Yup… As a perhaps easier solution get a dpdt relay rated for the ac amperage of the inverter but with a 12 volt trigger coil. Use the flexmax programmable relay to trigger the large ac relay to shut off the ac output. You don’t have to modify the inverter that way. Looking at the inverter manual it’s shutdown voltage is much too low for lithium which usually sits at 46-47 volts not 38… That’s where your culprit is iny opinion.
I don’t recommend Sigineer. This thing wastes a lot of power. It heats the 12’X12’ room it’s in. It will not accept generator charging until the batteries are dangerously low, and cannot be adjusted. The power on demand setting doesn’t work no matter what load is placed on it, so it only works on bypass.
I like the relay idea, but then the idling inverter will still kill the batteries over night because of its huge parasitic draw.
I should wire the outback to shut off the Sigineer totally.
The only thing I do like about the Sigineer, is the 18000 watt surge capacity.
Right now we shut off the inverter for the night. Then nothing bad happens.
I think the solution is to move the inverter to the shop, and get a new inverter.
Recommend a 6048 for LiFePo batteries please. One that you personally have operated.
Thanks
DF
It uses 100w of power in low power mode and there is a 3 second probe thing that uses 25w, but that I think is the power on demand setting. so it checks every 3 seconds, which is a delay…
The main issue. According to the Sigineer manual is for Lithium batteries it needs to communicate with the BMS. The low battery shutoff as well as the high battery can be adjusted.
“When the AC power charging process starts, the charging current will each peak in around 3 seconds, the charger may overload the AC input generator and drop its output frequency, making inverter switch to battery mode.
It is suggested to gradually put charging load on the generator by switching the charging switch from minimum to maximum, and give the generator enough time to spin up.”
it looks like the adjustmnt needs to be made to lower the over voltage and raise the undervoltage values for the battery threshholds.
The Outback Flex is made to be paired and communicate with an outback inverter. I did not see any listed standard protocols like rs485 so it might be using a proprietary protocol or they may just not advertise it.
Honestly, would email sigineer support to ask them how to properly configure your inverter with the flexmax and the daly. because maybe you can connect the flexmax to the sigineer.
I am not saying the sigineer is good,I think the lack of communication between components is the issue, and it will also be an issue with a new inverter.
The Mate protocol the Outback uses is proprietary.
Someone reverse engineered it though.
It is entirely possible Sigineer did as well but you need to contact them for a firmware update. I don’t think even buying their mate hub will work from the looks of what the guy said.
Sean, the flexmax is a solar charge controller it in no way plays a role in the battery BMS shutting down over low voltage. If the inverter low battery shut off is programmable on the sigeneer then that would solve the OP’s problem. Do you see an adjustment for low battery shut off? I have not read it’s entire manual. It really looks like an aims like made in China transformer based unit. As to an inverter that would work with the battery BMS you will have to dive into the BMS manual and see which inverters it does 2 way communication with. In the transformer based inverters on lithium I have personal experience with the Outbacks, Magnums, Schneider’s, and Victrons. All of them have programmable low voltage shutdown and most have some form of 2 way communication protocols with various batteries. In the transformer less category I would say sol ark and lux lead that pack. High induction start loads are a problem though as well as high standby wattage. It’s the tradeoff of having all that power on tap. I’ve had experience with voltium, simpliphi, and recently Pytes on the lithium front. Those are all code compliant units with good comms protocols. Two way comms are on the Schneider, solark and lux for sure. It’s quite a maze out there.
Cheers, David
The outback does have a circuit going to the inverter but it is only a circuit breaker. I just don’t see the purpose. it wants to talk to the BMS, as does the sigineer, and it just adds a layer of complication as near as I can tell. It also looks like it actually shuts off for too much draw and requires a hard restart to clear the code. So the inverter might not be large enough.
IF this is the right manual…
Page 5 says “The inverter’s powerful DSP(digital signal processor ) makes the M series solar inverters very versatile and
almost all of its specifications can be adjusted via its LCD, such as AC output voltage, frequency, power
priority, low/high battery cutoff, charging profiles & amperage, etc.
• It outputs two hot lines of 120/240vac simultaneously, between each hotline and neutral, it is 120Vac,
between two hotlines, it is 240Vac. You can get the full power on 240Vac and half power on each of
the hotlines.
• The BMS port communicates with lithium battery for optimal operation of batteries.
• It also has a programmable “US2” setting which works with lithium batteries without BMS
communication with the inverter.
• The 300% surge capacity of 5 seconds makes it possible to support demanding inductive loads.”
Then on page 17
“NOTE: The US2 will not optimally charge the lithium battery due to the lack of BMS communication. The battery capacity icon bar doesn’t reflect the actual battery capacity; it is converted from battery voltage. For more details, please refer to page 13.” (page 13 says nothing really)
Page 19 "
Solar and Utility (Default)
Solar energy and utility will both charge battery. But the solar will have higher priority in charging.
14:OSO
Solar Only
Solar energy will be the only charger source no matter utility is available or not.
When the battery voltage drops below the setting of 21(Low DC Cut-off Voltage), the utility power will
be used to force a charging cycle to avoid battery overdischarging.
If this off grid solar inverter is working in DC to AC invert mode, only solar energy can charge the
battery. Solar energy will charge battery if it’s available and sufficient.
Program 19: C.V. Charging Voltage
48V model: default 56.4V, 48.0V~58.4V Settable
If user-defined setting (USE/US2) is selected in program 5, this program can be set up
Program 20: Float Charging Voltage
48V model: default 54.0V, 48.0V~58.4V Settable
If user-defined setting (USE/US2) is selected in program 5, this program can be set up
Program 21: Low Battery Cut-Off Voltage
48V model: default 42.0V/20%, 36.0V~52.0V/5%-50% Settable.
The battery SOC will be displayed when BMS communication is established.
If user-defined setting (USE/US2) is selected in program 5, this program can be set up
After User-defined (USE/US2) setting is selected in program 5, this program can be set up
Low DC cut-off voltage will be fixed to setting value regardless of load percentage.
When low DC Cut-Off voltage is reached:
If battery is the only power source, inverter will shut down.
If PV energy and battery power are available, inverter will charge battery"
id say you nailed it Sean. Low voltage disconnect is programable as per page 17. I think he will have to use user defined unless his battery is compatible.
He needs to figure out the communications part or else it is just guessing as to what the battery state is, and I think that is contributing heavily to the issues he is seeing.
He got out the paper manual and is going through it step by step again with a new understanding.
First thing is the power saver mode. It sounds like the inverter is supposed to be running in that mode, but we have never configured our loads to enable it to work. I want try attaching a regular incandescent bulb between hot1 and neutral to see if we can trigger power saving mode. I believe it doesn’t work because we don’t have enough load, long enough to make it start. Maybe a hair dryer or something just to test it.
There seems to be more programming options with power saver mode.
I just assumed that AC priority mode wasn’t going to work because it was looking for 15 days of continuous AC power. So I said it to battery priority. Battery priority waits for the battery to get really low then it charges it all the way up, and goes back to inverter mode until the battery is dead. It doesn’t do pass-through and charging at the same time it’s really kind of silly. Maybe it will work better on power saver mode.
If you mean bypass mode from a generator, i thought it said it did, but it was around a section that mentioned the generator. I was just doing a keyword find in page in the browser.
Sean and David,
I appreciate the help. I believe my thinking about the Sigineer was fossilized. I am revisiting the whole thing.
We developed our system with some big ass Lead acid batteries. Since then we switched over to LiFePo. I just bought individual prismatic cells, soooo, I should be able to buy a BMS that can talk. Same with an inverter. Right now it’s a mashup. Just thinking about it, the ultimate goal would be to purchase a integrated system. I have installed Schneider in the past, and the customer never calls me, cause the system is trouble free.
Anyhow, the first thing I want do is figure out how to get the power saver mode working, with the Sigineer, then switch it to AC priority mode and see if the silliness stops.
I’m still trying to figure out what to do with the refrigerator. It does not present enough of a load to convince the Sigineer to continuously provide power. It keeps toggling on and off on and off.
I wonder if the frig needs a CDS board to keep it shut off til dawn.
You are fine. Curiousity got the best of me late last night. I sent sigineer a message And apparently they only know what hardware and software was installed if you send them the manufacturing code. I just filled out the online chat box thing on their website but I wasn’t able to chat with anyone. But they responded right away. But not knowing off the top of their head seems weird.
My question was
"Offline Message left on 13 Oct 2024, 07:27 AM (GMT+0)
I have a 6048 inverter, can I just use a standard ethernet cable to plug into a Daly BMS to get the communication working between the two? Or do I need a special cable. I didn’t seen any pin outs listed for the the comm port, or any information on the protocol is uses beyond the wire protocols of canbus, rj485 and modbus. Daly mentioned canbus and rj485. but even if the link is good it still has to pass recognizable information. Thanks. "
Their response was:
" Re: Offline Message from sean: I have a 6048 inverter, can I just use a standard
Sigineer Power
To:sean
Sun, Oct 13 at 11:07 AM
Sean
Sorry to hear about the malfunction of the inverter .
1 Please send me a picture of the inverter production label at the side of the box.
List below is an example for your reference.
2 Pls send me your order ID on our website or Amazon.
If you bought it from our dealer, pls send me their invoice.
We need it to identify the inverter and proceed the after sales service."
the electronic boards on the fridges has caused endless amount of wasted power over the years. If your house is built to a modern code the ground fault plugs in the house also consume a tiny bit of AC, the wired in smoke detectors as well, the routers for whole house wifi, etc… I’ve given up trying to make the sleep mode work on modern installed systems after I burnt out a smoke detector with the pulsing AC of the sleep function. Now we just size the system to match the losses and live with it.
Lol! We wire our house around the inverter. Every few years it all gets redone. Ironically, the most successful wiring was to power the house with a dryer plug. We would manually unplug the main fuse box (yes fuses) and plug it into one of two dryer outlets. One outlet powered the house with a diesel generator, and the other with a 5000 watt msw inverter. Nobody ever screwed that up.
The holy Grail is a sealed sparkless dtdp switch, but then we have the possibility of the generator running endlessly doing nothing.
Anyhow, just babbling about simpler times with few options because I couldn’t afford any.
Ah… Franklin. He was there in 2020 when we got our 3048. I wonder if he is a call center, or really one guy?
Yep I will get that info posted.
Also our Dalys were from our electric car, and don’t have any communication. Like I said tho, I am not opposed to upgrading.
Hmm, I wonder if those Dalys are wifi enabled.
BT. Separate module. In my opinion it is not really neccesary that bms talks to inverter. Just make sure inverter doesnt pull under min voltage and have the correct charging. Then bms doesnt need to do anything besides balancing. Please tell me if I am wrong.
Edit, sorry. It seems they are slso available with wifi or 4G too. Just fighting my Daly at the moment
You are not wrong. All new systems that undergo inspection must have 2 way communication. Really the communication requirement came about due to the first lithium systems with the older chemistries having some quite dramatic thermal runaway incidents. With on board BMS keeping an eye on high voltage and the inverter programmed for high and low voltage you are safe. Try getting something REMOVED from a code though…
Cheers, David
He is probably the 1 guy help desk in the US.
Don’t post the info here. it also includes the serial number…
I was just posting that so you would be prepared when he asked.
The Daly in the EV, most likely supports at least canbus and it may not be an rj45 jack it could be a different connector. like a 4 pin connector. and you have to cut an ethernet cable then connect it to the spot on the daly. You probably need model information to talk to Daly with if the pin assignments aren’t marked. (and they could be marked right on the board). However, the vehicle service manual probably has the pinouts.
I doubt what you have is wifi enabled out of the box. there is a possibility it is the same board but without the rj45 and you could enable the wifi but then it is a custom board anyway… It might be an older version of the board as well. automotive typically like to use older tested parts.