I really think that the Fortress battery could easily be the top battery
choice right now, if......they could vastly improve their customer
support. Tom has been great now that he contacted me, but it was weeks
of frustration and no communication before that. Completely
unacceptable, especially for a new emerging technology that we are going
to have extra issues integrating into old systems. I second your
assessment of the integration guides as well. I have a 4 hour round
trip to change some voltage settings.................RETURN TRIPS is
LOSING $$$!!!
However, once they cure those issues, the product itself is way beyond
others such as Simpliphi or Blue Ion.
Blue Ion = half a day of assembly and cell wiring, monitoring is by
E-gage (AC only) through the customer's router, price way too high
Fortress = remove crating material from pallet and roll into place, with
built in color touch screen for monitoring, price much better.
Simpliphi = no monitoring at all, have to parallel ridiculous qty of
batteries to do a normal off grid home, but integration guides are the best.
Ray Walters
On 11/17/2022 1:16 PM, [email protected] wrote:
We’ve started to use Fortress batteries for off grid installations
lately as well. The tech support has been very frustrating and the
integration guides are ridiculous – the Magnum guide was the worst –
absolute nonsense, I believe most of which has been pulled from the
Fortress site now. The variation in charge parameters for the inverter
vs the charge controller for the Outback guide doesn’t make sense
either. Lack of generator start/stop parameters in the integration
guides have resulted in trial and error programming on our part to
zero in on what works best.
Poor tech support on battery based systems is one of my biggest pet
peeves in the industry………off grid customers rely on their equipment,
unlike net metered installations it’s not just a matter of reducing
their electrical bill it’s about keeping the lights on and the fridge
working.
*From:*RE-wrenches [mailto:[email protected]]
*On Behalf Of *Ray Walters via RE-wrenches
*Sent:* Thursday, November 17, 2022 1:43 AM
*To:* [email protected]
*Cc:* Ray Walters
*Subject:* Re: [RE-wrenches] Sol-Ark/Fortress charging issue
Talk to Thomas Honey. He is the Fortress rep, nice guy, and
knowledgeable wrench. He has stepped in on my issue.
Ray
On 11/16/2022 10:58 PM, Howie Michaelson via RE-wrenches wrote:
Good Evening,
I have a frustrating charging issue involving 2 Fortress eVault
Maxs connected to a Sol-Ark 15k. Commissioned the system last
week, replacing a legacy off-grid Dual Stack SunnyIsland 5048s and
2-volt Rolls battery system. Initially, we connected one of the
eVaults to the Sol-Ark, programmed it to Fortress' and Sol-Ark's
specs, setup closed loop, and things seemed fine. The battery
charged at around 95 amps off the 20kW Kohler. The next day we
connected the 2nd eVault, went through the procedures as Fortress
suggested, made the necessary settings changes in the Sol-Ark, and
that is when the issue started.
Ever since we connected the 2nd eVault, we have not been able to
get the charge rate much above a combined total of 35 amps.
Fortress has pretty much said that it can't be anything on their
end (although the communication with them has been very much
limited and frustrating). They say that nothing on their side
would limit the charge rate to that low, especially if the
batteries were in a lower state of charge. We've talked to at
least 3 different Sol-Ark technicians more than once. We have
changed the setting between closed loop, % SOC, and Battery
Voltage multiple times. We've tried dropping back to a single
battery, both the first one we had connected and the second one
(changing the battery setup and the Sol-Ark parameters, but have
only seen at times a moderate increase in maximum charge rate (up
to about 40 amps total).
This small increase happened after a Fortress technician suggested
that we turn on both the generator and the grid charging toggles
(the generator is connected to the grid port on the Sol-Ark as per
Sol-Ark's recommendation. Sol-Ark has run out of suggestions at
the moment, and are having us cycle the batteries tonight and they
will start another charge cycle in the morning to see if having a
lower SOC along with the firmware reload will change anyhing (I
don't think it will - it didn't the last several times.
Has anybody seen this type of behavior before? I don't think it
is a settings issue, as several technicians have gone through
them, I have gone over them many times using the Fortress/Sol-Ark
integration white papers. Hoping to get higher level tech
involved ASAP, since I don't feel like the lower level techs know
enough to provide useful ideas.
Thanks,
Howie
*Howie Michaelson
**Sun Catcher*
*/NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer™
/**Image removed by sender.**
**Solar Electric Systems Sales & Service
**802-272-0004*
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