Are you running multiple Outback inverters @hughf ?

And is your installation 3-phase?

@transparent I’m not, but you can stack multiple ones in parallel (an installation that I wired up and commissioned for another Dorset resident worked like this) or stack 3/6 in a 3 phase setup.

In this application I’m referring to their legacy FX/VFX series. Their Radian series are all 3 phase capable I understand.

My 3 phase when required comes from a lister sr3 generator at the moment 🤣

Outback was started by Robin and Bob Cudgel (spelling) who were engineering leads at Trace before they were purchased by Xantrex. The 'Outback name came from the fact that their business unit was 'Out back' of Trace, on the same industrial estate. When they retired and sold Outback, they started Midnite Solar, initially to fix the shortcomings in the mounting hardware that originally shipped with the FX/VFX inverters. The Outback flexware mounting hardware takes up a 36" x 18" slab of wall space and is completely impractical for single inverter mounting in most european situations where space is limited.

The issue with outback stuff, or at least the legacy stuff that I've got is the closed nature of their communication protocol.

They do make a sunspec protocol converter, but the documentation on it is poor at best.

My BMS (Batrium, not recommended) can request a tapering charge rate from canbus connected chargers when cells start to enter bypass (balancing), but as my outback mppt charger and mains charger talk their proprietary and ancient protocol, they can't talk to each other. I've got around this by careful settings of my absorption voltage setpoint and timer. But it's not ideal.

For the sake of others arriving on this topic in future, let me clarify why the comments from @hughf are relevant, even though he appears to have gone off topic!

The Mason box from Seplos comes with their own BMS within it. That could theoretically be changed for a different (rival) model of BMS, such as that offered by Batrium.

Hugh doesn't say why he doesn't recommend Batrium (yet!).
It's a family firm based in Australia which designs and supplies their own BMS units with active balancing.
Having explored their solutions during the latter half of 2022, they are on my list of BMS manufacturers which I might yet decide to trial, despite being expensive.

The Batrium system topology uses a Master-BMS which connects to cheaper Slave units in each battery enclosure.
So the Seplos Mason might require minor mechanical alterations (connectors) to accommodate a Batrium BMS system.
Also in their favour is a State-of-Charge system which appears to offer good accuracy.

Outback, Trace and Xantrex are known to me as manufacturers of  solar charge-controllers.
A charge controller has an integral MPPT algorithm which optimises input from solar panels and charges a battery.

As you can see from Hugh's comments, Outback also do hybrid inverters, which can receive input from both solar panels and the mains grid.

Depending on what you're looking for, all of these manufacturers are worthwhile investigating further.

Sorry, my brain runs at about 100mph most of the time and I'm quite good at rambling...

I have just been given an ETA on my new Seplos Box as the 12th of Feb. So hopefully it will arrive on time and I can install!

@transparent I use the Batrium Watchmon4 system, along with qty.16 of their Blockmon-M8 cell monitoring/balance boards (I have a 16S LiFePo4 pack built with 12yr old CALB 210aH cells).

My issues with the system are:

1. The small connectors (smaller than an XH250) used for the canbus interface between the cell monitoring boards and the main controller - these are difficult to hermetically seal and aren't suitable for anything but a clean and perfectly dry environment.

2. The main controller ships in a poor quality 3d printed case, it would be much better in a standard ecu style enclosure.

3. The windows only software, that's required to be running all the time to get any off-site monitoring data (I use the ThingSpeak IOT platform from Mathworks)

4. The terribly fragmented documentation and lack of communication from the company about what features do what.

5. The cell monitors have an inflated balance current capability - anything over 1A and you need to actively cool them, except they don't have a connection for a fan so you've got to figure that out yourself.

I would use REC or SimpBMS if I was building this again.

Thanks for sharing those experiences @hughf

Your comments are based on the earlier range of cell monitors which Batrium pioneered around a decade ago.
This YouTube video gives an overview of the CellMon-M8 which is available still.

Their main product line today is based on a central WatchMon Core (Master) unit which links to CellMon-K9 boards that provide active balancing to each battery in a set.

Optionally a 500A or 1000A ShuntMon can be added to provide State of Charge statistics with high accuracy.

These WatchMon series of devices have come a long way from Batrium's earlier designs.
They are well engineered with a hefty price-tag to match.

I doubt there will be much overlap between the prospective owner of a Seplos Mason box, reading this thread, and the Craftsman-end of the DIY market who would invest in Batrium technology.

Posted by: @batalto

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Cells have arrived - So props to @chickenbig he's been a great seller!

I am top balancing in blocks of 4 x 280ah cells. I'll do the cells at 3.5v each, so 14v total. Then when all 4 packs are done, I'll put them in series and do 3.6v across all the cells.

-- Attachment is not available --

If I do the whole 16 at 3.2v I can only put in 32W: 3.2v x 10A     If I do 14V I can get 4x the power into 1/4 of the cells. Hopefully it'll be much quicker than the 2 weeks it took last time. Then again the box isn't here, so not like I am in any rush!

I thought this was a great idea and recently began to follow suit, however, I came upon a video indicating that this can go badly wrong unless you have a BMS monitoring the individual cell voltages. The suggestion was that as the cells are in series it's possible that one cell runs beyond 3.65V and is damaged even as the pack as a whole shows significantly less than 14.6V (3.65V*4). The chance of this happening is reduced by setting the power supply at a lower voltage but it doesn't eliminate the possibility. 

I have, for the moment, reverted to the slow parallel charging method.

@transparent I’ve just familiarised myself with their new offerings and I see they’ve gone for the now universally accepted balance harness approach.

An fyi, I’m 99% sure they don’t yet support active balancing. Auto-level isn’t the same thing. Batrium has always been a ‘dump the high cells into resistors’ balancer.

My kit has arrived in country and currently sat at the port. Hopefully I get it in the next few days. Nothing I can do but hurry up and wait....