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You do need to install the driver for the CP210 communications chip in the inverter. Here is a link to drivers for the chip https://www.silabs.com/developers/usb-to-uart-bridge-vcp-drivers?tab=downloadsn Look in your windows device manager after installing the driver, you can...

Finally got a bunch of the batteries in-hand last week. The battery modules are 32V with 10 prismatics in each battery module. Unfortunately, many of the cells are down between 1.1-1.5 volts from being stored for so long. I have not been able to find much information on refreshing...

I have the same Growatt 5000ES model. Your problem is your panel configuration, 90V is too low ! Look at the specs for the 5000ES, it shows the min mppt voltage as 120V. ALSO, the spec for the inverter is 18amps max!! Your config is 32amps !! I have 18 panels, 270W ea...

I have the 5000ES model and have had in in use for a couple months now. Although they claim it will work without batteries, the performance would be horrible. The problem is the sun intensity varies minute to minute as clouds pass, one minute the inverter can be outputting 4KW and seconds...

I have been doing initial tests for a few days being very conservative. The cells do recover from the low voltage pretty quick, I hook a few in parallel and charge at 500ma/cell first, they quickly rise to above 2V. At around 2.3 or so v/cell I go to 1 amp per cell because the rate of...

Got the new 2.0a from Joe, thanks much !! Be interesting to see the reports on it. Hopefully it cures the random crashing everyone seems to experience with the other versions. I did all the suggested fixes, running as administrator, win7 compatibility mode, COM port FIFO...

the 18amp max spec is current from your pv array. In my case, the panels produce around 7 amps ea normally, so 9 in series still yields 7 amps BUT at around 300V give or take, THEN there are 2 strings in parallel So.... 7 amps per string for a total of 14 amps coming out of my array. The...

Correct, thats the cable. DO post back with a report.

Its charge current into the battery, only the one readout, no way to know if the charge current is coming from solar or utility except by watching the other readouts.

Ha Ha, got you beat today ! 8.3KWH so far today produced (5Kw array)

Many, including myself have tried that, it only helps a little. It still crashes. Crashes happen during peroids of peak battery charging, it never crashes during the night or other than peak charging. Growatt confirmed this and sent me a updated version to try but I had already switched...

Update ! Recovered a bunch of cells, assembled 2 12v packs in 4s config and charged. First pack load test aborted early (approx half way) because one cell was dropping faster than the others, not a bad cell but poorly matched to the others. Pack #2 balanced very well and load tested...

That is interesting. Pierre sent me a email about the new release, told me battery SOC was changed to work better with non-lithium batteries which it does, its far far better now. I didn't realize he also tweaked it for lithium users, I have 340ah of AGM in my setup. I did tweak the...

Wow, is that screenshot you posted from the latest version of Solar Assistant? If it is then its a LOT different, I like it !!

Yes, it is a beta release. I am not on the beta program and my solar assistant does not show a update available. (yet) Thanks for the good news! No doubt the non-beta update will be coming quite soon.

OOOOOO, OK ! Don't tease me like that ! LOL Is home assistant put out by the same folks as solar assistant? Seems to be a lot of similarities.

Its loud when the fans spool up. Mine is in a shop room in my pole barn, not in the house so noise isn't something that matters to me. Its a lot of power in a small package so cooling is important.

I have the SPF5000ES which has been in service for a couple months now. Yes, they claim it can operate without a battery BUT it would be pretty useless that way. The battery is REALLY needed to fill in during fluctuations in sun energy such as when clouds pass. Without a battery and...

If a BMS disconnects for any reason and later reconnects that battery will not be at the same voltage SOC as the others and a large current can flow. As long as none never disconnect, no problem. Naturally, there is no communications between multiple BMS so one knows what the other is doing...

International Battery Inc. Allentown PA Out of business now though

I am in the process of getting a large quantity of prismatic Lifepo4 cells and the spec sheet has me confused. It lists 4.25V as max charging voltage. This seems wildly above the norm for this type of cell. Long story but they are going to be free. Any comments much appreciated! Spec...

Here is what I have coming, total rack is 300KWH, 30 modules in the rack. Unknown yet how many prismatics in each module.

If the inverter is loaded beyond 5KW it will fault out regardless if on solar or battery. It will allow 150% power for a minute before faulting but thats to handle very short overloads such as a motor starting.

Take a look at ebay item#174854735190 That is what I used for a breaker for the panels, I used the 32A size. It also serves as a way to shut down the PV power into the inverter which is highly desirable. You should also have a disconnect out at the panels BUT beware, it has to be rated...

Joe has it right. I have been using Solar Assistant for almost a year now and it works great. They keep improving it too, one of the latest updates allows it to connect to some brands of BMS to directly monitor battery conditions. Being able to access it by either computer (locally or...

Found something interesting about PVkeeper today. The silicon labs usb driver is ancient !! I went to the silicon labs website, there are a ton of updated drivers since the one included with PVkeeper (Ver 6.7.5.1893 dated 9/27/2017) Without counting, I would say that driver is at...

There are actually 300 of these cells ! I got 180 in hand and another 120 coming in a week or so !! Testing them efficiently will be a priority due to the number. Most if not all are already spoken for, not all sorted out yet. Personally I am preliminary planning on making 4...

In the growatt docs they refer to that switch as being in the standby position, not "off". Yes, it charges the batteries in standby.

Yes but not a concern in this case. These are US made and I have the manufacturers spec sheet.