5kw shoto, 5kw deye, 2.5kw solar panels.

Is there anywhere on the inverter that keeps track/calculate the estimated nr of cycles used?  Hope my question makes sense😊

There are some inverters that can do that innately, but I have no idea if Deye do it. I know a lot of folks keep track of this stuff with a Raspberry pie, there is battery monitoring software that can pull this off...

24 minutes ago, mien said:

inverter that keeps track/calculate the estimated nr of cycles used?

Nope and the actual return question would be... What is a cycle or rather according to the battery manufacturer, what is a cycle? Probably the best way you can calculate, once you got the answer about how the battery manufacturer defines a cycle is with external monitoring.

Right now, here, the battery is supplying 30A, next half a minute, getting 40A shoved up its terminals, then 40 seconds later, turn around and supply some amps, due to clouds moving across the sky, how do you work this one out? multiple micro-cycles per day?

@Kalahari Meerkat okay thanks. Was once explained to me as - when battery reaches a certain low charge level then it is considered a 'cycle'. I'll go google for an explanation on what a cycle is.

10 minutes ago, mien said:

Was once explained to me as - when battery reaches a certain low charge level then it is considered a 'cycle'. I'll go google for an explanation on what a cycle is.

not everyone agrees with the same definition, so really, the battery manufacturers definition is the one that would count, some even claim a mini cycle, take 20% out of the battery and charge the 20% back as a cycle. I disagree, but hey in your case, the battery manufacturer should have the last word in terms of what they deem to be a "cycle".

7 hours ago, Psy said:

There are some inverters that can do that innately, but I have no idea if Deye do it. I know a lot of folks keep track of this stuff with a Raspberry pie, there is battery monitoring software that can pull this off...

Thanks. I suspect this may be the best way to go to see the real state of the batteries - thank you.  I will not be taking this route - have a full time carreer to attend to...😂 But now understand that it's not a simple answer.

4 hours ago, Kalahari Meerkat said:

not everyone agrees with the same definition, so really, the battery manufacturers definition is the one that would count, some even claim a mini cycle, take 20% out of the battery and charge the 20% back as a cycle. I disagree, but hey in your case, the battery manufacturer should have the last word in terms of what they deem to be a "cycle".

@Kalahari Meerkat that is exactly what I see with my LBSA battery, uses a seplos BMS and is set to 20%, I see quite often if SOC drops below 80% and if it gets a bit of charge, it counts one cycle. My battery is 15 months old and already at 900 cycles. OEM told me not to worry, that the guaranty is 10 years not number of cycles, we shall see. But so far, no problem with the battery, this week with all the load shedding and very little sun mostly overcast days, 12 Cycles see dashboard.

 

Edited December 13, 20223 yr by Antonio de Sa

2 hours ago, mien said:

Thanks. I suspect this may be the best way to go to see the real state of the batteries - thank you.  I will not be taking this route - have a full time carreer to attend to...😂 But now understand that it's not a simple answer.

With an investment of approx 3.5k you can get a solar assistant monitor plus battery cable which will tell you number of cycles per battery

9 hours ago, mien said:

Is there anywhere on the inverter that keeps track/calculate the estimated nr of cycles used?

Battery cycles are tracked by the BMS, not the inverter.  (Different batteries in a bank may well have different cycle counts.)

I don't know about other manufacturers but for Pylontech a cycle is defined as a full battery capacity discharge.  What that means is that for a US3000 (nominal capacity 74Ah) one cycle is 74Ah of discharge, irrespective of how many "mini-cycles" were involved or over which period it occurred.  Interestingly, even as the battery capacity decreases with age they still use the original capacity as one cycle.

 

 

On 2022/12/13 at 8:51 AM, mien said:

5kw shoto, 5kw deye, 2.5kw solar panels.

Is there anywhere on the inverter that keeps track/calculate the estimated nr of cycles used?  Hope my question makes sense😊

All you need is a R30 RS485-USB converter and a network cable and you can access the BMS with the seplos software that looks like this:

For a cycle the Shoto uses 'cumulative discharge', so every time the battery is in discharge status the amount of Ah used is added up and a cycle is triggered once this value reaches a percentage value which is set in the BMS settings. This should be triggered every time the value reaches 90% (Shoto is a 90% DOD battery), but due to the default setting in the seplos BMS it is actually triggering a cycle count at 20%, so your battery is probably counting this incorrectly anyway, so no use bothering unless you are willing to change BMS settings which may void your warranty.

 

Hubble explained to me that a discharge to 50%SOC and recharge to 100% is one cycle as that is regarded as a once full battery capacity usage. 
The manufacturers make up the rules as they see fit and to suit their realistic life expectancy of the battery.
There is no enforced industry standard. 
Logic dictates that a cycle is probably one full discharge and full recharge or at least an accumulated discharge total of the battery's capacity and an accumulated charge total of the capacity. i.e. it could be multiple cycles between 30 and 70% that end up eventually to be the advertised capacity. 
Can the manufacturer give you data regarding fluctuating charge and discharges versus continuous? i.e. use 5 A/h charge 10A/h then use another 12A/h and discharge 6 A/h due to cloudy conditions. How do those cycles affect the longevity?
We the consumers are the test subjects and I doubt their BMS stores the per second fluctuations. Ultimately we will only find out what the manufacturers warranty is worth when we need the support and they throw the fine print at you as to why you are the culprit and not their battery, 

For what it's worth I don't think any manufacturer is going to look your way if you have a problem after 9 years and 11 months. I have 2x5.1 kWh Shoto's. I count cycles for my own use by downloading Solarman data and dividing total discharge energy by 8 (10kWh at 80% DOD). All I really want to see is am I using more or less than 1 cycle per day, as the assumption to convert cycles to life is usually one cycle per day. Mine is averaging 0.76 cycles per day.

Edited December 17, 20223 yr by Scubadude

9 hours ago, zsde said:

Hubble explained to me that a discharge to 50%SOC and recharge to 100% is one cycle as that is regarded as a once full battery capacity usage. 
The manufacturers make up the rules as they see fit and to suit their realistic life expectancy of the battery.
There is no enforced industry standard. 
Logic dictates that a cycle is probably one full discharge and full recharge or at least an accumulated discharge total of the battery's capacity and an accumulated charge total of the capacity. i.e. it could be multiple cycles between 30 and 70% that end up eventually to be the advertised capacity. 
Can the manufacturer give you data regarding fluctuating charge and discharges versus continuous? i.e. use 5 A/h charge 10A/h then use another 12A/h and discharge 6 A/h due to cloudy conditions. How do those cycles affect the longevity?
We the consumers are the test subjects and I doubt their BMS stores the per second fluctuations. Ultimately we will only find out what the manufacturers warranty is worth when we need the support and they throw the fine print at you as to why you are the culprit and not their battery, 

All I have to go by is the testing and observation I have done with my own battery and the data downloaded from the BMS. The seplos only counts discharge, no charge and the data intervals can range anywhere from 2sec to 30mins depending on what the battery is doing. I've added a download of some data in case anyone is interested to see what is recorded. The seplos BMS existed before lithium batteries and was used in LA battery banks so it makes sense that the discharge value is set to 20% by default, but this does not suit lithium batteries, I think manufacturers like Shoto, LBSA and others have simply overlooked changing this value... or they are being dishonest with their advertising... I will lean towards overlooking the default value out of kindness 😉

When I first got my battery I was only using 20-25% per day and it was counting a cycle every day which to me makes no sense when the battery is advertised as 90% DOD. If I had to discharge to 90% DOD it would have counted 4 cycles. Check @Antonio de Sa's battery sometimes count 2 cycles a day when he probably never even gets to 50% DOD. I found the 20% parameter and changed it to 90% and now the battery counts a cycle every time 90% discharge has accumulated as expected. The BMS calculates correctly, I think it is 'user error' on the part of the battery manufacturers using the seplos bms in their batteries.

I totally agree that we are the test subjects and will most likely struggle when applying for a warranty claim which is why I decided to fiddle with the settings myself to know what is really going on without having to trust what someone else tells me.

Hisotry data 20221203_1717_100%SOC.xls

10 minutes ago, jumper said:

I decided to fiddle with the settings myself to know what is really going on without having to trust what someone else tells me.

That is the only way to determine the state of your storage.  👏 

8 minutes ago, jumper said:

All I have to go by is the testing and observation I have done with my own battery and the data downloaded from the BMS. The seplos only counts discharge, no charge and the data intervals can range anywhere from 2sec to 30mins depending on what the battery is doing. I've added a download of some data in case anyone is interested to see what is recorded. The seplos BMS existed before lithium batteries and was used in LA battery banks so it makes sense that the discharge value is set to 20% by default, but this does not suit lithium batteries, I think manufacturers like Shoto, LBSA and others have simply overlooked changing this value... or they are being dishonest with their advertising... I will lean towards overlooking the default value out of kindness 😉

When I first got my battery I was only using 20-25% per day and it was counting a cycle every day which to me makes no sense when the battery is advertised as 90% DOD. If I had to discharge to 90% DOD it would have counted 4 cycles. Check @Antonio de Sa's battery sometimes count 2 cycles a day when he probably never even gets to 50% DOD. I found the 20% parameter and changed it to 90% and now the battery counts a cycle every time 90% discharge has accumulated as expected. The BMS calculates correctly, I think it is 'user error' on the part of the battery manufacturers using the seplos bms in their batteries.

I totally agree that we are the test subjects and will most likely struggle when applying for a warranty claim which is why I decided to fiddle with the settings myself to know what is really going on without having to trust what someone else tells me.

Hisotry data 20221203_1717_100%SOC.xls 173.4 kB · 0 downloads

Yes, very annoying when you know that your battery SOC has never gone bellow 25% and counts 2 cycles. see attached dashboard, this all week only once I drained my battery bellow 25% yet the cycle count for the week is 12 cycles. 

 

1 hour ago, Antonio de Sa said:

Yes, very annoying when you know that your battery SOC has never gone bellow 25% and counts 2 cycles. see attached dashboard, this all week only once I drained my battery bellow 25% yet the cycle count for the week is 12 cycles. 

Yep, that's the expected behavior when it is counting every 20% discharge as a cycle, the remainder is carried over until it eventually adds up to another 20% and you get 2 cycles on 1 day. I bet if you discharge your battery to 60% DOD in one go it will count 3 cycles.

BTW if you still have that 1 lagging cell when charging it might be a good idea to discharge your battery below 50% before recharge... I had the same issue with 1 cell always being the lowest and after doing a discharge to about 45% SOC it changed to a different cell. I also only use about 25% per night, but it seems it's good to give the battery a little exercise once in a while.

Yea, the one cell still below the other 15, tried to balance them, no luck it remains about 1000 mv bellow the rest of the pack.

I will try what you suggest. Will let you know of the outcome.

Cheers bud. 

2 hours ago, Antonio de Sa said:

Yea, the one cell still below the other 15, tried to balance them, no luck it remains about 1000 mv bellow the rest of the pack.

I will try what you suggest. Will let you know of the outcome.

Cheers bud. 

Perhaps a typo being 1000mV below the other? 

Yes, indeed 1000 mV. thanks for the correction.

On 2022/12/16 at 9:01 PM, jumper said:

All you need is a R30 RS485-USB converter and a network cable and you can access the BMS with the seplos software that looks like this:

For a cycle the Shoto uses 'cumulative discharge', so every time the battery is in discharge status the amount of Ah used is added up and a cycle is triggered once this value reaches a percentage value which is set in the BMS settings. This should be triggered every time the value reaches 90% (Shoto is a 90% DOD battery), but due to the default setting in the seplos BMS it is actually triggering a cycle count at 20%, so your battery is probably counting this incorrectly anyway, so no use bothering unless you are willing to change BMS settings which may void your warranty.

 

Hi, someone has sent me the same BMS monitoring software as I have shoto batteries. If I understand correctly, I can just get the comms cable as above and will be able to view the data. Might be silly question but I am a complete novice. 

I  also struggle to get a comms cable for the shoto batteries to speak to a Kodak 7.2kw inverter. Any wisdom, please

1 hour ago, Andries Steyn said:

Hi, someone has sent me the same BMS monitoring software as I have shoto batteries. If I understand correctly, I can just get the comms cable as above and will be able to view the data. Might be silly question but I am a complete novice. 

I  also struggle to get a comms cable for the shoto batteries to speak to a Kodak 7.2kw inverter. Any wisdom, please

The instructions for how I got it working are in this post: 

 

That whole thread has a lot of other helpful info in it too.

Battery cycles is a debate that no 2 people or manufacturers will agree on. We need to consider "Battery Throughput". We can discus the definition later.