Re: [RE-wrenches] Battery changing on SW inverter

[Allan Sindelar]

Glenn, For someone who has worked on these, it takes maybe 5 minutes to reprogram one. First time, might take you 20 minutes at most. Reprogramming is way quicker and cheaper than buying and installing a 3rd-party device. I'd suggest that you make two copies of the settings page (the newer version - that is, the 145-page version - of the manual has a fill-in-the-blanks page for each voltage), take it to the site, go through the settings in headings 9 and up, write them down in pencil, swap the batteries, then re-enter the settings. Typically there are only a half dozen or so that are set to other than default. By making two copies, the customer gets one (and is impressed by the quality of your service), and you keep one in the customer's file. Don't be afraid of this approach. It's much easier than you might fear. And it's often the case that at some point the big DC breaker was turned off and the settings were lost anyway. If bulk and EQ voltages are at 57.6V, and the batteries are flooded, that has occurred, and has likely contributed to early battery failure. I have seen this a number of times. If that's the case, contact me off list and I'll give you some typical settings to put in. Allan Allan Sindelar al...@positiveenergysolar.com NABCEP Certified Photovoltaic Installer NABCEP Certified Technical Sales Professional New Mexico EE98J Journeyman Electrician Founder and Chief Technology Officer Positive Energy, Inc. 3209 Richards Lane (note new address) Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507 505 424-1112 www.positiveenergysolar.com On 5/15/2012 2:44 PM, Glenn Burt wrote: Hello wrenches,   I am quoting a job to do a simple battery bank replacement on an existing system that has a Trace SW4048 inverter.   I have not done any substantial work on these revered systems, but seem to remember that removing the batteries will lose all the custom program settings in the inverter. I seem to recall there was a product that could be purchased that used a 9V battery to hold up the setting memory while the main batteries were disconnected. Could anyone tell me the name of it?   Or is there a better solution out there? I see a couple of products that claim to read/write the SW memory from Right Hand Engineering and Maui Solar Software – anyone used them or recommend against them?   Thanks,   Glenn Burt glb, Consulting Company NABCEP Certified Solar PV Installer TM NYSERDA Eligible Installer Microsoft Certified Professional   _______________________________________________ List sponsored by Home Power magazine List Address: RE-wrenches@lists.re-wrenches.org Options & settings: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/options.cgi/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List-Archive: http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org List rules & etiquette: www.re-wrenches.org/etiquette.htm Check out participant bios: www.members.re-wrenches.org

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