Paul Vermeulen

Hi Jason, I am very happy to hear about your positive experience with the Blade battery. I have also seen the video with the nail being hammered through the battery, and am seriously considering getting a BYD Shark Plug In Hybrid (has the same battery) for work. I will upgrade my existing solar system, putting an independent system in my garage to charge my new car, and act as the backup for my existing system, much like a generator. Most of my traveling is at night, so I can charge the vehicle in the daytime. And my customers have 3 phase electric power available so I will get a plug in charge cable (22kW) to top up charge between jobs. But it should start up on petrol once the battery gets to 20% SOC anyway, so there will be no range anxiety.
I am nervous of the new vehicle, I have seen so many reports of electric cars catching fire, but I have seen way more petrol cars burnt out on the side of the freeway. So I have promised myself that if, after one year of their release into the local market, there are no negative reports I will get one. Reliability is my biggest concern, breaking down at 3am outside an informal settlement is dangerous. But I will be saving R12k a month on diesel, and another R2k a month by going off the grid, so it will pay for itself in no time and have a long term benefit to our monthly expenses.
I will keep you updated,
Regards,
Paul

Hi Jason, I am very happy to hear about your positive experience with the Blade battery. I have also seen the video with the nail being hammered through the battery, and am seriously considering getting a BYD Shark Plug In Hybrid (has the same battery) for work. I will upgrade my existing solar system, putting an independent system in my garage to charge my new car, and act as the backup for my existing system, much like a generator. Most of my traveling is at night, so I can charge the vehicle in the daytime. And my customers have 3 phase electric power available so I will get a plug in charge cable (22kW) to top up charge between jobs. But it should start up on petrol once the battery gets to 20% SOC anyway, so there will be no range anxiety.
I am nervous of the new vehicle, I have seen so many reports of electric cars catching fire, but I have seen way more petrol cars burnt out on the side of the freeway. So I have promised myself that if, after one year of their release into the local market, there are no negative reports I will get one. Reliability is my biggest concern, breaking down at 3am outside an informal settlement is dangerous. But I will be saving R12k a month on diesel, and another R2k a month by going off the grid, so it will pay for itself in no time and have a long term benefit to our monthly expenses.
I will keep you updated,
Regards,
Paul

Great - happy to hear
I can change these on my dual-Axpert setup without problems. Most of the time it is a logic-inconsistency that prevents the changes. The max AC charge rate cannot be higher than the Solar charge rate if I remember correctly. And similarly the cut-off voltage cannot be the same or higher than the 'Back to Grid' voltage
The only thing that I sometimes also experience is that when clicking the 'Set' button to have ICC send the command to the inverter, it does not always accepts the change the first time around. But trying 2 or 3 times usually does the trick for me
I do not have any experience with any other brands. I've had my one Axpert for more than 5 years and bought the 2nd early this year (used). I've moved all my PV to a separate Victron MPPT. A nice side-effect is that the Axpert does not get that hot anymore (with the MPPT not being used), which I am hoping will contribute towards a longer lifetime of the Axpert. I have also stuck computer fans on the outside of the case of the Axpert to lower the temperature (according to ICC the fans brought the temp down somewhere around 5-10 degrees)
My plan is to get as much mileage out of the Axperts as possible and only worry about what to replace them with once they have broken down for good. Am otherwise very happy with my system (especially the ease of making changes in ICC remotely via VNC), so why spend more money?

Thanks Paul
I think I know what causes the behavior: Did you manually change your system to Utility? If you want to manually change to Utility, then you first need to disable the 'Use SOC for Control' on your battery settings tab (and then press the 'Save' button at the bottom right for ICC to accept the new setting). Otherwise ICC (after a few minutes) switches your system back to SBU because it picks up that your SOC is higher than your set value and triggers the switch.
Could you please make the following changes and see if your system behaves as desired (if I understand correct you want to run on Utility and charge the batteries from both Utility and Solar - correct?):
Disable 'Use SOC for Control' on battery settings tab Set 'Back to discharge voltage' to 58V (or whatever else the highest voltage is that you can set - to ensure that the Axpert itself does not interfere with the ICC switching) Set inverter mode to Utility (in case ICC has switched it to SBU) A few further setting changes that I would recommend:
'AC Input Range' to 'Appliance' 'Bulk charging voltage' to 52.5V (see more details on why these values see this thread) 'Float charging voltage' to 51.8V 

Depending on which Axpert model you have, it cannot process the Pylon BMS data directly. Hence @Coulomb 's comment that the only feature/function that the BMS will provide is disconnecting the battery for self-protection. But this should only be your emergency last resort (as then your complete system will also shut down).
To make use of the accurate SOC data that the Pylon BMS is providing (rather than the crude Axpert voltage guess-timate), you will need something like the ICC software and their Pylon Comms cable. But if you are only planning to run it purely as a backup system, I do not believe that it will add any real value to you. 
I would also definitely raise it to something higher than 44V. At 22% SOC my Pylons were around 48.6V last night. I have mine set to 46.5V - but have never actually drained my Pylons down to that voltage. I would guess that your current 44V is significantly below the recommended 80% DOD for the Pylon, which means that your expected lifetime cycles will drop. I have never looked at voltage / SOC relation in detail, but my guess would be that somewhere between 48V and 49V. Maybe start with 49V and see (a) if it still gets you through loadshedding without your system shutting down and (b) how many LEDs are still on when your system shuts down
+1
If you currently get to the point that your systems shuts down during loadshedding because your Pylon has been discharged down to your current 44V Battery Cutoff Voltage, then you need to add another Pylon or reduce your load during loadshedding.
Also please keep in mind that a single Pylon does not like to be discharged by more than 37A - which translates to approx. 1800W. Even though your Axpert can provide more power than that, drawing more than 1800W for longer periods will in the long run hurt your Pylon

25 A is correct for 1 US2000 battery module (and 1 inverter). US3000s can be charged at 37 A, so use 30 A.
Please no! 52.5 V.
Your battery will be floating 90% of the time. Use 51.8 V for better battery life.
This should obviously be lower than your float voltage, so try 51 V.
You will be running this till the battery runs out, i.e. this is not an emergency save the silver thing, it's a routine discharge limit. So I'd experiment but start with 45 V or more. You should have the last LED still on (6 SOC LEDs; I assume that 1 LED ≅ 17% SOC, bear in mind I've never used a Pylontech). Better yet if you can read the SOC from the battery, aim to turn off at about 20% SOC.
One US3000 is quite light to feed "the house", unless you have very light loads. Hopefully, your geyser and other high power draw elements won't be on the inverter's output (so they'll not work during load shedding / outage).
The BMS can only "take over" by disconnecting the battery totally. That's a bit of a gamble with the inverter's safety. But I'll leave others to comment on this.

The batteries have balanced already after two days, I did notice that the older two batteries take a higher charge when they start charging, but the parameters per battery are exactly the same, SOC, Health, Voltage. I am very happy, just need some sun, sounds like we are going to have another wet patch this week!