[RE-wrenches] Sol-Ark/Fortress charging issue

Thu Nov 17 14:36:06 PST 2022

I'm thinking of Fortress to replace older Lead acid batts for a customer
right now. My LI - LFP experience is with Blue Planet - Blue Ion both high
and low voltage. Yes they are expensive. And IMO they easily overlooked a
simple, integrated display with just the basics for off-grid customers.
Namaka and even egauge is way overkill for the average off-gridder.

That said, I'm not encouraged by the Fortress comments I'm seeing here
either. I'd rather just use them with an OB radian, which I know best.
Thoughts on Radian with Fortress? Thanks.

On Thu, Nov 17, 2022 at 5:15 PM Ray Walters via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

> I really think that the Fortress battery could easily be the top battery
> choice right now, if......they could vastly improve their customer
> support.  Tom has been great now that he contacted me, but it was weeks of
> frustration and no communication before that. Completely unacceptable,
> especially for a new emerging technology that we are going to have extra
> issues integrating into old systems.  I second your assessment of the
> integration guides as well.   I have a 4 hour round trip to change some
> voltage settings.................RETURN TRIPS is LOSING $$$!!!
>
> However, once they cure those issues, the product itself is way beyond
> others such as Simpliphi or Blue Ion.
>
> Blue Ion = half a day of assembly and cell wiring, monitoring is by E-gage
> (AC only) through the customer's router, price way too high
>
> Fortress = remove crating material from pallet and roll into place, with
> built in color touch screen for monitoring, price much better.
>
> Simpliphi = no monitoring at all, have to parallel ridiculous qty of
> batteries to do a normal off grid home, but integration guides are the best.
>
> Ray Walters
> On 11/17/2022 1:16 PM, rich at solartechvt.com wrote:
>
> We’ve started to use Fortress batteries for off grid installations lately
> as well. The tech support has been very frustrating and the integration
> guides are ridiculous – the Magnum guide was the worst – absolute nonsense,
> I believe most of which has been pulled from the Fortress site now. The
> variation in charge parameters for the inverter vs the charge controller
> for the Outback guide doesn’t make sense either. Lack of generator
> start/stop parameters in the integration guides have resulted in trial and
> error programming on our part to zero in on what works best.
>
>
>
> Poor tech support on battery based systems is one of my biggest pet peeves
> in the industry………off grid customers rely on their equipment, unlike net
> metered installations it’s not just a matter of reducing their electrical
> bill it’s about keeping the lights on and the fridge working.
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* RE-wrenches [mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org
> <re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org>] *On Behalf Of *Ray Walters
> via RE-wrenches
> *Sent:* Thursday, November 17, 2022 1:43 AM
> *To:* re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org
> *Cc:* Ray Walters
> *Subject:* Re: [RE-wrenches] Sol-Ark/Fortress charging issue
>
>
>
> 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™ **[image: Image removed by sender.]*
>
> *Solar Electric Systems Sales & Service **802-272-0004*
>
>
>
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-- 

*Kirk Herander / **kirkh at vermont.solar <kirkh at vermont.solar>*

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