[RE-wrenches] Sol-Ark/Fortress charging issue
Ray Walters
ray at solarray.com
Wed Nov 16 22:43:22 PST 2022
Talk to Thomas Honey. He is the Fortress rep, nice guy, and
knowledgeable wrench. He has stepped in on my issue.
Ray
On 11/16/2022 10:58 PM, Howie Michaelson via RE-wrenches wrote:
> Good Evening,
>
> I have a frustrating charging issue involving 2 Fortress eVault Maxs
> connected to a Sol-Ark 15k. Commissioned the system last week,
> replacing a legacy off-grid Dual Stack SunnyIsland 5048s and 2-volt
> Rolls battery system. Initially, we connected one of the eVaults to
> the Sol-Ark, programmed it to Fortress' and Sol-Ark's specs, setup
> closed loop, and things seemed fine. The battery charged at around 95
> amps off the 20kW Kohler. The next day we connected the 2nd eVault,
> went through the procedures as Fortress suggested, made the necessary
> settings changes in the Sol-Ark, and that is when the issue started.
>
> Ever since we connected the 2nd eVault, we have not been able to get
> the charge rate much above a combined total of 35 amps. Fortress has
> pretty much said that it can't be anything on their end (although the
> communication with them has been very much limited and frustrating).
> They say that nothing on their side would limit the charge rate to
> that low, especially if the batteries were in a lower state of
> charge. We've talked to at least 3 different Sol-Ark technicians more
> than once. We have changed the setting between closed loop, % SOC,
> and Battery Voltage multiple times. We've tried dropping back to a
> single battery, both the first one we had connected and the second one
> (changing the battery setup and the Sol-Ark parameters, but have only
> seen at times a moderate increase in maximum charge rate (up to about
> 40 amps total).
>
> This small increase happened after a Fortress technician suggested
> that we turn on both the generator and the grid charging toggles (the
> generator is connected to the grid port on the Sol-Ark as per
> Sol-Ark's recommendation. Sol-Ark has run out of suggestions at the
> moment, and are having us cycle the batteries tonight and they will
> start another charge cycle in the morning to see if having a lower SOC
> along with the firmware reload will change anyhing (I don't think it
> will - it didn't the last several times.
>
> Has anybody seen this type of behavior before? I don't think it is a
> settings issue, as several technicians have gone through them, I have
> gone over them many times using the Fortress/Sol-Ark integration white
> papers. Hoping to get higher level tech involved ASAP, since I don't
> feel like the lower level techs know enough to provide useful ideas.
>
> Thanks,
> Howie
> *Howie Michaelson
> **Sun Catcher*
> *****/NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer™
> /**
> **Solar Electric Systems Sales & Service
> 802-272-0004*
>
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