Fortress BMS Communication Errors

Fortress BMS Communication Errors

After years of productive battery partnership, Fortress Power has used their knowledge of our inverter products to hand over confidential lessons learned to Chinese product developer LuxPower so that LuxPower can outsource the production of a Sol-Ark clone. Fortress Power continues to modify its battery communication which may cause communication issues with existing Sol-Ark / Fortress installations. This includes Fortress recommending a transition from modbus to canbus communication. Fortress has provided false information regarding the reasons behind this change to their customers and has stopped interfacing with Sol-Ark's test engineering department. Regardless of these actions, Sol-Ark remains committed to supporting its customers regardless of what battery system they choose. 

To be clear, Sol-Ark has never modified its firmware in any way to limit or restrict Fortress Power closed loop communication. We do not agree with their determination that migrating from modbus to canbus is necessary and believe   Sol-Ark has a well staffed Test Engineering functional group to support our numerous battery partners, based in our Allen, TX headquarters. 

Fortress Power's Sol-Ark inverter integration guide can be found here:
https://learn.fortresspower.com/external/manual/solark/article/sharing-solark-with-fortress?p=dc8b9a9c1b3f410556835193e66f22578c68fca21098963c0c12b6f3e8e1e0e6 

If you are experiencing communication issues with Fortress batteries, please read the following:

1) Check your wiring. Bad communication wiring is a common cause of bad inverter-battery communication. You should see data in the "Lithium Battery Info" settings on the inverter LCD screen or BMS communication data being graphed in the Sol-Ark online monitoring portal  

2) If you have been operating on Modbus communication and recently updated Fortress firmware, you may need to switch to Canbus communication. It is Fortress Power which no longer supports modbus communication to Sol-Ark. Sol-Ark continues to be capable and support modbus communication successfully with numerous battery partners.

3) eVault and eVault classic batteries switching to Canbus communication requires rewiring the communication circuit entirely. The existing communication cable between the Fortress battery and Sol-Ark inverter must be replaced using the instructions in the Fortress Power provided Sol-Ark inverter guide.

4) When switching from modbus to canbus, the Sol-Ark lithium battery communication must be switched to "BMS 00" from "BMS 04" on the Sol-Ark LCD screen or online monitoring portal. 

5) Sol-Ark has many original eVault (not eVault MAX) communicating on modbus to Sol-Ark, including multiple eVault classics. Fortress does not support multiple eVault classics in communication with any inverter. Please consult with their support team directly when attempting closed loop communication with this model. 

6) You may find communication errors appearing on Sol-Ark screens which do not impact system operation. These are warnings coming from the Fortress BMS which are not mapped correctly to the Sol-Ark inverter. As we are unable to continue providing Fortress with confidential information to hand over to our overseas competition, and as Fortress has chosen to substantially modify their communication without providing Sol-Ark with any support communication, we cannot fully address these issues.

Identified instances which cause yellow triangle errors without any warning being mapped to Sol-Ark:
a) commissioning - charge the battery to 100% and see if the error symbol clears

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