SMA Sunny Boy 3800TL-US User manual

SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 | Version 1.6
CA
US
PV Inverter
SUNNY BOY
3000TL-US / 3800TL-US / 4000TL-US /
5000TL-US / 6000TL-US / 7000TL-US / 7700TL-US
Installation Manual

SMA America, LLC 
Installation Manual SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 3
Copyright © 2014 SMA America,LLC. All rights reserved.
No part of this document may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form
or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photographic, magnetic or otherwise, without the prior
written permission of SMA America,LLC.
Neither SMA America,LLC nor SMA Solar Technology Canada Inc. makes representations, express
or implied, with respect to this documentation or any of the equipment and/or software it may
describe, including (with no limitation) any implied warranties of utility, merchantability, or fitness for
any particular purpose. All such warranties are expressly disclaimed. Neither SMA America,LLC nor
its distributors or dealers nor SMA Solar Technology Canada Inc. nor its distributors or dealers shall
be liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages under any circumstances.
(The exclusion of implied warranties may not apply in all cases under some statutes, and thus the
above exclusion may not apply.)
Specifications are subject to change without notice. Every attempt has been made to make this
document complete, accurate and up-to-date. Readers are cautioned, however, that
SMAAmerica,LLC and SMA Solar Technology Canada Inc. reserve the right to make changes
without notice and shall not be responsible for any damages, including indirect, incidental or
consequential damages, caused by reliance on the material presented, including, but not limited to,
omissions, typographical errors, arithmetical errors or listing errors in the content material.
All trademarks are recognized even if these are not marked separately. Missing designations do not
mean that a product or brand is not a registered trademark.
SMA America, LLC
3801 N. Havana Street
Denver, CO 80239 U.S.A.
SMA Solar Technology Canada Inc.
2425 Matheson Blvd. E
8th Floor
Mississauga, ON L4W 5K5
Canada

IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS SMA America, LLC
4 SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 Installation Manual
IMPORTANT SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS
SAVE THESE INSTRUCTIONS
This manual contains important instructions for the following products:
• Sunny Boy 3000TL-US (SB 3000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 3800TL-US (SB 3800TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 4000TL-US (SB 4000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 5000TL-US (SB 5000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 6000TL-US (SB 6000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 7000TL-US (SB 7000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 7700TL-US (SB 7700TL-US-22)
This manual must be followed during installation and maintenance.
The product is designed and tested according to international safety requirements, but as with all
electrical and electronic equipment, certain precautions must be observed when installing and/or
operating the product. To reduce the risk of personal injury and to ensure the safe installation and
operation of the product, you must carefully read and follow all instructions, cautions and warnings
in this manual.
Warnings in this Document
A warning describes a hazard to equipment or personnel. It calls attention to a procedure or practice,
which, if not correctly performed or adhered to, could result in damage to or destruction of part or all
of the SMA equipment and/or other equipment connected to the SMA equipment or personal injury.
Symbol Description
DANGER indicates a hazardous situation which, if not avoided, will result in
death or serious injury.
WARNING indicates a hazardous situation which, if not avoided, could result
in death or serious injury.
CAUTION indicates a hazardous situation which, if not avoided, could result
in minor or moderate injury.
NOTICE is used to address practices not related to personal injury.

SMA America, LLC Warnings on this Product
Installation Manual SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 5
Warnings on this Product
The following symbols are used as product markings with the following meanings.
Symbol Description
Warning regarding dangerous voltage
The product works with high voltages. All work on the product must only be
performed as described in the documentation of the product.
Beware of hot surface
The product can become hot during operation. Do not touch the product during
operation.
Electric arc hazards
The product has large electrical potential differences between its conductors. Arc
flashes can occur through air when high-voltage current flows. Do not work on the
product during operation.
Risk of fire
Improper installation of the product may cause a fire.
Observe the operating instructions
Read the documentation of the product before working on it. Follow all safety
precautions and instructions as described in the documentation.

General Warnings SMA America, LLC
6 SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 Installation Manual
General Warnings
General Warnings
All electrical installations must be made in accordance with the local and NationalElectrical Code®
ANSI/NFPA 70 or the Canadian Electrical Code® CSAC22.1. This document does not and is not
intended to replace any local, state, provincial, federal or national laws, regulation or codes
applicable to the installation and use of the product, including without limitation applicable
electrical safety codes. All installations must conform with the laws, regulations, codes and
standards applicable in the jurisdiction of installation. SMA assumes no responsibility for the
compliance or non-compliance with such laws or codes in connection with the installation of the
product.
The product contains no user-serviceable parts.
For all repair and maintenance, always return the unit to an authorized SMA Service Center.
Before installing or using the product, read all of the instructions, cautions, and warnings in this
manual.
Before connecting the product to the electrical utility grid, contact the local utility company. This
connection must be made only by qualified personnel.
Wiring of the product must be made by qualified personnel only.

SMA America, LLC Table of Contents
Installation Manual SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 7
Table of Contents
1 Information on this Document. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Safety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.1 Intended Use . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.2 Skills of Qualified Persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
2.3 Safety Precautions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3 Scope of Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
4 Product Description . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.1 Sunny Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4.2 DC Disconnect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.3 Type Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.1 Sunny Boy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.3.2 DC Disconnect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
4.3.3 Symbols on the Type Labels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
4.4 Display. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
4.5 Communication Interface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.6 Secure Power Supply (SPS). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.7 Fan Retrofit Kit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
4.8 Arc-Fault Circuit Interrupter (AFCI). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.9 SD Card Slot . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.10 Varistors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
4.11 SMA OptiTrac Global Peak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
5 Mounting. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.1 Selecting the Mounting Location . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
5.2 Mounting the Wall Mounting Bracket . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
5.3 Mounting the Inverter and DC Disconnect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
5.4 Attaching the Anti-Theft Device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
6 Electrical Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
6.1 Safety during Electrical Connection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Table of Contents SMA America, LLC
8 SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 Installation Manual
6.2 Overview of the Connection Area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6.2.1 Connection Area of the Inverter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
6.2.2 Connection Area of the DC Disconnect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
6.3 AC Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6.3.1 Conditions for the AC Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
6.3.2 Connecting the Inverter to the Utility Grid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
6.4 DC Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6.4.1 Safety during DC Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6.4.2 Conditions for the DC Connection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
6.4.3 Connecting the PV Array . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
6.5 Connecting the Secure Power Supply Module . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
7 Commissioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7.1 Making Settings via the Rotary Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7.1.1 Overview of the Rotary Switches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
7.1.2 Changing the Country Data Set and the Display Language . . . . . . 49
7.1.3 Changing the Display Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
7.2 Commissioning the Inverter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
8 Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
8.1 Changing the Country Data Set Using a Communication Product . . 52
8.2 Activating and Setting SMA OptiTrac Global Peak . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
9 Display and LEDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
9.1 Switching On the Display . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
9.2 Calling Up Messages of the Start Phase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
9.3 LED Signals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
10 Disconnecting the Inverter from Voltage Sources . . . . . . . . . . 55
10.1 Disconnecting the DC Disconnect from Voltage Sources. . . . . . . . . . 57
11 Troubleshooting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
11.1 Event Messages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
11.2 Error Messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
11.3 Cleaning the Inverter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71

SMA America, LLC Table of Contents
Installation Manual SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 9
11.4 Cleaning the Fan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
11.4.1 Sunny Boy 3000/3800/4000/5000/6000TL-US . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
11.4.2 Sunny Boy 7000/7700TL-US . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
11.5 Checking the PV System for Ground Faults . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
11.6 Replacing DC Varistors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
11.7 The Message "Electr. arc detected" is displayed. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
12 Decommissioning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
12.1 Disassembling the Inverter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
12.2 Packing the Inverter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
12.3 Disposing of the Inverter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
13 Technical Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
13.1 DC/AC . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
13.1.1 Sunny Boy 3000TL-US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
13.1.2 Sunny Boy 3800TL-US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
13.1.3 Sunny Boy 4000TL-US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
13.1.4 Sunny Boy 5000TL-US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
13.1.5 Sunny Boy 6000TL-US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
13.1.6 Sunny Boy 7000TL-US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
13.1.7 Sunny Boy 7700TL-US. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
13.2 Protective Devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
13.3 General Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
13.4 DC Disconnect. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
13.5 Climatic Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
13.6 Features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
13.7 Torques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
13.8 Data Storage Capacity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
14 Accessories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
15 Compliance Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
16 Contact . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95

1 Information on this Document SMA America, LLC
10 SB3-5TLUS22-IA-en-16 Installation Manual
1 Information on this Document
Validity
This document is valid for the following device types as of firmware version HP V02.05.00.R,
KP V02.50.55.R:
• Sunny Boy 3000TL-US (SB 3000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 3800TL-US (SB 3800TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 4000TL-US (SB 4000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 5000TL-US (SB 5000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 6000TL-US (SB 6000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 7000TL-US (SB 7000TL-US-22)
• Sunny Boy 7700TL-US (SB 7700TL-US-22)
Target Group
This document is for qualified persons. Only persons with the appropriate skills are allowed to perform
the tasks described in this document (see Section2.2 "Skills of Qualified Persons", page12).
Additional Information
Links to additional information can be found at www.SMA-Solar.com.
Symbols
Document title Document type
Capacitive Leakage Currents Technical information
Shade Management Technical information
Module Technology Technical information
Symbol Explanation
Indicates information that is important for a specific topic or
objective, but is not safety-relevant.
☐ Indicates a requirement for meeting a specific goal.
☑ Desired result
✖ A problem that could occur