Overview

By default a LuxPower SNA inverter prioritizes charging off solar power and will not charge the battery bank using mains power.  If you are setting up a LuxPower SNA inverter as a back-up system then you need to set up the inverter to allow charging off mains. This guide helps you do so with particular reference to Hubble Lithium’s range of AM Li-Ion batteries.

Battery to Inverter Communication

Hubble’s AM brand of batteries include a Battery Management System (BMS) that will send charge limits and battery information to the inverter over a CAN bus.

NOTE: This guide assumes you have CAN communication working between the inverter and the battery.

CAN port pin layouts

On a CAN bus there are two signal wires referred to as CAN-High and CAN-Low. The CAN-High pin of each device must be connected to the CAN-High of other devices on the bus. Similarly, the CAN-Low signal must be connected to the CAN-Low of other devices on the bus.

Both Hubble and LuxPower use RJ45 connectors for their CAN ports. The pin layouts of the CAN ports are given Table 1. Illustrations of the custom CAN cables that will be needed are given in Figure 1.

(NOTE: Older models of the LuxPower used Pin 3 for the CAN-Low signal. Newer models use Pin 5 for CAN-Low. Check BOTH your inverter’s manual and its packaging to see which pin layout your inverter uses. If there is a label on the packaging regarding the CAN pinouts then work according to the label.)

Table 1 The connectors and pins used for CAN comms on AM batteries and LuxPower SNA inverters.

Figure 1 Illustrations of the custom cables that need to be made up for the CAN communication.

Inverter Settings

NB: The rest of this guide assumes that you have CAN comms between the inverter and the master battery. Once you have set the battery type and brand confirm that the inverter’s display is showing a smiley face in the bottom left corner (highlighted in red below) and that the LCD display is toggling between showing the battery Ah and SoC (highlighted in green box below).

NOTE: When you change the battery type or brand some charge related settings are reset to default values. After changing the battery setting you MUST review all settings again.

A point worth highlighting is that the SNA’s default settings prioritize charging off solar and also allow for aggressive battery cycling (to promote solar production and self-consumption).

It is essential that:

• the installer reads through and understands the inverter’s manual before trying to setup the inverter,
• the installer understands that the default settings will not allow the inverter to charge the battery up using Mains (grid) power,
• the installer enables charging of mains and sets up the allowed charging times (P1, P2, P3)

Below is a summarized list of settings relevant to setting up the inverter with our batteries. Settings not applicable to this guide are marked as such (it is the responsibility of the installer to decide on appropriate values for these).

Settings 21 to 22 are not applicable to this guide.