Our installations of Sunny Islands (SI) with Sunny Boys (SB) have always used the recommended RS-485 communications between all units involved. This with reprogramming the SB's to be able to switch to off-grid mode per the SI instructions allows a more integrated system.
We have had problems with the OB PSX-240 and stepping up the 120 to 240 for the crit load panel (where the SB's connect) when the site has slightly high AC voltages. The SB pushes the existing ACV higher, then it goes out of UL spec & disconnects. Also the SB is now sensitive to imbalance on L1 & L2 because of the neutral sensing - we had a customer where the SB was disconnecting due to this as well. I thought the freq shifting was to allow other non-SMA inverters to be controlled when batteries were full? Where is the SMA rep on this list? -Glenn From: re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org [mailto:re-wrenches-boun...@lists.re-wrenches.org] On Behalf Of Kirpal Khalsa Sent: Tuesday, October 20, 2009 12:05 PM To: RE-wrenches Subject: Re: [RE-wrenches] AC Coupled Re-visited Greetings......it is my understanding that the Sunny Island coupled with Sunny Boys is able to taper charge in an AC coupled system as the 2 inverters are able to communicate with each other and the Sunny Island alters the frequency input of the Sunny Boys and lowers the total output of the Sunny Boys to match the needs of the battery bank....this is SMA's method of not using their "charger"....they simply alter the amount of available AC input into the AC to DC converter present in the Sunny Island.....This logic is what encouraged me to select SMA's for an AC coupled design rather than mixing brands of battery-less and battery based inverters.....in a mixed brand scenario there is no communication other than an on/off command so no regulation is available.....My understanding may be flawed--please correct me if so.... Another way for mixed brands to AC couple and provide some charge "control" would be to have an AC dumpload on the AC input side of the battery based inverter to suck up some of the excess power from the GT inverters so not as much power is available for battery charging.....This dumpload would be voltage based and in a mixed brand system would add more relays to the mix...in many cases there may not be that many auxillary outputs available to connect relays to..... I would like to see more GT inverter companies make compatible battery based inverters......One idea is for micro inverters to be paired with the battery based inverters and when less power was needed to facilitate a taper charge one solar panel at a time could be switched off......effectively providing a smaller available charge current to help with the taper charging..... -- Sunny Regards, Kirpal Khalsa NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer Renewable Energy Systems www.oregonsolarworks.com 541-218-0201 m 541-592-3958 o On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 8:34 AM, Mick Abraham <m...@abrahamsolar.com> wrote: Hi, All~ On an AC coupled system as Jeff describes, the "battery charge circuitry" on the battery based inverter is not even participating. A straight pure sine inverter...with no charger function built in...would also "charge" the battery if AC coupled to a SunnyBoy with no grid available. The "charge" is just the inverter's way of dealing with back EMF. I agree that better control over that "recharge" is an important area; I hope somebody is working on that. It's true that the "wild card recharge" only occurs if grid goes away but as Jeff mentions, it only takes a few times of crummy end of charge management to ruin a nice set of sealed batteries. Mick Abraham, Proprietor www.abrahamsolar.com Voice: 970-731-4675 On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 9:21 AM, Jeff Yago <jry...@netscape.com> wrote: We have completed several totally different AC coupled systems using different inverters, due to large ground mounted arrays that had to be located a great distance from inverter-battery-generator-grid BAS, which are working just fine even with the mis-match of inverter brands. The SunnyBoy seems to not care what its connected to or how, as it just keeps doing what it does and if a relay cuts off its connection to the grid when the battery voltage goes high then it just waits and re-connects when the grid is back or the battery voltage drops. What I am bothered by is the need to custom design a power relay circuit on each project which takes lots of fine-tuning of setpoints to get everything to work correctly. If you have not done one the problem is simple - when you backfeed the AC output from a remote grid-tie inverter "through" the AC side of a battery based inverter, everything works great and the solar AC just passes straight through the sub-panel, back throught the battery inverter, back into the grid. However, when the grid is down and the battery-inverter is no longer receiving (or sending) power from the grid, for some reason I cannot begin to understand, any AC being fed from the solar inverter goes straight into battery charging with absolutely no limit on charge rate or charge limit, and if you do not add a relay to dis-connect or shut-down the solar inverter you can quickly destroy a bank of AGM batteries if there are no major system loads as it just keeps charging and charging. I am not an electronics engineer, but if the battery is being charged by the battery charger built into the inverter, I just do not see why the same battery charger suddenly has no clue that the battery is being overcharged when its now receiving AC power from a different source. I think with larger and larger arrays being installed as module costs fall, higher DC array string voltges to reduce wire costs, and more people worried about grid reliability, there would be a good market niche for an inverter that can properly charge a battery bank regardless of which way the AC power comes into the charger section. Whats the problem? Jeff Yago DTI Solar _____ Netscape. 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