MarcFe

I am also finding the riot cloudlink underwhelming...

Hi everyone,
Thanks again for all the replies. TL;DR: The issue was resolved by updating the firmware on the older battery. The firmware it had loaded made the battery think that it only holds 48.3Ah instead of 100Ah. Now it's working perfectly, and SoH is still at 100% (also showed as 48.3%, for some reason).
A Hubble technician and the battery person from our installer came here earlier this week and checked out the issue with the battery described in this post. As a first step, they updated the firmware on both batteries, and pretty much instantly the SolarAssistant recognised both batteries with 100% SoH and 100Ah total capacity. So far, so good.
They also installed a CloudLink device to the main battery, which now makes sure that the battery firmware gets updated automatically in future. It's a cool little device, although I must say that the SolarAssistant's UI is way more advanced than what I can see in the CloudLink dashboard as a customer. I'm sure they'll get there – but don't underestimate the open source community behind the Raspberry Pi / Solar Assistant product! 🙂
As both the SolarAssistant and the CloudLink want to be connected through the RS232 port using an RJ11 cable, I can't connect them both properly. I'm now waiting for a phone line / RJ11 splitter to arrive so I can try to attach them both to the main battery, wondering if that will work.
Anyway, SolarAssistant can actually read battery data through the SunSynk inverter, but it's not as detailed as when it was hard-wired to the battery. I can only see SoC, Power, Current, Voltage and Temperature:

(Compare this reading to the battery snapshots I posted before – they're way more detailed...)
Not too bad, but will update once the splitter arrives, to see if I can set hard-wire the RasPi and the CloudLink to the same RS232 port.
Long story short, I now have two batteries with 100Ah each, and they last as long as I would expect them to last. We're finally making it through the night without using any grid, at all, and it feels great! 🥰
A snapshot from my SolarAssitant dashboard, showing the last 24 hours from now:

And the view from the CloudLink user dashboard, which (as I menioned) isn't as pretty, and not as detailed, either. Plus, at the moment, our 5kW SunSynk inverter is still in beta phase –– the CloudLink should eventually be able to also connect to the inverter, once the necessary cable and software are available. The Hubble technician will reach out to me once it's possible, so we can hook up the inverter to the CloudLink as well. For now, it only reads the battery data, and also updates the firmware on the batteries whenever Hubble rolls out any new software:

All in all, I'm super happy with the support from Hubble but also with our installer, and the system is finally working the way I was hoping it would. My next goal, and I'll post another thread sometime, will be to automate our solar geyser using the SolarAssistant MQQT mechanism – my idea is to only allow the geyser to draw energy whenever the SoC of the batteries is at a certain level... Stay tuned! 🤩
Marc
 

Clearly the batteries were at different SOC when installed, which means that they were not balanced. There is a process for this, it involves setting specific AGM voltage settings, running both batteries to 0% SoC and then charging them full again. Log a ticket with Hubble support, they will give the procedure for you. It's a pity that you don't have a Cloudlink, it allows some BMS overrides and Hubble can also use it to log in to the batteries, monitor and make adjustments. I am rather impressed with my recent Hubble / Cloudlink install at a family member's place 1000kms from me, and the capabilities of the Cloudlink, it's actually very insightful and powerful.

The same when you have two of them connected or does one double all the values then?

@MarcFe Yes, in "System Mode" make sure "Use Timer is not ticked, so that the batteries do not discharge overnight. The inverter and batteries will communicate over the next few days, and hopefully all cells in both batteries will fully charge and equalize, with float periods for the batteries to "rest". You should notice the batteries now and again supplying small amounts of power to the inverter (30W - 70W), even with mains available. Also expect to see the batteries charge from mains or solar once or twice every 24 to 48 hours as it fully charges and equalizes. (Hopefully you don't have load-shedding or mains failures for the next few days. 😂)
Lets hope you're  oldest battery is restored to it's former glory.

Hi @mzezman,
Thanks for your reply. No, SA only gets the master battery by cable. The batteries are then chained, with DIP on 1-0-0-0 for master and 0-1-0-0 for slave.
The older battery may have been at about 60% when the second/new battery was added to the pack today. They then both charged up to 100%. The new battery was lower than that I reckon.
I‘d love this to be a BMS or software issue — so is there a good way to reset/restart the BMS, or would turning batteries on and off help? Or to find out if the issue is just about balancing loads in the BMS?
I‘ll check this with the installer and guess that they‘d take this to Hubble for me.
Just the fact that the older battery on its own already had shown only <50% capacity on both SOLARMAN and SA made me wonder if there is something wrong with it.
Thank you,
Marc

Hi @TimCam,
Thanks for this. Will go through the settings and adjust to what you have set there.
When you say don’t discharge for three days, as in, keep them at 100% and grid-charged for three days?
Marc

Hi everyone,
I joined the solar world by the end of 2021 and am still super happy about the investment we made.
While watching the SolarAssistant charts and graphs, I see that our inverter (it's a Sunsynk 5kWh) discharges the Hubble AM2 battery to less than 80%, although the timer settings on the inverted do basically say "charge under 80%". See screen grab here:

And here, on the chart side of things, you can see that it discharges quite quickly down to ~80%, but then keeps consuming the battery for much longer, basically until the sun kicks back in at ~8am:

And last screen grab, here, you can see that the battery is being discharged at night time, despite it being already under 80%:

My question: Is it normal that the battery keeps discharging [at a low level] throughout the night, or is there something wrong with my system?
Thanks so much for your expertise – and your thoughts,
Marc
 

Hi @wolfandy,
Thanks for your reply.
Agreed on all you're saying, I'd like to be using my battery (batteries) further down, too. And, having more Ah capacity, I think I'll be able to cater for load sheddings without keeping the SoC as high as 80% –– given the system (as you mentioned) charges the batteries by 9am every morning.
And yes we're barely drawing enough power from the panels, since the geyser is already on solar and our household is fairly optimised for low consumption. In any average moment, I'd say we're using ~500W, with peaks going up to 4.5kW. Nothing that the inverter couldn't handle.
Cool thanks, I'm going to buy a battery, then! 🔋

As @zsde already wrote, the self-consumption of the inverter is powered from the batteries - even if the system is running on grid
Agree that your system is over-paneled and adding more batteries would help better balance the system (help get more out of your system). On your screenshot above, your battery is fully charged by 09h00 again, and after that your panels only have to power your loads. So for most of the time, you only draw 1kW from your 5kW of panels
I'm not a technical expert, but to my understanding when you cycle through your batteries on a regular basis, then it is ok to charge them to 100%. It is only when hardly drawing from them (e.g., a laptop battery when the laptop is always used connected to AC), then leaving the battery at a lower SOC will help extend the life.
I am drawing my set of Pylons down to 25% every night

Hi Marc,
Have a look at these two topics as they may well help you with your Time of Use settings and getting your thoughts right about how to use your system.
Even though you only have one battery at this time, you should still be using it overnight to capitalise on your investment in using solar to charge it up during the day.
I too used my system as a UPS in the beginning because loadshedding had just hit badly at the time. It was only after that round subsided that I started with using the battery overnight. Initially the first single battery got us through from 12 midnight to when solar started charging in the morning. Decided then to by a second battery and we now use the batteries to run the house from 8pm to the next morning.
Hope this helps.
MdF
 
 
 
 

I understand. Looking at your first set of screenshots your battery went down to around 55% overnight and then the solar started charging it again. So that is not excessive.
I am sitting with the same battery usage and management scenario as you. Only one battery but it has been sufficient up to now.
So if you wish to keep it at 80%, then there is no alternative but to use grid power to charge them during the night.
The battery will discharge even if you switch off everything. The Inverter itself consumes around 50W.
Something else that I noticed on your first set of screenshots is around 50V Solar on both MPPTs during nighttime. Where do your solar panels generate that voltage from at night? 
After sunset mine drop to zero as expected. 

I'm sorry to say but the documentation for the Hubble Lithium batteries is so bad!
I'm looking for the correct info on which terminal to use when only a single battery is connected to an inverter. Can someone who knows, please confirm, the terminals marked in yellow are the correct one for a single battery? I'm just guessing at the moment based on their parallel connectivity diagram.
And also, where is the ground/earth terminal on this battery?

 

 

Yes, I agree. We've been running a small inverter/battery backup for our studies for years, but it was about time to replace the AGM batteries – so we decided to go Lithium and solar instead. Super happy about the step, and yes, saving electricity is obviously... good :).

Look on the Hubble website with reference to SunSynk CAN connection. All settings are there, and the correct pin-outs.
The supplied cable is only for AM-2 to AM-2 battery communication, not to be used to any inverter. 👍
 
Welcome to the solar family, and hope you have many happy years with your setup.😀
Good looking setup, and choice of components.
 

Update: It's now working!
Thanks again, TimCam, the hint with the DIP switches solved the issue. It's possible to use a normal cat5 ethernet cable to establish a connection between Sunsynk inverter and Hubble AM2 battery. If you use a single Hubble battery just make sure the DIP switches at the bottom of the battery are set to Master (1, 0, 0, 0) and the inverter will be able to read the BMS data and displays them in the LiBMS dashboard (see photo).

Again, for me it was important to also have the Solar Assistant software running properly on my Raspberry Pi, why I needed to connect the battery to the inverter using the BMS CAN (inverter) to the CAN (battery) ports. The battery settings on the inverter hence must also say "Lithium, connection through CAN", not RS485. Hubble and Sunsynk can apparently communicate through both channels, but if you choose RS485, the Raspberry Pi with the Solar Assistant software won't get a readable signal from the inverter.
For the Solar Assistant software to work, I connected both battery and inverter straight to the Raspberry Pi, using the USB cables from solar-assistant.io, which work perfectly well. The RasPi 4 delivers data every 1-2 seconds which is amazing
Now it's all – hopefully – working as good as it can be. Thanks again, TimCam.

Update: It's now working!
Thanks again, TimCam, the hint with the DIP switches solved the issue. It's possible to use a normal cat5 ethernet cable to establish a connection between Sunsynk inverter and Hubble AM2 battery. If you use a single Hubble battery just make sure the DIP switches at the bottom of the battery are set to Master (1, 0, 0, 0) and the inverter will be able to read the BMS data and displays them in the LiBMS dashboard (see photo).

Again, for me it was important to also have the Solar Assistant software running properly on my Raspberry Pi, why I needed to connect the battery to the inverter using the BMS CAN (inverter) to the CAN (battery) ports. The battery settings on the inverter hence must also say "Lithium, connection through CAN", not RS485. Hubble and Sunsynk can apparently communicate through both channels, but if you choose RS485, the Raspberry Pi with the Solar Assistant software won't get a readable signal from the inverter.
For the Solar Assistant software to work, I connected both battery and inverter straight to the Raspberry Pi, using the USB cables from solar-assistant.io, which work perfectly well. The RasPi 4 delivers data every 1-2 seconds which is amazing
Now it's all – hopefully – working as good as it can be. Thanks again, TimCam.

That's the the one, and double check the dip switches too. 👍