Outback inverter with lifepo4 battery

Hi Everyone,
I have many storage batteries,48v 400ah,700ah to 1000ah lifepo4,now my clients want to work with Outback inverter,but the BMS I used is my own protocol for charge/discharge ,temperature protection.Is there special protocol needed to communicate with Outback?Or I could plug directly with Outback,which could be programmed with Outback itself.
Much appreciate for any help.
I have many storage batteries,48v 400ah,700ah to 1000ah lifepo4,now my clients want to work with Outback inverter,but the BMS I used is my own protocol for charge/discharge ,temperature protection.Is there special protocol needed to communicate with Outback?Or I could plug directly with Outback,which could be programmed with Outback itself.
Much appreciate for any help.
Comments
|| Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
|| VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A
solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister ,
For example, you may have a two step process. Some inverters (and charge controllers have a "ground fault detect" circuit you may be able to "hack") have an input line which is an "inhibit" (remote on/off) or programmable input that may be used for on/off.
And you have a second output from your BMS that controls (for example) a big old relay.
One relay option is to use a "latching relay"... Uses a bit of power for an (example) internal electric motor that changes on/off state:
https://www.bluesea.com/search/results/latching relay
Another option is the old "crowbar" function. You have a high amperage fuse or circuit breaker to your battery bank, and you attach a standard (big relay) on the output of the fuse/breaker. When your BMS detects a reason for a hard fail (over/under voltage, over/under temperature), your BMS turns on the relay and shorts out the fuse/breaker and causes it to trip. This is what Schneider uses on (one of?) their Li Ion systems.
Or, you could use the latching relay between the battery bank and and the battery bus (like the BlueSea above), and use your BMS to cycle the relay when needed.
Getting into a digital data link between your BMS and the rest of the system... You will have to work with the manufacturer(s) for that.
Some vendors such as MorningStar publish their comm standards. Others like Midnite Solar may have an open interface over Internet or other methods (and may be willing to work with you).
-Bill
I communicated with Outback about using Canbus because my Skybox uses Canbus. Outback said they would have to develope the protocol with Orion for me to use Canbus. That was a longshot but the advantage is it would have given me better control over the charging process and possibly some control over using the grid when my batteries hit a SOC point. My BMS tracks SOC and while my Skybox is used mostly for load shifting I would want to maintain a reserve in the event of a power outage. Some day I may pursue that with Orion and see if they would be interested.
https://simpliphipower.com/product/access-outback/
Second system 1890W 3 × 300W No name brand poly, 3×330 Sunsolar Poly panels, Morningstar TS 60 PWM controller, no name 2000W inverter 400Ah LFP 24V nominal battery with Daly BMS, used for water pumping and day time air conditioning.
5Kw Yanmar clone single cylinder air cooled diesel generator for rare emergency charging and welding.
The SimpliPhi link didn't provide much insight to how it interacts with the Radian. It may use Canbus since I recall seeing some video from a conference. I suspect it is proprietary since they are marketing it as an integrated product. Essentially they are positioning that as an solution to compete with the Tesla Powerall. In their case that product looks like it can perform off grid, grid tied or in self consumption mode.
Second system 1890W 3 × 300W No name brand poly, 3×330 Sunsolar Poly panels, Morningstar TS 60 PWM controller, no name 2000W inverter 400Ah LFP 24V nominal battery with Daly BMS, used for water pumping and day time air conditioning.
5Kw Yanmar clone single cylinder air cooled diesel generator for rare emergency charging and welding.
But I do notice that let lithium ion batter works as lead acid battery type, then the communication is not needed.We set the protection in our own BMS,I really hope that some organizations or institutes could set a standard protocol between lithium ion battery with Inverter,then all could benefit.
The similar settings is what I used for Schneider gear, increasing current setpoints to reflect my larger capacity, the Outback inverter would appear to be capable of higher LBCO which is nice, the SW 2524-230 has a maximum of 24V, hopefully they will, or have increased this, as being able to disconnect using LBCO would save the battery from over discharge.
Second system 1890W 3 × 300W No name brand poly, 3×330 Sunsolar Poly panels, Morningstar TS 60 PWM controller, no name 2000W inverter 400Ah LFP 24V nominal battery with Daly BMS, used for water pumping and day time air conditioning.
5Kw Yanmar clone single cylinder air cooled diesel generator for rare emergency charging and welding.
32x90Ah Winston cells 2p16s (48V), MPP Solar PIP5048MS 5kW Inverter/80A MPPT controller/60A charger, 1900W of Solar Panels
modified BMS based on TI bq769x0 cell monitors.
Homemade overall system monitoring and power management https://github.com/simat/BatteryMonitor
32x90Ah Winston cells 2p16s (48V), MPP Solar PIP5048MS 5kW Inverter/80A MPPT controller/60A charger, 1900W of Solar Panels
modified BMS based on TI bq769x0 cell monitors.
Homemade overall system monitoring and power management https://github.com/simat/BatteryMonitor
I use the BMS primarily as a check on my battery health. I am seeing bigger deltas at each end and therefore have high and low cell alarms and low voltage cutouts set to drop the battery out of the system with a contactor to protect the pack. I haven't found an external input on the Skybox that could give me that control.
Thanks for the feedback.
Second system 1890W 3 × 300W No name brand poly, 3×330 Sunsolar Poly panels, Morningstar TS 60 PWM controller, no name 2000W inverter 400Ah LFP 24V nominal battery with Daly BMS, used for water pumping and day time air conditioning.
5Kw Yanmar clone single cylinder air cooled diesel generator for rare emergency charging and welding.
Letting people and companies ask (and answer) questions related to solar--I find it interesting.
There will always be some "leakage" between the design and marketing. But we have had good discussions with the folks from Midnite Solar (as an example) over the years.
-Bill "moderator" B.
My apologies to @Jacob_U who I now realize started this thread.
No problem.
-Bill
@Ampster ,I started this conversion,because I really met the cases,before we just produced the battery,and the clients sent us the protocol,but these several cases for Outback,clients always told us that there's no communicating for Outback,I had searched over 1 weeks to figure our the answers,then found the forum,really like everyone share his views here,solution is the first thing I want to get,it's much better if promotion works.😁
You are correct. If you had time and money to spend developing a Canbus protocol with Ouback you may never recover your investment. It is much simpler for a DIYer like myself to set the high and low limits on the Outback and use my BMS for information and as a last resort fail safe.
I appreciate that you were at least interested enough to ask the questions. Maybe, like @mcnutt13579 said, someone will develop a standard. I see Canbus chargers for Lithium but in that case there are only about 3 or 4 commands that are important. Lead Acid is much more complex in term of the number of settings.
Probably the most universal way for a BMS to communicate simple on/off to inverters and chargers are two 5V 1A outputs. Not a complete solution, but easier to work with than most protocols.
Morningstar suggests that their charge controller can be told to stop charging safely by using a relay to add resistance to the battery temperature sensor. This probably works on many other charge controllers. Don't put a relay or mosfet in series with the charger->battery line.
I wired a relay to the on/off switch on my inverter. This works fine to stop load/over-discharge.
I am available for custom hardware/firmware development