Solis Inverter Battery Settings (other options)

[@mikebarry229]

Finding your Solis/Seplos videos really useful. Planning to get Seplos batteries for myself, and a freind has the Solis so helping me to understand his installation too.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

It can be addictive 🙂. You just need some patience to get through it and when it all works, it is worth every second you spent on it. Unfortunately I am waiting for parts from FogStar because I was given the wrong accessories kit and can't finish my second battery. They are trying to send a replacement kit to me and they are great to deal with. Patience is needed though. 100kg of batteries on the kitchen table for 2 weeks is not easy to explain away 🤣.

[@markoc7561]

Is there an option to set max charge on the battery to prolong life i.e 80% max charge to preserve battery life?

[@GaryMeatsLife]

Yes. It can easily be done if you select the User Define under battery select. You can choose the max SoC. This can also be done via the BMS, but I wouldn't recommend doing it at all. The battery needs to top balance and this is only done when the cells are peaking in the charge cycle. Degradation will only be seen if the batteries are left in a high SoC for long periods of time. If the batteries are charged to full and are then being used within a few hours, they will be happier than only charging to 80%, especially if using LiFePO4 cells.

[@leet3707]

AOBO setting is for Seplos V2 BMS. Just upgraded here from V2 to V3. User Define is currently used for V3 Setting 19200 BAUD wiill kill the Solis Data Stick as they only support 9600 RS485 speed. Set the Seplos to Ginlong Solis protocol on the pack and user define on the Inverter. BMS data is showing in the Inverter with these settings and Cloud still works.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

Thanks for that info. I kept mine on User-Define. Interesting with the baud rate. All other suggestions seem to suggest the 19600. Mine has been set at this from the start (8 months now) with no problem. I did have a comms failure on my first inverter a few hours after hooking up the battery, but this was an inverter issue, as I am still using the original datalogger with no issue. I'll take a look into these settings, especially the protocol change.

[@leet3707]

@@GaryMeatsLife no problem and hope it helps. Battery and Inverter worked fine on 19200 but lost cloud communication, showing offline as well as Home Assistant. Solis have said their Data Sticks are 9600 although not attempted to change. All running sweet at 9600 so probably not going to mess with Stick settings. Did see video on BUS. Might be worth looking at bouncing connections across all three packs p+ to p+ to p+ then take Inverter +ve to first pack. Then link battery P- together taking the Inverter -ve to the opposite last pack - using the same length cables between the packs. This 'should force equilibrium over the three packs as I have here without BUS on them. Equal and opposite is the key, just like the good old days we had 16 very large Lead Acids in our garage. Which Logger are you using? Ours is the ST3 I believe. Silver bodied and tubular.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

@leet3707 I believe my logger is the S2-WL-ST (4 pin). The black one. Though we did try the older silver version when the inverter had comms trouble. If the baud rate is working for you, leave it be. I've just always seen it being a recommendation to increase it. Here's an example just from a quick text search github.com/alienatedsec/solis-ha-modbus-cloud/blob/master/README.md The BUS BAR setup was supposed to force equilibrium after the previous daisy chain setup saw my packs go way out. I'll be making changes here in the near future to bring them closer into line. It's at least interesting to see the differences when the setup is changed.

[@leet3707]

@@GaryMeatsLife the silver loggers are fixed at 9600. Hence setting back to that. Lead Acids were a challenge to keep equilibrium with many lessons learned. As long as cables are same interlinking and following the old Lead Acid rules of spreading by splitting the Inverter +ve and -ve to either end, all should be fine as there's no favoritism towards one pack.

[@kevincoholan7604]

Hi Gary, excellent videos on Solis and Seplos. When moght you be doing a video for adding second battery? Im having no luck.😮

[@GaryMeatsLife]

I expect to have one this month. I am building the second battery this weekend hopefully and will figure it out after I configure in BMS studio. I’ll record the process.

[@leet3707]

What's issue? Just set same parameters on both packs, set same protocol and plug network cable the right side RS485 on the master battery connected to Inverter to left side RS485 socket on second and so on..

[@alanslattery5954]

Hi Gary, just to clarify... You have 2 EVs. You charge your battery and 1 of the EVs using the hypervolt charger and do you use the granny charger for the other car or have u a 2nd charger? How many kwatts are you pulling between 2am and 6am daily ? ( Great video )

[@GaryMeatsLife]

Alan, glad you enjoyed the video. I have a Hypervolt 2.0 which draws 7kW and which I schedule for 2am-6am charging. I also have an outdoor socket which would draw about 2kW. The outdoor socket is almost never used as we alternate the cars with the Hypervolt. The battery draws 5kW when charging. So the draw is 12kW from the grid over those hours…14kW if the cars were both charging. That’s the limit with my setup. My main supply is due to be upgraded also. The house then runs off the battery for the day. Funny fact: I’m currently in the UK and collected 16 more battery cells (15kWh) in the Netherlands a few days ago and yesterday another battery case. I’m about to strap the case to the roof rack on my Tesla 😂. 14 of the cells fit in the lower trunk/boot and the other 2 in the frunk. The car is stuffed with luggage and 3 people. Fun drive home 😅

[@alanslattery5954]

@@GaryMeatsLife Safe travels Gary, Can't wait to see how your second battery pack build goes and especially how you daisy chain the 2 packs together.

[@jackdunne2689]

Hi Gary, I have added two dyness batteries to my system. On the home screen it says RS485 Null and I'm not getting any readings for battery use or for current house use. It is currently reading through battery capacity though. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? Many thanks

[@GaryMeatsLife]

I’m not very familiar with other batteries, but I suspect your inverter settings are wrong, as the Dyness should be plug and play on their end. What to check are the battery settings on the inverter. Select Dyness and make sure you also have the correct grid settings turned on. The first setting that ends with IE should be OK. Make sure to wake the battery after any settings change. Finally, check that the cable is good.

[@jackdunne2689]

@@GaryMeatsLife Cheers Gary. I've followed the instructions and used the CAN cable to connect the batteries to the inverter. It's reads "CAN OK" and shows me the battery charge. I just don't have any other data and have the message "RS485 Null" above the house icon. I selected Dyness from the list of batteries like you mentioned. I'm sure its some setting I just haven't figured out! Thanks 😊

[@leet3707]

Your next project.. Now you have cheap electricity and big batteries. Get yourself some Air Conditioning fitted. New type 'Inverter compressor" type units. Above minus two outside then instead of burning the Gas Chugga we switch on Air Conditioning to bulk heat the house. Rather than paying 6p per kwh Gas, we're using previous night 12p Economy7 and dividing this by 4 (COP), our Heating costs 3p per kwh which at EV Rate of 7p would equate to 1.75p per kwh Heating!! We're saving a fortune on our Gas as 1kwh of electricity gives 4kwh heat. Roll on Spring when the electricity is free. One tip - oversized units is the secret. They have the power to heat and back off to maintain. BACKUP - does not need to be enabled on your Solis, although switching it on and moving your lights, boiler and fridge freezers circuits to a secondary Consumer Unit connected to EPS output on Inverter means they stay active during Grid failure. Priceless.. One other tip on charging during Winter. Spread the charge over the full off peak period. There is no point charging to then run a washer from battery, run these appliances direct from Grid while charging. In doing so, you'll lose 5% on the round trip - run appliances overnight while charging.. Example - 16kwh needed and 6 hours window. Watts divided by 52 divided by hours. Eg 16000 / 52 / 6 = 52amps. Doing this will mean Inverter works less hard and live longer and as your still charging while car is on you'll not risk charging car from batteries. 100amps is a hot Inverter wasting Energy and reducing its lifetime.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

Some food for though there. Although we use very little gas, comfortably less than €500 a year on heating and gas hob. I just got the bill for November/December bill which matches the January/February bill typically. The bill is €118. This will be similar in Jan/Feb. So €250ish for the 4 most demanding months. The rest of the bills will be much lower. cost per unit is around 8c. We are well insulated here. I think the next round of energy spending will be to increase the number of solar panels on my property. I can add another 1.2kWp (4 panels) on the North roof to compliment the 4 panels there, attaching them to the same string. After that, I expect to add 4 to 6 south panels on my flat roof extension and 4 panels on my shed roof which has a slight north angle. Another 2 mounted vertical on the back of the shed facing south. I would be pretty much doubling my solar generation, but the panels on the extension and shed would not be connected to a hybrid inverter and so would not be directly connected to the batteries. I expect that should I add an standard dumb inverter and connect the comms to the hybrid inverter, any excess generation should go to the batteries before any is exported. You make sense with using appliances like dishwasher and washing machine during the cheap rate rather than using the batteries. The reason I use the appliances during the day rather than during the cheap rate directly is to keep the sustained load from being too high. As it is, my main fuse is an 80A. Using a power factor of 0.95 with 230V my EV charges at 7kW and Inverter draws 5kW for the batteries. That's 12kW or 55A. If the immersion is left on at 3kW, that's nearly 69A, which is awfully close to the 80A limit before considering the standby base loads of around 500W. I plan to add a 3kW charger to the battery pack, but not before I setup the load balancing on the EV charger. So, my supply limits me and it is very expensive to increase it. Mine is anomalous, as I technically have a 16kVa supply allowance on a 12kVa supply because my DNO fuse is the same as the main isolator/breaker in the meter cabinet. I'm also stuck with a 4 hour window to avail of the rates I have. I might consider a longer window upon renewal to help spread the load over a longer period. Will have to see what is on offer.

[@markbrowne8447]

Have you noticed the cable temps when charging at 100A? I reduced my setting to 60A and a lot less heat is generated while still charging at around 3.2kW per hour.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

I can't say that I have monitored this, but the cables are well within the safe zone for 100A sustained. I also need to take full advantage of the charging speed to make sure my battery is full within the 4 hour hour window. Next month, I will be adding a second battery and in time, I will be increasing my supply capacity to allow for additional batteries to charge, but the highest the cables will see is 100A. I will be upgrading to a larger gauge down the line to keep everything cool though.

[@edr4386]

Hi Gary, I know you're not using a Growatt inverter but when I plug the Seplos Mason 280L V3 I've just built into my Growatt SPH5000 inverter it isn't recognised and the inverter comes up with a BMS communication error. I'm using the communication cable that my Growatt batteries used. Is it likely that I need to change settings on the inverter before it will recognise the battery? Edit: its a setting accessed via tge screen of the Seplos, seems to be charging and discharging normally now 😊

[@GaryMeatsLife]

Great that the battery is working for you now with the inverter.

[@edr4386]

Thanks! Found your videos really useful because I haven't built a battery before. The only bits missing (or maybe I missed them) were installing the flat flexible busbars and fuse. ​@@GaryMeatsLife

[@GaryMeatsLife]

@@edr4386 There was no need for detail on the busbars for the wiring video because they are clear to see for a large portion of the start of the video, including when I lift the top cover up.

[@kenbone4535]

Have you done, or can you do a Seplos settings episode for the Solis/Seplos config, after my JK BMS died, ive just got a Seplos one. Inverter is the same Solis 5k Hybrid. Many Thanks.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

@@kenbone4535 The whole video series is based on the Seplos and Solis combination, including Seplos BMS configuration. Take a look at the other videos in the series and you should see what you need. They are set in order, so maybe skip the first 2 videos, which are build and wiring ones.

[@kenbone4535]

@@GaryMeatsLife many thanks, ive watched most of them over a few times 😁 whats your can setting in the BMS itself, to make it work with the Solis. Thx

[@kenbone4535]

BTW I'm running an old leaf 24 pack that I've repurposed.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

@@kenbone4535Plyontech protocol as standard. As it’s the default, I hadn’t mentioned it.

[@GaryMeatsLife]

@@kenbone4535 brilliant. I had two of those cars. Currently our second EV is a 40kWh Leaf. I do hope that battery is not in the house. I keep my LiFePO4 outside even though they are very safe.

[@bbiero]

im wondering what are the differences between Control Parameter in Storage Energy Set and User Define parameters in Battery Select menu. both of them contain currents and voltages parameters related to charge and discharge the battery