[RE-wrenches] Sunny Island/Fortress E-vault (and eFlex)

[Nick A Lucchese]

William, Mac and Wrenches,

Though it’s not the specific model William seeks I’ve generally had good luck with closed loop comms paired with the Fortress Eflex. I did have initial setbacks with earlier firmware since the particular setup still had a negative to ground bond but after their helpful tech support walked me through a firmware update it had been flawless for a year. However, somewhat unrelated is that after realizing their IP65 rating has limitations Fortress has recently updated their manual and changed their warranted configurations for outdoor installations and now only allows one particular orientation for the battery. Unfortunately for me the old allowable orientation with the battery upright let enough moisture into the battery to cause one of four to fail. Still a bit of a mystery how it got moisture inside since I do have them in an open air box with a lid year round and EPDM cover during rain and winter months but I accept that perhaps I was putting too much faith in the IP65 rating especially now that they’ve modified their manual. I’m thinking that water condensed on the underside of the lid and then migrated into the battery somehow even though there were no signs of moisture on tops of the batteries. Now after receiving the replacement battery I am getting inconsistent reliability on the communications side. Frequent ext BMS timeouts on the Islands now. Initially started with only the slave and just a few days ago with the master. A complete power down of the batteries and Islands initially resolved the communications handshake but now even that provides no confidence in connectivity. I’ve yet to make the small effort of replacing the cable so still holding some faith that a bit more effort on my part will resolve this latest issue especially since it worked so well initially. This test installation of mine is on a DC Solar trailer and it’s possible communications connections are being exposed to variables not typically found on permanent installs. Also thinking perhaps may be a firmware mismatch between the first three batteries and the new one they shipped under warranty. Hopefully once I hook up their Guardian communications box it will provide some more beneficial insight as well. Like Jerry and may of you, I don’t deploy anything on customers until I am convinced myself so still have not made a firm decision on Fortress. Even though their closed loop communications was extremely simple to set up initially at this point it’s Blue Ion or nothing! I put too much value in my sleep to offer anything else unless it’s a 24v system paired with Simpliphi. If there was a 24v Fortelion or Blue Planet solution I’d be all over it.

Separately I’ve had great success with closed loop communications relating to Blue Ions and four Namakas on a Multicluster system. A couple of hiccups initially but going on 20 months without issue now. Another site with a single Namaka and a pair of Islands suffers frequent BMS timeouts but I understand there is newer firmware that may likely resolve that. I wish SMA would release a firmware revision that would allow us control based on voltage versus their SOC algorithms. It would make the Islands so much more versatile and user friendly. Especially after the surplus of inventory due to the DC Solar auctions, lots of opportunity to bring new life to an otherwise impressive product many of us try to avoid anymore. From an outsider’s perspective this seems like a task SMA could accomplish easily.

Maybe Michael Mahon has further insight?


Nick 



> On Sep 16, 2023, at 6:04 AM, Mac Lewis via RE-wrenches <re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> 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.
> 
>