Kurtbe

Hi Rozsda, Thank you for your reply (you were the one who inspired me to use the net as a generator!). But as said, I am not an expert. So you lost me at ESP32. To design boards, soldering microchips and programming them in whatever protocol, I would have to start from scratch (apart from the soldering). In order to be able to set this up, I would need a lot of detailed information. (Dummy like type). I hope you, or somebody else can get me going in the right direction. Kind regards, Kurt

Sorry for being so sloppy!!! You are quite correct!

OMG... I have a lot to learn yet. Thanks again!!! Kurt

I am looking to configure an Axpert max ii 8kW in a way that it will not take its own power from the grid. The house if often empty for months, and therefor there is hardly any need for power during this time. But if the Axpert takes it's own power from the grid (which it DOES @70W), then my normal bill would rise instead of going down with a solar system. Therefor I have disconnected the grid using the dry contact and connected the grid to a relais which will kick in at low battery value and disconnect when battery has regained some energy from the grid @10Amps. This would typically be in the morning. If the battery goes under let's say 15% then I want the grid to kick in and top up the battery to let's say 30% (or maybe 50). That should be enough, because soon after the sun will start charging the batteries. Programs 12 & 13 allow me to set these values, but based on Voltage which is very unreliable and varies wildly. Does anybody know of a way to achieve this with more accuracy? (My Victrons in other installations allow this based on SOC, which is quite accurate), but the Axpert does not seem to be capable to do that. So, if any body knows how to finetune programs 12 & 13, I would be most grateful, because so far, days of Googling have not provided any solution. PS: I am not an expert, nor a technician. (But I do have a set of well working brains.) PS2: I have tested night charging @2Amps-230V (=460Wx8hrs=3680W input) but that only delivered 5% battery gain (480W in 8 hours), 460W input, consumption in house was 90W, + Axpert @70W, leaves 300Wx8hrs=2400W available to put into battery. Yet only 480 were put in. What happended to the other nearly 2000W? Greetings, Kurt

it also contains 20.22 for the CPU

Which probably means that WatchPower from PC will not function without "the cable". I assumed it would connect via WiFi like the App... Apparently I am assuming a lot. (But I'm getting to understand why Axpert is so much cheaper than Victron...) Solar assistant allows the setting of hours to prioritise Utility or solar. (Probably based on program 99 and 100). But so far I do not find anything to set 12 &13 by SOC%. I will post a new thread about this and see if anybody has an idea. Meantime: what goes on in this scenario: I have tested night charging @2Amps-230V (=460Wx8hrs=3680W input) but that only delivered 5% battery gain (480W in 8 hours), 460W input, consumption in house was 90W, + Axpert @70W, leaves 300Wx8hrs=2400W available to put into battery. Yet only 480 were put in. What happended to the other nearly 2000W? Greetings, Kurt

Also, does anybody know how to start WatchPower for PC? The first thing the manual says is to enter a a proxy IP number and a port... I have no idea... Or, do I have to be on "the cable" already? (manuals should be made for dummies like me...) Thanks for any info... Kurt

That would be a big jump for me to make. Anywhere where I can learn the basics how to employ "the cable"? On first glance Solar Assistance would only let one use SOC when constantly connected to the grid, and not to operate the dry contact... But I am eager and willing to learn... 😉 Kurt

Hi Coulomb, Charging the car was done on purpose to drain the batteries and see if the relais would switch. I will not do that again! I normally only slow charge here (5 to 7A) when there is an exces of solar power and as soon as the car draws from the batteries I stop charging. And that basically leaves me with the following questions. If anybody knows how to activate the dry contact based on SOC%, rather than Voltage, please let me know... Greetings, Kurt

@ Coulomb: AEVA: would this be 'Australian Electric Vehicle Association' ? (Because there is a lot of AEVA about in Google.🙂

Most probably it is the car that makers the diff jump. Tried to drain the battery with an electric heater, and the system switched to line mode with only a flicker of the lights. So now, all I am hoping for is that I can finetune the the battery percentage...

Out again with a big bang... Same diff. jumped. But again: the car was charging. Getting back to battery mode was marked by a flicker of the lights, but all circuits remained on. I will now try and drain the battery without charging the car.

So far so good. Eventhough a 30mA differential jumped when the change was made from battery mode to line mode. But that is probably the diff itself, since others remained on. Or it could have been my car which was charging at that moment (but only @ 7Amps). The system switched back to Battery mode in the middle of the night without me noticing. I swapped the diff this morning and wil try again tonight. In this way I use the grid like a generator to pervent the batteries running dry in the morning, typically around 5-6 o'clock. Just a little top up will do, because soon the sun will start charging again (typically 7-8 o'clock). This is a workaround to prevent the Axpert to take its own 70W per hour from the grid, and only use the grid in cheap nighttime. This setup also allows me to test the system for an extended period. If I do not have to rely on the grid for more than a year or so, then I will disconnect completely from the mains and run the house 100% off-grid. Two questions: Program 3 (input Volt range) is set to UPS (Which I assume switches quicker than APL: 15ms as opposed to 20ms). Is that correct? Is there a way to finetune program 12 and 13? Because the difference of % in the battery between 47 or 48 V is huge. Ideally I would like to switch to grid @ 15% and quit the grid again @ 30%. (My Victron sets actually allow to set the % rather than the Voltage.) Regards, Kurt

Thank you very much for your (swift) reply! I was under the assumption that the dry contact was powered and would give a pulse to the relais to switch. I have re-wired and will have another test tonight (being your day). I will try and run the battery empty during the evening to see if the grid will kick in. Hopefully by tomorrow I will be able to confirm that it does work. Kind regards, Kurt

Thank you Coulomb. I think that it is now actually running correct with another firmware update (the first attempt went wrong). PS: can I refer you to another thread concerning the dry contact? I was hoping that it would have worked this morning, but it failed. Greetings, Kurt

I have done what Rozsda has done: installed a relay and set programme 12 to 47V (and 13 to 51). The battery is now @ 11% with 47.4V. The battery itself (Pylontech US5000) is still showing 2 out of the 6 LED dots, which could indicate that there is more power in the battery than what the Axpert tells me on WatchPower. But nothing seems to happen. The Axpert is not giving an alarm signal that the battery is low in power (before a recent firmware upgrade it did). The relay gets it's normal 230V in, but the output is 0. I do not measure anything between A1 & A2 (not even on the Axpert) I connected the dry contact to C - NO. So I assume that as soon as the battery reaches 47V (47,99 to be more precise), the dry contact should switch... but nothing happens. Not even if I set the trigger to 48V. What could I have done wrong?

This was actually a mistake on my side. It does now run at the correct time.

Hi everybody. I had an Axpert max II 8kW installed lately of which the clock runs slow (about 5 mins per 24 hours). Service sent me the official firmware updates (81.07 and 22.20), but to no avail. I read here that other people suffer the same problem. Has anybody been able to fix it? Thanks beforehand, Kurt

The firmware got fixed, but to no avail. The clock keeps running slow. Has anybody been able to fix this? (I will start a new topic on this.)

Hi everybody, If anyone is interested in the latest firmware for MAX ii 8kW, it was sent to me by the Axpert service center... Ver 81.07. Since it is coming from Axpert itself, it should be trustworthy. Let me know if you want a copy. Greets, Kurt

Thanks for the info Rozda. Because my Max ii 8000W does not take track of time correctly, I have decided to no longer rely on the timers of program 99 and 100, but to apply your solution using a dry contact. So I am quite happy with your feedback. Axpert service will update the Firmware (now 81.02 and 122.12) next week and hopefully that will fix the clock and possible other hick-ups. Do you happen to know at what voltage to set a pylontech 5000, so as to trigger the dry contact? PS: I think my model does not have an AUX power supply, nor do I use a seperate mppt. So no info from my part. Sorry. Regards, Kurt

@ Namreh, Thanks for the reply. I will try and find more info. So far the system here is quite unstable...

Hi Namreh, Does that also mean that in SBU, Grid power will be blended with PV to charge the battery? I do not know if this is the right place to put my question, but I recently had a Max ii 8kW installed and it seems quite difficult to get it working as I require. I have plenty of sunshine. However, If I do run out of battery during the night, then I want the grid to charge the battery when say, it reaches 10 or 15%, but I only want grid charging during nighttime (which case the grid will only kick in early in the morning and as soon as the sun comes up, then the grid will be disconnected again and PV will take over). I do not wish grid charging during daytime. I tried program 99 and 100, but so far with no succes. What happens every morning is that the settings have disapeared and gone to '00-00'. Maybe that is because program 16 is set to Solar Only, but I thought that program 100 would override that. When I put 16 to Solar first, then I get the impression that the Axpert takes its own power from the grid AND the grid will charge together with the PV until the battery is full, which leaves me with hours of sunshine that go to waste, as the PV would easily charge the battery during the day without any help from the grid. So, I do not want the grid connected during the day unless the batteries run empty during the day. Another big issue is that the clock on the Axpert loses about 5 minutes a day. Does anybody else suffer from that? (I think I came across that somewhere in this forum) Because programming by time is impossible in that case... Is there anybody who can share some light on this? (as the support here (Spain) is quite poor) 1 SBU 2 PYL 16 SOLAR ONLY 99 I want SBU 24hrs: No need to program this? 100 Solar+Utility= 22->07.59, Only Solar= 08->21.59 11 2A 12 @48V 13 @ 51V 23 Bypass enable 41 40A 29 Shut down @ 45V, Kind regards, Kurt