My Shoto SDC10-Box5 batteries are currently wall mounted in a vertical position by the installer (see photo). Its just hanging vertically from normal storage brackets. I've also noticed from photos on internet and friends that this is often done (regardless of battery make/model) in South Africa installations at least, it does give a smaller installation footprint so its understandable.

But, from what I understand is that the SDC10-Box5 is a rack battery, and should be installed horizontally.

So my question is, is it safe and a good idea long term to install rack mounted batteries on wall vertically?

More specifically can this be a cause of high battery temps? I've really been struggling to get the temp below 31 degrees. Even after insulating my garage and reducing charge rate drastically as a test.

At least in my case they are not mounted flush against wall there's about 5cm gap between battery and wall. However, the ventilation grid of battery is on the side facing the wall.

If the battery were to be rack mounted (horizontally) then this ventilation grid will be at the top, which I believe is by design as per screenshot with the ventilation grid indicated in blue arrows.

 

 

Any feedback or opinions on this?

Scared that if the battery packs up within the warranty period Shoto will just come back saying it should have been horizontally mounted.

Usually the user manual indicates the safe orientation for the battery.
Some brands have stickers on them showing the safe orientation.

Mostly with lifepo4 if the build quality is good internally then it does not really matter what the orientation is.

23 hours ago, jgdt said:

So my question is, is it safe and a good idea long term to install rack mounted batteries on wall vertically?

In my opinion yes, it is safe. I did the same thing and Averge confirmed that it is alright. It seems to me that the cooling effect is even better than in horizontal rack installation.

Edited February 28, 20233 yr by Beat

35 minutes ago, jgdt said:

Any feedback or opinions on this?

Lithium batteries generally are sealed and thus, unlike Lead Acid type batteries, the orientation is not important, as for the cooling, yes, well, hier raak dinge ook effens warm, its summer and having had 45°C peak temperatures in the shade the last 5 days and counting, the battery here is also in the 30+°C range 😞 c'est la vie...

as for the ventilation holes, thats for BMS ventilation, rather than battery ventilation, I'd think and if you had 2 of those on top of each other in a rack, then the bottom one would be totally covered by the top battery, so... I think one option would be to air condition the garage to get the temperatures toward the winter temperatures for now... I have an acquaintance in America who has exactly this, the air conditioning, not the garage, though, then again he has a lot more dosh than me and also a boatload more batteries in his energy storage room...

In general what i have seen lfp manufacturers normally states temps up to 50⁰C to max 55⁰C so i don't think you should be worried about 31⁰C. Not sure how cold the winter gets where you stay if 0⁰C or lower then you need to put measures in place if you charge lfp at freezing point you destroy the battery. To be safe don't charge below 5⁰C

1 hour ago, WannabeSolarSparky said:

Usually the user manual indicates the safe orientation for the battery.
Some brands have stickers on them showing the safe orientation

There's no stickers on the batteries indicating this, not sure if it came out of factory like this or installers removed stickers. Regarding the manuals installers did not leave me with boxes and papers and searching on internet I only found a scanned in document. Its written in "Chinese to broken English" dialect, and to big to add as attachment and can't find the link now again.

 

1 hour ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

as for the ventilation holes, thats for BMS ventilation, rather than battery ventilation, I'd think and if you had 2 of those on top of each other in a rack, then the bottom one would be totally covered by the top battery, so

Yeah make sense. I guess for rack mountings there should be gaps in between like attached photo.

1 hour ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

I think one option would be to air condition the garage to get the temperatures

I've also thought about installing AirCon, I have surplus power on hot day 😉 But this pushes up the total installation/investment sum far past I originally budgeted for. I guess one need to calculate the cost of big AC to cover 36 squares of garage versus buying new batteries if heat does curb there lifespan. Possibly the AC is a cheaper route.

 

23 minutes ago, TaliaB said:

In general what i have seen lfp manufacturers normally states temps up to 50⁰C to max 55⁰C so i don't think you should be worried about 31⁰C. Not sure how cold the winter gets where you stay if 0⁰C or lower

The spec data sheet says max charge 45⁰C max discharge 50⁰C, but that recommended is 25⁰C. Luckily our winters don't normally go below 0⁰C in Pretoria, RSA. I'm guessing that even if its below zero outside the garage will probably be about 10-15 ⁰C perhaps. We'll see this winter as it will be the first winter with solar for us.

Edited February 28, 20233 yr by jgdt
typos

Three questions please…

I have this same battery and want to get a second 

Where did you obtain it please?

How is it connected?  I see a data cable.  Did this come with the battery or is it ordered separately?

What are the DIP switch settings for both batteries?

Thank you 

@chrisc My installer (Zeus Solutions) installed it. No idea who his supplier/distributor is. I would also like to know. Could be wrong but feels like this specific model is not as common, in South Africa, as the other shoto models?

Not sure if the data cables came with the batteries or bought separately. Could be just normal LAN patch cables? I haven't pulled them out to inspect the pin outs.

Where did you obtain yours? 

- DC wiring : Parallel with 150A fuse/breaker. 

- Data wiring : Master connected to Slave via RS485B to RS485A. Master connected to inverter via CAN.

- Dip switches : 5 on master. 1 on slave. My understand is that this is inline with CAN addressing. 

A friend of mine has three of these in total, installed by same installer. If interested I can ask him for his wiring, dips, etc.

@chrisc This manual I just uploaded might also help you in setting up 2nd battery once you've sourced on:

 

Thanks

The supplier in Cape Town has no stock, I'll have to wait.  I sent emails to 3 suppliers in Jhb, but none replied

Hey @Leondavibeyou are the only person I know of on the forum who has seen the inside of the shoto batteries. Do you perhaps have any images? I have also mounted my battery against the wall, but I based my decision on the pylontech batteries which look like pouches that would be standing up if wall mounted, but have since seen other batteries where the cells are mounted to a frame that would have the cells 'hanging' sideways on the frame, potentially bending the bottom of the housing over time. Just interested to see what the internal construction looks like if possible.

Will Check if i have photos

The layout looks like this

The left side has 8 cell that are panncaked 

 

And the right has 7 cells

Mine is the 48v 15s model

The 16s 51.2 will just have 8 on the right

And the extra padding gone

 

Edited March 17, 20233 yr by Leondavibe

On 2023/02/28 at 10:37 AM, jgdt said:

Any feedback or opinions on this?

Scared that if the battery packs up within the warranty period Shoto will just come back saying it should have been horizontally mounted.

The battery can be mounted anyway You like

The pouches are really securely kept in place

each side has a cage that compresses and prevents any movement of the cells

 

Mine is vertical 

I checked and i did not take photos i really thought i did of the balance cables 

 The cells also has a plastic cover over the wires , linking the cells

My fan has only spun up once , i think it did when i did a factory reset

Have never heard it ever again

My cell temps have never gotten too hot except the one close to my bad cell

Max 35c normally 28c

Mine is about 6cm away from the wall

I will open it and take photos in the future and post em

Edited March 18, 20233 yr by Leondavibe

On 2023/03/05 at 7:37 PM, chrisc said:

Three questions please…

I have this same battery and want to get a second 

Where did you obtain it please?

How is it connected?  I see a data cable.  Did this come with the battery or is it ordered separately?

What are the DIP switch settings for both batteries?

Thank you 

 

Checking. Your file the pinout a lan cable may just work as is

as long as it doesnt care that there are cables on unused pins

Just make sure to ask for a straight cable , you get crossover cables though the pairs they cross is in the middle normally

But believe you get different crossover cable that may use other combos i dont know 

With a straight they match pin for pin

so for battery to battery coms normal lan will work , battery to inverter cable will most likely be custom needed

i use mine in dumb mode

Note you get 15s and 16s variants if getting another make sure it matches yours ie 48v or 51.2v

I use mine as a dumb battery no coms to inverter

 

Edited March 18, 20233 yr by Leondavibe

On 2023/03/17 at 9:14 PM, Leondavibe said:

Will Check if i have photos

The layout looks like this

The left side has 8 cell that are panncaked 

 

And the right has 7 cells

Mine is the 48v 15s model

The 16s 51.2 will just have 8 on the right

And the extra padding gone

 

Thanks @Leondavibe that helps already. Seeing as they are pouches like the pylontech then the orientation doesn't matter as much as cells mounted vertically.

Much appreciated 👍

The battery came with a cable, so I used that, after setting the DIP switches

For some reason I have yet to fathom, the SOC from both batteries behaves much better now there are two.  During a 2-hour load-shedding, it dropped from 55.1V to 54.8V

I don't have comms to inverter either.  Its a 2016 vintage Axpert model

Thank you for the valuable advice

Edited April 9, 20233 yr by chrisc

On 2023/03/07 at 1:28 PM, jumper said:

the inside of the shoto batteries

According to this YouTube video, Shoto SDA10-48100 51.2Vdc 5.12kWh batteries use prismatic cells. Screenshots attached.

 

 

On 2023/02/27 at 12:36 PM, jgdt said:

So my question is, is it safe and a good idea long term to install rack mounted batteries on wall vertically?

I'm not conversant with the difference between Shoto SDC10-Box5 (5.12kWh) and SDA10-48100 (5.12kWh) but technical parameters for the latter has a line that states:

Installation method: Rack mounted / Wall mounted

 

Edited April 9, 20233 yr by Kilowatt Power
Attach image

13 hours ago, Kilowatt Power said:

I'm not conversant with the difference between Shoto SDC10-Box5 (5.12kWh) and SDA10-48100 (5.12kWh) but technical parameters for the latter has a line that states:

Installation method: Rack mounted / Wall mounted

 

Thanks, I've seen a similar sheet for the SDC10-Box in another topic and it is also wall mountable.

Anyone know where I can find those mounting racks for the Shoto SDC10Box5 batteries?

Thanks