Hi All,

I am based in Cape Town and just need some help with my inverter setup! My old setup was a Synapse 3kw 2400W inverter with 4 X 12V 100AH Deep Cycle Batteries. 

I have just had a Mecer 5kw SOL-I-AX-5VP installed using my current deep cycle batteries I will be replacing them soon with a lithium battery. When the Synapse inverter was running the battery bar would stay on 4 bars even after a 4 hour long load shed. With the Mecer inverter after one hour the batteries drop down 1 bar.

I have also found after a 2 hour long load shed the battery's have gone down a bar but seems to have charged fully after about 20 minutes as the fans turn off.

-Enertec 100ah deep cycle batteries have been used for 4 months only.

-Power used off the batteries is around 200 watts as we only run a few plugs and lights on a long load shed will connect the fridge for 2 hours. Batteries have never been abused.

-Current settings on the inverter are set to default flooded battery (Bulk Charging Voltage 56.4) & (Float Charging Voltage is 54.0) is this correct for the batteries and is there any other setting that needs to be adjusted?

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

Many Thanks Daniel 

2 hours ago, danieltherubin said:

-Current settings on the inverter are set to default flooded battery (Bulk Charging Voltage 56.4) & (Float Charging Voltage is 54.0) is this correct for the batteries and is there any other setting that needs to be adjusted?

Are these the same as the previous inverter settings? If so, the next thing is the cutoff voltage, if that has changed then how the bars behave will change. The thing with these inverters is that they use the bulk voltage for 100% and the cutoff for 0% and then crudely display the bars based on that range and the current battery voltage, so if any of those change then the bars will change. Mostly that bar graph is "for entertainment purposes only".

I also expect the new inverter to have a higher self-consumption than the smaller one, but it shouldn't be a massive difference.

Do the batteries have any charge voltages printed on them or a spec sheet?

3 hours ago, danieltherubin said:

-Current settings on the inverter are set to default flooded battery (Bulk Charging Voltage 56.4) & (Float Charging Voltage is 54.0) is this correct for the batteries and is there any other setting that needs to be adjusted?

These settings seem about right, most AGM/Flooded batteries need to charge up to 57V bulk. The easiest yay to make sure the batteries are being fully charged, let them complete a charge cycle and disconnect them from the system for a second. The banks voltage should be 54-53V, if it's too low then its possible bad charging has effected the batteries... but that's unlikely with 4 month old batteries unless you're riding them into the ground. If the cutoff is around 44V then they should disconnect before any damage can be done.

Charging current could be a factor, but the Mecer should be more than capable of matching the charging current's of the 3kW Synapse. What the Mecer can do that the Synapse cannot is draw more current. There are deepcycles that run fine on lower amp loads but deplete in no time if the discharging current it too high, the unit should tell you how many amps are being drawn on the AC side. It may be worth comparing the current drawn from the Synapse and Mecer to see if that could be a factor?

46 minutes ago, jumper said:

Are these the same as the previous inverter settings? If so, the next thing is the cutoff voltage, if that has changed then how the bars behave will change. The thing with these inverters is that they use the bulk voltage for 100% and the cutoff for 0% and then crudely display the bars based on that range and the current battery voltage, so if any of those change then the bars will change. Mostly that bar graph is "for entertainment purposes only".

I also expect the new inverter to have a higher self-consumption than the smaller one, but it shouldn't be a massive difference.

Do the batteries have any charge voltages printed on them or a spec sheet?

Thank you very much for the help!

 

The previous inverter was a 24V and the bulk was set to 28.4 & Float was at 27V the electrician has wired the new 48v correctly. The battery is Enertec 100ah 674s blue like the image below but can't find any information on there website on it. Would upping the bulk not help at all? 

 

Thanks again 

 

 

42 minutes ago, danieltherubin said:

The previous inverter was a 24V and the bulk was set to 28.4 & Float was at 27V the electrician has wired the new 48v correctly. The battery is Enertec 100ah 674s blue like the image below but can't find any information on there website on it. Would upping the bulk not help at all? 

Yeah, I would up the bulk to 57V as @Psysuggested and leave the float at 54V. I have my LA batteries to cut off and 48V as I want them to last as long as possible, see if you can work with that and lower it if you need to, but these deep cycle batteries don't like to deep cycle often. I wouldn't worry too much about the bars on the display.

Thank you, I have changed bulk to 57v left float to 54 and is there anything that needs to be adjusted on the equalization side or leave it all as the standard settings? I see cut off settings on this inverter was set up to 42 should I change it up to 47 or leave as is? Can you think of anything else I should adjust or just leave everything else as standard? Thanks once again.

42 minutes ago, jumper said:

Yeah, I would up the bulk to 57V as @Psysuggested and leave the float at 54V. I have my LA batteries to cut off and 48V as I want them to last as long as possible, see if you can work with that and lower it if you need to, but these deep cycle batteries don't like to deep cycle often. I wouldn't worry too much about the bars on the display.

Thank you, I have changed bulk to 57v left float to 54 and is there anything that needs to be adjusted on the equalization side or leave it all as the standard settings? I see cut off settings on this inverter was set up to 42 should I change it up to 47 or leave as is? Can you think of anything else I should adjust or just leave everything else as standard? Thanks once again @Psy& @jumper

 

 

17 minutes ago, danieltherubin said:

I see cut off settings on this inverter was set up to 42 should I change it up to 47

42=10.5V per battery a tad low, I would set it no lower than 46, which would be 11.5V per battery and if you have a multimeter handy, just check that all 4 batteries are at the same Voltage level when charged and toward the end of a loadshed...

10 minutes ago, danieltherubin said:

I see cut off settings on this inverter was set up to 42 should I change it up to 47 or leave as is?

You could change that up to about 45V and try not to hit that too often, if the inverter does cut off you know you can at least go and change the setting and switch it on again rather than have it happening all the time without noticing. I would then set 'back to grid' at 47-48V so you can use grid if it is there to save the batteries or ride it down to 45V (or lower if you have to) if there is load shedding. I don't have grid and my inverter is not in the house and muted anyway so I like to get a warning by everything switching off to let me know the batteries are getting low or there is an issue.

1 hour ago, jumper said:

You could change that up to about 45V and try not to hit that too often, if the inverter does cut off you know you can at least go and change the setting and switch it on again rather than have it happening all the time without noticing. I would then set 'back to grid' at 47-48V so you can use grid if it is there to save the batteries or ride it down to 45V (or lower if you have to) if there is load shedding. I don't have grid and my inverter is not in the house and muted anyway so I like to get a warning by everything switching off to let me know the batteries are getting low or there is an issue.

Thank you very much @Psy @jumper @Kalahari Meerkat I have adjusted all those settings and 15 minutes into load shedding it's jumped down a bar. I am not to worried about it but just hopping when I have a lithium battery installed it won't damage it. It worked perfectly with the Synapse unit so can't imagine the battries are bad after 4 months of low watt use. 

4 hours ago, Psy said:

What the Mecer can do that the Synapse cannot is draw more current. There are deepcycles that run fine on lower amp loads but deplete in no time if the discharging current it too high, the unit should tell you how many amps are being drawn on the AC side. It may be worth comparing the current drawn from the Synapse and Mecer to see if that could be a factor?

Look, to be honest I have seen people drive batteries into the ground a week after purchasing... there are ways that it could be the battery but do the test and check the currents. No point speculating and guessing, check the current draw and compare...

6 minutes ago, Psy said:

Look, to be honest I have seen people drive batteries into the ground a week after purchasing... there are ways that it could be the battery but do the test and check the currents. No point speculating and guessing, check the current draw and compare...

Thank you and what is the best way to do that? 

13 hours ago, danieltherubin said:

I have adjusted all those settings and 15 minutes into load shedding it's jumped down a bar.

I really wouldn't worry about that too much. My inverter drops a bar as soon as I go to float. The display will have changed because you have increased the cutoff voltage, so the range for the calculation of the display of the 4 bars has gotten smaller (volts wise) and no bars is not actually empty yet if you get what I mean. What will be happening is your battery is charging up to 57V which the display uses as 100%, but as soon as it goes to float at 54V it thinks it has lost 3 volts already and the batteries will probably settle to 52V without load or charge so it thinks it has lost 5V already, but the battery is still fully charged. I think because the cutoff on the old 24V inverter was set too low you got used to the bars not dropping so quickly. I hope that makes sense.

15 hours ago, danieltherubin said:

Thank you and what is the best way to do that? 

Oh snap, I am so sorry I forgot the VM doesn't show battery current on the face. If you have a tong tester or multimeter you can try checking it that way...

Although, @jumper has got a point. These do use voltage monitoring to determine battery level and I have been told there is like 20% discrepancy. Look if you are getting good runtime from the batteries then it's no big deal and it can be chalked up to the voltmeter. If the the Synapse lasted substantially longer than the Mecer, then you may need to take a closer look at the system...

17 hours ago, danieltherubin said:

It worked perfectly with the Synapse unit so can't imagine the battries are bad after 4 months of low watt use.

Just another point on these inverters... the default settings kill lead acid batteries. The main one being the cutoff voltage. On the 24V model the cutoff is set to 21V by default and technically that is way too low, you shouldn't go below 12V on a 12V battery as that is already considered a deep cycle (deep cycle batteries should not be deep cycled often, go figure), so the cutoff should actually be 24V at the lowest, it should be higher if you want LA batteries to last. If your previous inverter was running on default settings it would all work fine, but you may have been running the batteries too low without noticing if you were working from the display graph. I did the same thing on my 3kW 24V Axpert.

Your batteries are quite new so I don't think they would be damaged unless you ran the inverter until cutoff often during that time.

20 hours ago, jumper said:

Just another point on these inverters... the default settings kill lead acid batteries. The main one being the cutoff voltage. On the 24V model the cutoff is set to 21V by default and technically that is way too low, you shouldn't go below 12V on a 12V battery as that is already considered a deep cycle (deep cycle batteries should not be deep cycled often, go figure), so the cutoff should actually be 24V at the lowest, it should be higher if you want LA batteries to last. If your previous inverter was running on default settings it would all work fine, but you may have been running the batteries too low without noticing if you were working from the display graph. I did the same thing on my 3kW 24V Axpert.

Your batteries are quite new so I don't think they would be damaged unless you ran the inverter until cutoff often during that time.

Thanks very much @jumper & @Psy we have figured out what it is. The battries are perfectly fine. If I set the cut off to a safe 46 47 the unit sits on two bars as load shedding hits. If I adjust the cut off way lower the unit stays on all four bars. I am assuming it does this so that when the unit goes through those two bars it turns off as it hits the bottom. The Synapse unit was set to the default 21 and I am assuming like you have said that is very low? I have also just order a dyness 5kw battery now so quite excited about that. I am also glad there is no issue with the new inverter. 

1 hour ago, danieltherubin said:

If I set the cut off to a safe 46 47 the unit sits on two bars as load shedding hits. If I adjust the cut off way lower the unit stays on all four bars. I am assuming it does this so that when the unit goes through those two bars it turns off as it hits the bottom.

Yep, it is now showing you more accurately how much of the battery you should be using if you want it to last. With LA you should only be using 20Ah out of a 100Ah battery whereas with the dyness you will be able to use 80Ah. So one dyness is technically the same storage as 16x12V 100A lead acids... now you see why the price of lithium really makes sense and why so many are running their 'cheaper' lead acids into the ground so quickly. The default settings are for maximum inverter runtime, not maximum battery life.

Enjoy the new inverter, it should be running cooler and quieter as the 48V uses half the current of the 24V inverter for the same load.

On 2022/12/23 at 8:56 AM, jumper said:

Yep, it is now showing you more accurately how much of the battery you should be using if you want it to last. With LA you should only be using 20Ah out of a 100Ah battery whereas with the dyness you will be able to use 80Ah. So one dyness is technically the same storage as 16x12V 100A lead acids... now you see why the price of lithium really makes sense and why so many are running their 'cheaper' lead acids into the ground so quickly. The default settings are for maximum inverter runtime, not maximum battery life.

Enjoy the new inverter, it should be running cooler and quieter as the 48V uses half the current of the 24V inverter for the same load.

Hi @jumper & @Psy

 

I Just had a 5.1kw Dyness battery connected up are you able to help me with the settings? 

 

Does the Coms cable go in the IN or OUT section of the battery? 

 

For the moment I have set the settings according to the manual: 

 

bulk charge to 56.5 

float charging to 55.5

Pin To 2 for Axpert inverter 

 

What should the DC cut off be? 

 

The above and float is what the user manual said it should be. Does this all sound correct? How do you know if the coms cable is going what it's meant to be doing?

 

Thanks again Daniel 

3 minutes ago, danieltherubin said:

Hi @jumper & @Psy

 

I Just had a 5.1kw Dyness battery connected up are you able to help me with the settings? 

 

Does the Coms cable go in the IN or OUT section of the battery? 

 

For the moment I have set the settings according to the manual: 

 

bulk charge to 56.5 

float charging to 55.5

Pin To 2 for Axpert inverter 

 

What should the DC cut off be? 

 

The above and float is what the user manual said it should be. Does this all sound correct? How do you know if the coms cable is going what it's meant to be doing?

 

Thanks again Daniel 

 

27 minutes ago, danieltherubin said:

What should the DC cut off be? 

You can set the cutoff to 48V. Use your back to grid setting a bit higher to keep some battery for load shedding.

I'm not very clued up on the dyness, but this video should help if you have a bms port and the necessary menu items. If not then just stick with the user settings.

 

28 minutes ago, danieltherubin said:

How do you know if the coms cable is going what it's meant to be doing?

If you have set the inverter to Lib (or Lic, I forget which one) and you don't get an error then you know it's working. I think there is also a flashing battery icon.

Hey @danieltherubin, glad to hear you're making progress!

Well it looks like CAN IN is the port you want to use, just make sure you set DIP #2 to the on position (I'm sure you already have but adding for posterity.)

Your voltages seem to line up perfectly with the specs provided and, as @jumpermentioned, 48V cut-off should be fine... You may be able to go a little lower but it's not worth the risk of damage to the battery. However, this is an MKS unit, so it doesn't really have Lib or Lic comms settings. In this case, if I am right, your battery type options will be AGM, Flooded and user defined. User defined is the right one, you will know the comms is working when the battery levels on the unit match the on-battery indicators 1-to-1. Without working comms, the battery level readings tend to drift and you will see the battery says it's not full yet but the inverter says its full. 

39 minutes ago, Psy said:

Hey @danieltherubin, glad to hear you're making progress!

Well it looks like CAN IN is the port you want to use, just make sure you set DIP #2 to the on position (I'm sure you already have but adding for posterity.)

Your voltages seem to line up perfectly with the specs provided and, as @jumpermentioned, 48V cut-off should be fine... You may be able to go a little lower but it's not worth the risk of damage to the battery. However, this is an MKS unit, so it doesn't really have Lib or Lic comms settings. In this case, if I am right, your battery type options will be AGM, Flooded and user defined. User defined is the right one, you will know the comms is working when the battery levels on the unit match the on-battery indicators 1-to-1. Without working comms, the battery level readings tend to drift and you will see the battery says it's not full yet but the inverter says its full. 

Thank you @jumper @Psy  so by the looks of things I need to get a BMS box like In the video? I have just plugged the COMS cable straight to the inverter and battery. 

In the video it says the lines around the battery should be flashing but mine aren't if the network cable is working and the 5th light on the battery is still flashing charging but the inverter only has 4 but isn't flashing anymore so they don't seem sinked up or is that not possible becouse the battery has 5 and inverter has 4?

 

Is it necessary to have the communication cable if the settings are set correctly. 

I set it to user: 

Bulk charge to 56.5 

Float charging to 55.5

DC Cut off 48.0

 

Let me know if those are correct I took them straight out the manual. 

Just want to make sure I don't damage the battery. 

 

Thanks again really appreciate it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

37 minutes ago, danieltherubin said:

Thank you @jumper @Psy  so by the looks of things I need to get a BMS box like In the video? I have just plugged the COMS cable straight to the inverter and battery. 

In the video it says the lines around the battery should be flashing but mine aren't if the network cable is working and the 5th light on the battery is still flashing charging but the inverter only has 4 but isn't flashing anymore so they don't seem sinked up or is that not possible becouse the battery has 5 and inverter has 4?

 

Is it necessary to have the communication cable if the settings are set correctly. 

I set it to user: 

Bulk charge to 56.5 

Float charging to 55.5

DC Cut off 48.0

 

Let me know if those are correct I took them straight out the manual. 

Just want to make sure I don't damage the battery. 

 

Thanks again really appreciate it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hi there Daniel

I have an Mecer Axpert inverter (not the same model as yours) and the same Dyness battery.  I have BMS comms to the inverter and the settings as set by the BMS comms is as follows:

To grid and back to battery has been set by me.

If you want to save yourself a lot of headaches and get some really cool stats and other stuff from your system have a look at SolarAssistant.  Paired with Home Assistant you can create plenty automation and dashboards like this:

Bob is my Robotic vacuum 🙂

Let me know if you want some more info.

 

On 2023/01/11 at 4:42 PM, danieltherubin said:

Thank you @jumper @Psy  so by the looks of things I need to get a BMS box like In the video? I have just plugged the COMS cable straight to the inverter and battery. 

Apologies, that was the wrong video, I don't think that box is still available. I'm not sure of exctly which models have which settings. If you have a bms port on the inverter and the Lib and Lic settings then you should be able to connect directly otherwise just use the USE setting and set the values yourself. The values @Douw G. Gerberhas given look perfect, you don't need to go as high as 56.5V for bulk.

On 2023/01/11 at 4:42 PM, danieltherubin said:

Is it necessary to have the communication cable if the settings are set correctly. 

It is not necessary for the battery to work properly, I don't have comms to my battery, but some say it affects the warranty. My battery has been working perfectly for 6 months now with USE settings.

I just realised that I've never seen an axpert with a bms port on the side like that, does the manual say it is for bms? What are the pinouts in the manual? Where did you get the cable you are using?