I have both controllers set to the Fortress recommended absorb settings
of 54.4 vdc for 2 hrs. Its always possible that there was voltage over
swing or something. I did check that the voltage on the controllers was
within a0.1 vdc of the battery voltage at the Fortresses. I'm now using
a pair of Midnite Hampton Bay Controllers. They're rated to 90 amps,
but I set them down to 85 A output, just to provide some head room. I
don't mind the very occasional clipping. The array is two strings of
Jinko 425s, 10 per series string, so 4250 w per controller.
I wonder if the voltage that causes trouble for Fortress might have
changed due to the possible lightning surge?
Ray
On 8/27/2024 3:46 PM, jay wrote:
I have a buddy in tech support at Fortress.
I asked him and he said that elevated absorb volts above 55.2 could
cause this situation.
And then the power cycle would reboot the BMS.
I am presuming its open loop, and the fact you mentioned that there
was more PV and then the shut down sure might be connected.
You might check the charge voltages/time to make sure they are correct
and I can’t remember if the classic has battery sense wire connections.
jay
On Aug 27, 2024, at 2:51 PM, Ray Walters via RE-wrenches
<re-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
The SPD was on one of the PV inputs before it came into the house.
There were two Classics, each fed with its own PV input and SPD. It
actually caused an underground splice to fail (high resistance) which
I replaced the splice and restored full voltage, and both Classics
were working fine. Just seems unlikely ( but not impossible) that
the surge would make it past the Classic without damage, but then
damage the Fortress BMS in an otherwise imperceptible manner. That is
our current best theory at the moment though. I added an SPD on the
48 v buss, before this latest total shutdown.
Ray Walters
On 8/27/2024 2:35 PM, Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar via RE-wrenches wrote:
When I have had someone lose an SPD (I assume it was on DC buss)
there is often latent damage (shows up later) to many of the
devices. In a Hi Rel mode, it is recommended to replace it all.
Most offgrid is not that critical but try telling that to someone
with rotten food.
The freezers and reefers are often full of spoils that smells never
go away. YUK !
*Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar "we go where powerlines don't"
<http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/>https://offgridsolar1.com/
<https://offgridsolar1.com/><http://members.sti.net/offgridsolar/>
e-mail offgridso...@sti.net text 209 813 0060*
On 2024-08-27 1:02 pm, Ray Walters via RE-wrenches wrote:
Greetings All;
I have Fortress Battery installation with a pair of E Vault
batteries set up in a Master/ Slave arrangement. Its been working
fine for over a year, but the customer just had a complete shutdown
of the batteries which left multiple freezers, and refrigerator
with rotting food. When he rebooted the batteries by turning on/off
the main breaker on each, they both come up and showed 100% SOC on
the Master, and 98% on the other. There were no fault codes. I
just recently installed a larger PV array, and so the system has
been reaching full charge every morning.
I have multiple calls in to Fortress, but not hearing anything back
from them at all. We did have a lightning surge event a few months
ago, that damaged a Midnite SPD (first ever for me), and took out
the control board on the generator. One VFX inverter has an LED
out, but we only use two inverters of the Quad stack, so I just
switched to another inverter. All other equipment appeared fine:
Midnite controllers, rest of the Outback VFX quad stack, and never
any issues seen with the Fortress batteries.
The other odd thing, is since he rebooted the batteries, the system
is working fine, and recharging to 100% by 9:30 am as before.
Is it possible the Fortress BMS were damaged and are now having an
intermittent shutdown issue? I did ask him to temporarily
disconnect the comms between batteries, in case it is a bad BMS on
one, it will isolate it from the other.
This is a tough one to figure out, since it hasn't happened again,
and there are no fault codes. The Mate 3 shows a low frequency AC
code, but that's usually just from the generator shutting down. Any
help, ideas, experiences, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Ray Walters
Remote Solar
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