Andre Burger

Will report back when done - only inspected yesterday afternoon.

COMM: E427 - MCU: M 3.3.8.2 / S - 1.5.1.5 / C E.4.2.7 COMM: E426 - MCU: M 3.3.8.2 / S - 1.5.1.5 / C E.4.2.6

Hi Guys, With reference to this previous post: Just another issue that started today. Charge rate on AM-10 dropped to 1kW no matter what we do. Hubble sent us a firmware upgrade pack to load on the battery. We will load it up and report back if the issue is resolved. Funny thing is that the plant has been running fine since February - now suddenly it's giving trouble. Not sure if Sunsynk maybe did an OTA upgrade on the inverters that may have caused this? If any of you have trouble with either AM-5 or AM-10's charge rates - It could be related. Cheers,

Nope - not gonna leave this alone: Section 41 of the Consumer Protection Act, 2008. Think I'll opt for the "product as marketed"....

And this from Hubble's web page on the AM-10: Someone's calculator malfunctioned..... 0.75 x 200Ah ≠ 112A.... It's not even ≈ 112A.... 0.5C x 200Ah ≈ hmmmm.... I know of a few clients who's gonna be a bit upset tomorrow.

I think Hubble Lithium should get aboard and explain very quickly in order to avert very difficult publicity. @Induna did they give you this information in writing? This as part of their Product manual:

Indeed. Induna, I would try the remote factory reset. It helped in our case. Also, ask your client to double check the can cable pin-outs please. We assumed it as being correct since it was supplied for the Sunsynk/Hubble pairing - but alas... Should be as follows for the AM-10.

Induna, as a matter of interest, what inverter do you have connected there? 117A x 48V = 5.6kW. That looks somewhat like the maximum a single Sunsynk 5kW inverter will supply. Are you not perhaps maxing out on inverter power instead of battery?

Well, I hope this is going to help someone in future. YellowTapemeasure (is it Stanley? 😁), LiBMS screen showed normal and proper comms with battery. CAN cable connected to master inverter only. Parallel cable between inverters. All good. Even tested continuity. Performed manual reset on Hubble by discharging to less than 10% SOC (set in AGM V mode), then charging up again to realign voltage markers with BMS. After this procedure, tested again but charge rate still limited to around 20A or just over 1kW. The BMS current limitation shows 150A - all good, That's what this battery is supposed to be able to handle. Many hours of frustration and a call to Hubble's technical support desk - I decided to check the pinout on the specially made up battery cable. For the AM-10 and Sunsynk pins 2,4&5 are used. Opened the inverter and checked the plug. All good. Pins 2,4&5 - check. Even more frustration. Thought to myself I wasted a trip to site to check a damn cable and there's nothing wrong with it. Just for entertainment purposes, I decided to edulge the very friendly dog and go and lie on my back to check the battery side plug too. It was dark and with an all too friendly and excited dog all over me, pulled the plug and squinted at the pinout. Something looked odd. Could it be? Grabbed the phone for more light - really?? Got up and grabbed the number two reading glasses... Dog got very excited to see me lie flat on the floor again. True as nuts - the battery plug had a different pinout to the inverter. Just for reference, some inverter battery pinouts have to be different, sometimes even crossed over. The Sunsynk 5kW and Hubble AM-10 however requires a straight through 2, 4 & 5 pinout. Mine was not that... It turned out that a specially ordered cable was either made wrong or the wrong cable was supplied (albeit marked for Sunsynk/Hubble). Made up a new cable, plugged it in and went home (loadshedding in progress). When loadshedding ended I was very disappointed to see the same symptoms - slow charge rate. I was so hopeful that the cable was the issue. I then decided to do a remote factory reset once more and re programmed the settings. The system came online and low and behold, the charge rate picked up, and up, and up! With bated breath I watched the charge power tick up to 5kW, and it settled there, and remained there till the battery was full. I could not believe it. Three days of frustration was over. A simple little thing that was overlooked, and never suspected since we had proper readings on the LiBMS screen. Goes to show - If your system does funny things, check everything, especially the basics.

Good evening, I'm wondering if there are any other members around with experience on parallel Sunsynk inverters with Hubble's AM-10 battery? We're having endless issues. No matter what we do to the settings, the battery won't charge with more than around 1kW. That translates to around 10A per inverter (in parallel configuration). This is a 0.75C 10kWh battery able to slurp up 150A.... Yet, it doesn't. We have many of them on single inverters and no problem. On a parallel setup however - nada... Has anybody had similar issues or know of a fix? Is it BMS related when the inverters are parallel? I dunno?

Colin, it took about 4 weeks. Still waiting for the repair report to know what they have had to do.

You're not the first person who say that....🥴

It started off with a communication problem on the WiFi card, then the BMS485 port through which I am monitoring the system, then the entire inverter just stopped working. No error codes or anything. Just switched off. Happened while we were on holiday so the system carried on working at 50% capacity for about 4 or 5 days. When I got back, I removed the master and tooki it in to Sunsynk for repair. (Still there). Replaced the master with loan unit for the time being.

Nope - from own experience, if the master goes down the slave keeps on working. That's the beauty of having two inverters instead of one.

I also believe redundancy is key to each installs. We in fact design all our client's systems with the view on future expansion and redundancy. I mounted the entire protection DB, AC and battery isolators etc on a back board / cupboard that encloses the busbars behind. It tilts open on hinges. Makes for a nice clean appearance.

Agreed Colin. The brass is a better idea. Yes, I shortened the 4x95mm² battery cables to the busbars. The feed to each inverter is 75mm² each. The 95mm² cables were too much to bend into the position I wanted them in. 50mm² would have been fine too but wanted to keep voltage drop to a minimum.

Well, after 5 years of service that wiring configuration lasted all of 20 minutes when grid fails. Went there last night and re-connected the cells in a 3Sx3S parallel configuration after testing each cell's voltage. As expected, the single cell was lower than the others but still alive. Cable lugs not crimped. Insulation tape wound around battery connections instead of sealed heat shrink. Fuses bypassed in fuse box. Load shedding started shortly after I finished and the system switched over to battery power nicely. It provided the house power throughout the 2 hours of load shedding. Not sure how much battery power was left when grid returned - but it seems to be working far better than before. Will have to go back some time to fix those cable lugs. Some people....

Feedback almost 7 months since start-up. I am so happy with this system - especially now with the load shedding. Some may say I had inside information... Have since added a few smart switches, re-kindled our underfloor heating system, threw out the original WiFi data sticks and bought the Sunsynk data sticks (still not 100% happy with servers going down every now and again - although so much better than the Solarman app. Thinking about the Raspberry Pi option for real time data. Happy users out there? Any recommendations? Oh, and converted to pre-paid to save on the network and surcharge garbage. We have not seen one day without power to run the full household - including geyser and air conditioning - what a pleasure it has been so far! April saw a LOT of rain in Joburg and there were more than the usual number of days where I had to manage the charging of the battery very carefully. Nonetheless, our grid usage is next to nothing. More a case of me preserving the SOC at above 35% instead of 20% to be honest. I want this system to last till I sell the property - and beyond. Below a few energy generation graphs of the system. Thank you to all who so kindly contributed with knowledge. This is a wonderful forum.

Hi Guys, A friend of a friend asked me for some advice to replace their old AGM batteries on a 24V PV system. I found it interesting how the installer wired the battery bank. Attached a picture of the setup. There are 6 x FIAMM 12FLB350 cells @ 95Ah ea. 5 of them are wired in parallel and the parallel circuit wired in series with a single cell. The obvious reason to do this is to increase the Ah rating of the system, maintaining 24V. Is this something generally done? In my mind that 6th cell is going to be overworked and will last much shorter than the rest of the bank. Comment / insight appreciate please.

The finished plant in the garage.

This is so much fun to watch as it's happening. SOC up to 75% at 11:00 after draining to 36% overnight. Current rate of charge: 7.6kW Production: 8.02kW (My panels are at 40° - Should be at maximum efficiency in June / July. Quite happy with a summer day yield so far) Consumption: 278W Grid feed in: 89W. Can live with this.

She's alive! 😀 (and working it appears)... Only figured out late this afternoon that you have to set the time function in order make the system operate from the battery power. Also received an email from freedomwon today - I invited them to free and verify the installation / commission for their warranty clauses to be validated. Apparently they don't do that. They will however put me in touch with an accredited installer in my area. Looking forward to test the guys knowledge. Have soooo many questions.... Anyways, just finished a reasonably heavy evening with the washing machine, stove, a/c and geyser on. Total draw approximately 7kW at one stage. System seems to cope well. Looking forward to see the pv yield tomorrow.

Almost there! 2 x 300mm² Busbars for battery connections behind backing board. DC wiring done. A/C wiring next up. I'm thinking to wire from the "load" connection in the inverter (essential power) straight into my house DB i.e. everything will be on essential load - with a changeover switch to grid supply if battery power is low. If I utilise the grid connection with CT coil on incoming live with zero eport set, the battery would charge via mains right? Not sure I want that to happen. Any advise would be welcomed please. I'm uneasy with what to do next to be honest. Island (with changeover) / hybrid.

Gentlemen, thank you for the good advice - I've decided to do just that. I've run two 30x10mm copper busbars behind my back board. The battery cables (all 4 of them) will however connect to the busbars in the centre and not the two sides as suggested. I didn't want unequal lengths on the battery cables. The backing board actually works very well to safely conceal the busbars and some other unsightly wiring. When I've got the board down again I'll take a picture and post progress. Getting very near the point that I need to call my electrician to come inspect and sign off. I borrowed his crimping tool only to find its one of those old fashioned dimple ones. Went to Adendorf and bought a hex hydraulic crimping tool for R1000. So far I've done many 50mm² and a few 95mm² crimps. So far so good. Cannot fault the tool. It's not pretty but it works well. I've read somewhere that people have a hard time finding cut length busbars. If you're in Joburg, google a company called Metal centre. They've done a lot of profile cutting for me on other stuff. I decided to give them a try for the busbars - and true as bob, they had the exact size I wanted and cut two pieces to 1.4m for me - no problem. Thank you again for the guidance Paulcupine & Sarel.