome, all I can give you is the info I have found in my research so far. I have the SDA10-48100 and it uses the seplos bms. It looks like the SDC10 also uses the seplos judging from the front panel layout.

2 hours ago, Jaco Ebersohn said:

I am also not sure if the cable must plug into RS485 A or B ? I've contacted Phocos as they say that port A must be used. I've tried both with no luck.

This is news to me, from what I have read, only the far left port (usually labelled CAN) can be used for direct inverter communication, there has been some confusion with the seplos that the CAN port also supports RS485 on the same port, but it looks like that is only available in newer models of the bms and it is either or. Of course it is possible you have a newer version.

I use the RS485A port to connect directly to PC using a USB-RS485 converter and the seplos software to access the bms, the pinout is the same, I don't have direct comms as my inverter (Kodak OG+) doesn't support CAN, only RS485. You can find more info on connecting with seplos software here: 

 

2 hours ago, Jaco Ebersohn said:

Secondly, all dip switches on the battery are off as I only have a single battery at this stage.

This is correct for 1 battery.

If you do get this working, please let us know as I would be very interested.

Hi Jumper,

Thank you so much for the information. I'll work through this and let you know.

Jaco