[RE-wrenches] Most dependable Lithium - inverter setup

[Jerry Shafer]

Hey team wrenches,
I ran a lab for years and the cheapest flashes battery's all failed, Blue
planet is a great battery but they have moved out of the 48 vdc market,
Fortress filled that void and l have only one warranty issue, a cracked
display and they were quick to get one shipped. LiFePo4 aka LFP works and
is very stable, I used to only run with outback but added solark to the
list with great success, battery comms are good, it is an all in one so
time will tell. I do my best to stay with manufactures that have time in
the industry and did not buy the competition just to kill it. What l can
say is buyer beware, some of these newbies will be gone along with the
warranty, not all but some. I am not an invester and will look very closely
at who a new manufacture is befor putting my money and name behind it.
Fun times

On Sun, Sep 14, 2025, 7:31 AM Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

> Although I only have a handful of Midnite systems up and running, I will
> say that the Powerflo16 battery to AIO setup is dead easy. No dip switches
> (YAY!) No discovery process. They just work. I really like it. The downside
> is that the app is very limited in terms of visibility into the individual
> battery capacities. The only real way to determine if they are all working
> is to view the aH capacity figure that is displayed inconspicuously in the
> app. They include comm cables with each battery for both inverter to
> battery comms (special pinout, only needed for the master battery) and a
> straight-through Cat5 cable for interbattery communication. Oddly, the AIO
> defaults to PYLON protocol, so the first order of business is to change
> that to
> "Midnite" in the battery settings. And as I mentioned in another thread,
> Midnite doesn't seem to send the right aH capacity to Solar Assistant (I am
> working with SA support on a workaround).
>
> Pro tip: I don't think it is documented, or certainly not well documented,
> but you only need to turn on the master battery. All others should turn on
> in sequence, as long as the circuit breakers are all on first.
>
> On my first installation, I purposefully broke the communication daisy
> chain temporarily to see what happened, and everything kept working. There
> was no inverter shutdown, parallel fault, etc. The AIO simply renegotiated
> the new quantity of batteries in the chain and displayed the new aH rating
> for the quantity of batteries still in the comms sequence. That is a huge
> benefit over other batteries and inverters that go into crisis mode and
> shut down when communications are lost.
>
> EG4 works great after the initial setup, but it's not as simple and
> straightforward as Midnite. You have to dig into the menus to configure the
> protocols on both the batteries and inverters. I believe I have called for
> support on every single installation for one reason or another, but found
> the support to be very easy to reach, knowledgeable, and efficient. Again,
> this is based only on a handful of installations.
>
> I would not call my opinions statistically significant, but I have no
> problem recommending either setup.
>
>
>
> Jason Szumlanski
> Principal Solar Designer | Florida Solar Design Group
> NABCEP Certified Solar Professional (PVIP)
> Florida State Certified Solar Contractor CVC56956
> Florida Certified Electrical Contractor EC13013208
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 13, 2025 at 11:25 AM Drake Chamberlin via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
>> Having followed the battery - inverter discussions with interest, it
>> seems like a lot of communication problems are encountered.
>>
>> It seems like the least problematic setups are Midnite batteries and
>> inverters. EG4 setups seem to be getting good ratings also, with the
>> possibility of having short lived inverters.
>>
>> Would you say that this is an accurate assessment?
>>
>> Thank you,
>>
>> Drake
>>
>>
>> *Drake Chamberlin*
>>
>> *Athens Electric LLC*
>>
>> *Ohio Electrical Contractor’s License 44810*
>>
>> *NABCEP Certified PV Installation Professional*
>> --
>>
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