[RE-wrenches] Most dependable Lithium - inverter setup

Sun Sep 14 10:06:53 PDT 2025

Jerry's point about hitching your wagon to the right horse is hitting home
with me right now. I'm considering what manufacturers have a strong
international presence and are in it for the right reasons. I think 2026
will see a lot of manufacturers leave the market once the grid-tied
business tanks with the loss of the tax credit.

It's related to this discussion about dependability - the equipment isn't
going to be dependable long-term if the manufacturer goes away.

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 Sun, Sep 14, 2025, 12:58 PM Jerry Shafer <jerrysgarage01 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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