[RE-wrenches] Sunny Island/Fortress E-vault

Tue Sep 19 13:43:15 PDT 2023

William,

I'm sorry, I was assuming that people posting here simply hadn't found these integration instructions. If you have tried these and they didn't work, then I stand corrected. I have no personal experience paring this with SMA... I have some really bad experience trying to pair other LiFePO4 batteries with SMA open loop... I basically try to avoid The SMA Sunny Island products any more, but that's not always an option...

I'm curious if you know which tech support agent told you they've been having problems... I was actually giving someone a price to use Fortress with an existing SMA and if they want to go forward, I might contact my friends at Fortress and see if they would want to work with my client's system as a pilot to try to iron out the kinks...

Thanks,

Kienan Maxfield
Technical sales, Technical Support

Green-Go Solar Wholesale Distribution
kienan at dist.solar<https://kienan@dist.solar/>
(801) 631-5584 (Cell)
www.distribution.solar<https://www.distribution.solar/>
________________________________
From: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org> on behalf of William Miller via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2023 1:39 PM
To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>
Cc: William Miller <william at millersolar.com>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Sunny Island/Fortress E-vault

Kieran:

I have read the documentation. Fortress tech support said there have been problems and recommended open loop.

Do you know what parameters are passed with closed loop?

William Miller
Miller Solar.com
805-438-5600
www.millersolar.com<http://www.millersolar.com>

On Tue, Sep 19, 2023 at 12:18 PM Kienan Maxfield via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>> wrote:
That's actually incorrect, Fortress totally does support closed-loop with the SMA Sunny Island inverters. Here is their integration guide. This has all of the instructions and coms wiring, etc. - https://learn.fortresspower.com/external/manual/sma/article/introduction-useful-links?p=dc8b9a9c1b3f410556835193e66f2257c662403dfb3da4056e618e954e8381d2

Thanks,

Kienan Maxfield
Technical sales, Technical Support

Green-Go Solar Distribution
kienan at dist.solar<https://kienan@dist.solar/>
(801) 631-5584 (Cell)
www.distribution.solar<https://www.distribution.solar/>

________________________________
From: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:re-wrenches-bounces at lists.re-wrenches.org>> on behalf of Kirk Herander via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>>
Sent: Saturday, September 16, 2023 8:33 AM
To: RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>>
Cc: Kirk Herander <kirkh at vermont.solar>
Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] Sunny Island/Fortress E-vault

Jerry,

Who is the maker of the Blue Planet/Outback SOC box interface you mention?

On Sat, Sep 16, 2023 at 9:30 AM Jerry Shafer via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>> wrote:
Mac, wrenches
SMA and fortress can only open loop and with a fixed temp sender its fine. Now on the blue planet and open loop with outback, you need a SOC box that they can make for you, it will interface with the blue planet and command the genny.
Fun times

On Sat, Sep 16, 2023, 6:04 AM Mac Lewis <maclewis1 at gmail.com<mailto:maclewis1 at gmail.com>> wrote:
Hi William,

Are you doing open loop or closed loop communication?  I'm not sure if Fortress can do a closed loop with SMA or not.

We struggled to get the open loop to work well with some Blue Ion batteries, not from a charging sense but from a sense of getting the auto gen start to trigger correctly.  Basically, the SOC algorithm was always way off.  For a while we were using an external voltage trigger and we could get the generator to start OK before BMS shutdown.  We have since added a Namaka box and are using the "Ext BMS" setting for battery type in the Sunny Island and it has been working very well.

I think the difficulty arises because the Sunny Island is so State-of-Charge centric and you can't manipulate the SOC algorithm without that Ext-BMS setting (and solid communication).  One weakness of the ext BMS setting is that it won't fall back on Voltage settings if battery communication goes down, but this is a weakness throughout closed loop communication for many manufacturers.

Let us know if there is a Fortress to SMA communication solution.

On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 11:11 PM Jerry Shafer via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>> wrote:
William, Wrenches
Yes I do and it does require some basic electronics to make it work correctly, you will need to remove the ttemp sender and make a resistor pack to simulate the 77 degree reading otherwise it will not charge properly, for the first one I used a breadboard to set the temp for what I wanted to see then build a more solid state shrink wrap resistor. Doing this will prevent undercharge by the SMA and your customer will be happy to see the full state of charge at the batteries.
OldSchool fun times

On Thu, Sep 14, 2023 at 2:12 PM William Miller via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org<mailto:re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org>> wrote:

Friends:

I am commissioning an E-vault battery array to an existing SMA Sunny Island System.  Does anyone have any experience with this they could share?

Thanks.

William

Miller Solar

17395 Oak Road, Atascadero, CA 93422

805-438-5600

www.millersolar.com<http://www.millersolar.com/>

CA Lic. 773985

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--

Mac Lewis

"Yo solo sé que no sé nada." -Sócrates

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