Morning 

I hope someone can point me in the right direction. Recently we added some more capacity to my parents solar system. 
however, I realised that we made a mistake going with Kodak instead of Deye/Sunsynk just for ease of use and setting up for non electrical peeps. 
below I compiled a list of what I can find, was told and read up on with regards to the settings on our inverters. I hope someone can assist with improving them to make the system more efficient. 
System info: 

Kodak OG 7.2	Master	Slave
Serial	##########	##########
Wifi Module	##########	##########
FW	45.13	45.13
U1	45/13	45/13
U2	12/28	12/28
U3	00/00	00/00

current settings is as per below table under SSA (solar solved africa) suggested. 

However, I have a couple of questions from what I have read on this forum and from what the Energy-Mate App is telling me. 

1. When our float charge is set to 54,5V, the app says the battery is only 67% full (remember no BMS comms between the 2)?
2. I'm not sure when setting 13 does and how it should be set?
3. Similarly with setting 28, no idea what it does or how it should be set when running 2 inverters in parallel or if it even matters? 

Any other advice would be really appreciated. 
I would also like to chat to anyone that has found a way to make the unit work with the batteries BMS instead of the voltage settings. 

Thank you in advance. 

Hello @Tiaan Vermeulen

 

1. If you are using the inverter's reading of the battery state of charge without comms between the two, then the reading will be way off. You cannot rely on it.

What I do is set 12 to 48V, and 13 to 50V, because the inverter often reads out battery as nearly empty, even though it is >50%. So, I do not want the inverter to be in charge of the battery at all; let the battery bms do all the work.

2. Setting 13 changes the priority back to the battery, once the voltage is >= what you set.

In your case, once the voltage drops below 51V (setting 12), utility kicks in, and the battery is not used. Once, the batteries have charged above 53V (setting 13), the batteries are used again.

The main point of these two settings is to prevent cases such as:

a) Depleting the battery too far

b) Frequent, low voltage cycling. E.g. utility is used at 48V, at 48.1V the battery is used until is reaches 48V, then utility, etc.

3. Setting 28 should be the AC Output Mode, which determines how the current and phases are shared. For a single inverter, this can only ever be `SIG`. For two inverters, this is probably `PAL` where two inverters are paralleled in single phase.

In your case, unless you have specific split phase requirements/connections, this should be PAL.

 

Kodak's communication between inverter and BMSs is finnicky at best. I have not managed to get mine to work on either CAN or RS485, using straight 1-8 pinout. My next try would have been one of:

 

What batteries/bms do your parents have, and are they off-grid?

Thank you so much for your feedback. 
with regards to point 1. How do you see what SOC your battery is in? If i can do that then i understand how to setup the settings on the inverter accordingly.  
My parents have Shoto batteries with kodak inverters, not off grid. But we were trying to implement a system big enough for the them to be off-grid, however, we having some teething problems at the moment. 

If i go the solar assist route i would be able to accurately determine SOC correct. And then change the parameter settings according to this? 
Would i need two Raspberry Pi’s, one for each inverter? 

On 2024/10/27 at 10:31 AM, Tiaan Vermeulen said:

Thank you so much for your feedback. 
with regards to point 1. How do you see what SOC your battery is in? If i can do that then i understand how to setup the settings on the inverter accordingly.  
My parents have Shoto batteries with kodak inverters, not off grid. But we were trying to implement a system big enough for the them to be off-grid, however, we having some teething problems at the moment. 

If i go the solar assist route i would be able to accurately determine SOC correct. And then change the parameter settings according to this? 
Would i need two Raspberry Pi’s, one for each inverter? 

> How do you see what SOC your battery is in?
I use Solar Assistant. Both the inverter and batteries are connected to a Raspberry Pi running it.

> If i go the solar assist route i would be able to accurately determine SOC correct.

If you connect the solar assistant device directly to the battery/bms, you will be able to determine the SOC as accurately as the bms. https://solar-assistant.io/help/battery/seplos-bms

>And then change the parameter settings according to this? 

I do not know which parameter you mean by this. Often, battery manufacturers provide inverter settings for their batteries (e.g. Charge and float voltages)

> Would i need two Raspberry Pi’s, one for each inverter? 

No. Provided the inverters are communicating with one another - which they must be to be on the same circuit - then you need two cables: One for the master battery, and one for an inverter. Solar Assistant's website provides a lot more information about what is needed for each brand.

 

After reading up on many different forums I tried to make sense of what the best settings would be, however it is apparent that many people uses different settings, and im not entirely sure why. 
Given the settings I was advise by SSA, I have a couple of questions when compared to the Shoto manufacturer parameter settings. (attached)

We have the Shoto 16S batteries 
 

With regards to setting 12, (operating voltages for this battery is between 42-57.6). Can this setting not be as low as 46/48V atleast? 

SDA10-48100_3U-16S328.pdf

On 2024/10/26 at 4:36 PM, ShaunH said:

Hello @Tiaan Vermeulen

 

1. If you are using the inverter's reading of the battery state of charge without comms between the two, then the reading will be way off. You cannot rely on it.

What I do is set 12 to 48V, and 13 to 50V, because the inverter often reads out battery as nearly empty, even though it is >50%. So, I do not want the inverter to be in charge of the battery at all; let the battery bms do all the work.

2. Setting 13 changes the priority back to the battery, once the voltage is >= what you set.

In your case, once the voltage drops below 51V (setting 12), utility kicks in, and the battery is not used. Once, the batteries have charged above 53V (setting 13), the batteries are used again.

The main point of these two settings is to prevent cases such as:

a) Depleting the battery too far

b) Frequent, low voltage cycling. E.g. utility is used at 48V, at 48.1V the battery is used until is reaches 48V, then utility, etc.

3. Setting 28 should be the AC Output Mode, which determines how the current and phases are shared. For a single inverter, this can only ever be `SIG`. For two inverters, this is probably `PAL` where two inverters are paralleled in single phase.

In your case, unless you have specific split phase requirements/connections, this should be PAL.

 

Kodak's communication between inverter and BMSs is finnicky at best. I have not managed to get mine to work on either CAN or RS485, using straight 1-8 pinout. My next try would have been one of:

 

What batteries/bms do your parents have, and are they off-grid?

@ShaunH

Hope you can assist me I can change the voltage settings in program 12 with 1 volt increments it only changes with 5v increments?

17 hours ago, Inverter said:

@ShaunH

Hope you can assist me I can change the voltage settings in program 12 with 1 volt increments it only changes with 5v increments?

That is not something I have seen before. I can only imagine the inverter has a version of firmware with a bug causing that.

Can you share what version of firmware the inverter is? Also, which brand/model inverter?

On 2025/04/23 at 1:02 PM, ShaunH said:

That is not something I have seen before. I can only imagine the inverter has a version of firmware with a bug causing that.

Can you share what version of firmware the inverter is? Also, which brand/model inverter?

Hi @ShaunH

Thanks I am sorted with it the 5 increments is in %

Did you ever use setting 99 and 100?

On 2025/05/03 at 3:31 PM, Inverter said:

Did you ever use setting 99 and 100?

What do you mean by these settings?

I have use 99, because that is how the year date is set. There is no setting 100 on any firmware I have used.