Identifying TS4 Covers

Introduction

As of July 2016, Tigo Energy produces 5 different smart module covers, TS4 D,M,S,O, and L. Each cover has its own color and identifying features, and the purpose of this article is to highlight all the ways you can identify TS4 hardware.

1. TS4-D (grey) - Diode - the most basic of the covers
2. TS4-M (blue) - Monitoring - for monitoring modules via the Tigo Smart App and online platform
3. TS4-S (red) - Safety - for rapid shut down
4. TS4-O (yellow) - Optimization - for string optimization 
5. TS4-L (green) - Long-String -for 30% longer string lengths. 

As you may already know, every subsequent cover in the list above carries all the features of the preceding covers, so TS4-L has every feature Tigo smart module covers have to offer. 

Identification Methods

Visual

The easiest way to identify Tigo TS4-Units at a glance is by their colors, as listed above.

Communication MAC IDs and Firmware Versions

If you're not right next to your modules, you may want to identify them in another way.

For covers other than the TS4-D (which don't have communication capabilities), a MAC address is written on each module cover and is recorded in the online portal. MAC addresses are physically easy to spot. Below is the location of a MAC address, a new cover would come with a sticker of the MAC address just to the right of the green label below as well.

It is possible to identify Tigo hardware based on this address. Tigo has produced TS4's with two types of computer chips - Jennic 5148 and Jennic 5168 - denoted by D and K in the Tigo online portal, respectively. If you know the MAC address of a module cover, you can identify its module type no matter where in the world you are. See below for a picture example.

Once you've identified which chip a module cover uses based on its MAC address, it's easy to tell what TS4 version that cover is carrying; just refer to the table and image below. The MAGIC NUMBERS highlighted in the image will tell you what TS4 cover is implemented on that MAC address once you know whether it uses the 5148 or 5168 chip.

In the example above, the module cover with the MAC address 4-4BA9W has the magic number 22, so it must be a TS4-M built with a 5168 chip.

Conclusion

That's it! As soon as you login to the Tigo online portal via your installer account, this article will serve as a quick reference to get you in touch with your modules and what capabilities they have. This way, you can know which module covers you may want to upgrade when the time comes, and which covers might not be behaving as you expect them to.