Hi All,

I have been following this thread, very helpful I must say and it gives me some relief that I am not the only one having this issue.

I have had mine for literally a month, and it started droping on the first 2 weeks. Last week it got to 0%, and literally just shot back to 98% overnight.

Has anyone here owned the unit for over a 6 months?

I am relectant to return the unit as that means I now have to face loadshedding for God knows how long, anyone know of any better alternative options?  I am looking at the Eco Flow units, does anyone have first hand experience with them? I hear they overheat😥

It is normal for lithium-ion batteries to have some degree of capacity loss over time and with use. However, it is unusual for a new battery to exhibit such a rapid decrease in capacity.

I got a Mecer 1kw trolley in December last year.  In the last week or so, it has been dropping 1% per day, and today it was 2%.  I wonder how low it's going to go.

I got mine back today. Dirty and has scuff marks now it previously did not have, the warranty void sticker has been cut and not been replaced. Haven't used it yet. Will revert once I have tested it a little.

Well I have the fortunate situation where I have 2 Kool Energy 1kw units and 1 Mecer 1kw unit. These are exactly the same thing from what I can tell. 

I have 1 KE unit that has run a Flatscreen, fishtank, fan and Decoder since we got it charged up about 6 weeks ago. During some 4 hour load shedding sessions this unit would drop to 50+% and then recharge to 100%. This is still the case and it performs perfectly to this day with full 100% recharges. 

The other 2 units ( 1 Mecer and 1 Kool) power a pc, a fan occasionally and some minor other uses but  neccesary because they are geographically seperate from each other. In short, the 2 units that do not carry very much load, are now both permanantly showing 0% charge for the past week or so. They do however both continue to work throughout loadshedding without fail. 

I am just wondering if the battery balancing which some guys have referred to in this thread would be able to account for the differing results? Please comment on this as a potential cause of the display issue? Is it possible that the units need to be loaded a bit more in order to work effeciently? 

I am just too scared that if I swap the units around in fear that my good one goes bad. 

5 hours ago, bravs22 said:

I got mine back today. Dirty and has scuff marks now it previously did not have, the warranty void sticker has been cut and not been replaced. Haven't used it yet. Will revert once I have tested it a little.

Yeah, that’s completely unacceptable!

I have been having issues with the kool energy inverter. The first 1 I got would loose battery  % over time (I didn’t even have it for a month) so I took it back to be replaced. They then gave me another one (which wasn’t in a box) which has another issue where if something is plugged (eg router) into the DC output it will randomly beep 3 times and the router will turn off then on again. I then unplugged the router and put it in the AC output (which doesn’t get affected) but the inverter still randomly beeps 3 times, no matter if the DC switch is on or off. It varies and beeps either every few minutes to every few hours. 

I don’t know what to do

Wondering if someone could offer some insight on an issue im experiencing.

Around 2 weeks ago I purchased a Kool Energy 1kw 50ah lithuim trolley inverter. I only need it for my PC and it keeps me going for 2hours. Its been amazing having no downtime with work during loadshedding.

Everything seemed to be going fine , but lately Ive noticed it isn't charging up to 100%?

Infact it seems to be "losing" max charge every 2-3 hours... for instance when I woke up this morning it was at 71% and now its at 70%.

Looking back, I never really took notice of it but over the past couple days I dont remember seeing it at 100%... although it definitely did recharge before.

Its still works... It kicks in when the power goes off and recharges normally when the the power comes back on... but it doesnt reach full capacity.

Not sure whats going on? Please help... Thank you

 

 

 

 

Same problem here... been noticing the max charge decrease daily (its on 70% now), where it would charge fully the first week I had it.

Kinda rediculous honestly.

On 2023/02/08 at 5:11 PM, Owen Zhang said:

send back to me to do the update and calibrate the SOC display. 

Hello! Please make this procedure publicly available because this is clearly a widespread issue and it will be useful if there is more than one person in the country who knows how to fix it!

Update. I got a replacement unit. DC outputs working again. Also the unit appears to be charging back to 100%, and is not dropping by 1 or 2 % every day. It is still early days. Only been using for a few days. I live in hope

Same problem with Mecer 1kW unit which we got for the in-laws in Port Elizabeth. The unit is sitting at Mustek PE for 3 weeks now...

Also have Mecer 1Kw unit with same issue. Also in PE.

On my fourth day using my unit the the supposed replaced battery. Still working, still charging back to 100%, but it's early days, it took a couple of weeks for my first one to start showing symptoms. We're on those 4 hour stretches of loadshedding now, so it will really be tested over the next couple of days. So far, so good. I've decide to live with the scuff marks and scratches, I can't send it back and be without it any longer.

On 2023/02/16 at 6:28 PM, MarkElp said:

The other 2 units ( 1 Mecer and 1 Kool) power a pc, a fan occasionally and some minor other uses but  neccesary because they are geographically seperate from each other. In short, the 2 units that do not carry very much load, are now both permanantly showing 0% charge for the past week or so. They do however both continue to work throughout loadshedding without fail. 

This is interesting. So even once it gets to 0% they should continue to work? 

All the excuses about "SOC not displaying correctly" would make a bit more sense if it showed it stopped charging at some point. As it is it seems the batteries are constantly on charge. I am still wondering if this doesnt have something to do with the overcharge protection feature or something. It seems Mustek are clueless on this issue. I got mine back after a week of them doing absolutely nothing to test it (This was confirmed by them). At least I am getting some use out of it for now. Very frustrating though.

Edited February 20, 20233 yr by trinomic

I also have a Mecer 1kW trolley.  I have the same issue of the maximum battery charge going down by 1% every day. This morning I decided to discharge the battery completely.  At 7:30am the display said 0%, but it continued to run for another hour and 15 minutes!  I have recharged the battery, and the display now says 100%.

This means that only the reading on the inverter becomes more inaccurate as time goes by.  I don't think that this is a big problem, as from time to time I will just discharge until the battery goes flat.  I'd rather do this than have some technician get hold of it, and maybe he doesn't know what he is doing.

 

Hi All, for the late joiners to the thread please read the full thread as well as a sister thread on MyBB.

Seems to be a issue with SOC display/BMS or SOC calibration. So theoretically nothing wrong with the battery. A full discharge resets display to 100%. 

This seems to be a widespread problem but also quite a few people where no issues have occured. I have had mine (Kool Energy unit) in use for about 3 weeks now and touch wood no issues.

Edited February 20, 20233 yr by nad_isa

On 2023/02/20 at 3:46 PM, nad_isa said:

Hi All, for the late joiners to the thread please read the full thread as well as a sister thread on MyBB.

Seems to be a issue with SOC display/BMS or SOC calibration. So theoretically nothing wrong with the battery. A full discharge resets display to 100%. 

This seems to be a widespread problem but also quite a few people where no issues have occured. I have had mine (Kool Energy unit) in use for about 3 weeks now and touch wood no issues.

Ooh, that seems like a dangerous statement to make. Not everyone's issue is related to BMS. My battery was found to be faulty and replaced. Also a complete discharge will fix this? Surely only on lithium units, any other battery type will be damaged by a full discharge, not so? If you run gel or lead acid you need to know your depth of discharge, otherwise you will severely damage the battery.

Full discharge solved the problem on my SOL-I-BB-M1L.

Let see if we drill down into the weeds. According to the manual it has a 25.6v 50ah Lfp battery 1280wh. It is rated for 1000watts @230v that is around 4.4 amps AC your DC current at full load will be 46.55 DC amps. Is the LFP cells 1C or 0.5C. Did anyone run this unit at full load? Wonder what the charging regime is of these units. Has anyone connected solar panels to the Mppt and if so how does that influence the SOC. For the price tag just shy of 13K i wonder what cells are used in the LFP, second life or grade A.

Edited February 21, 20233 yr by TaliaB
Price correction

23 hours ago, bravs22 said:

Ooh, that seems like a dangerous statement to make. Not everyone's issue is related to BMS. My battery was found to be faulty and replaced. Also a complete discharge will fix this? Surely only on lithium units, any other battery type will be damaged by a full discharge, not so? If you run gel or lead acid you need to know your depth of discharge, otherwise you will severely damage the battery.

Let me clarify - it 'seems' to be an issue with SOC/BMS as the manufacturer hasn't confirmed this (other than a random post on this thread). and the symptoms seem to point to that. 

A complete discharge seems to resolve the battery percentage displaying under 100% - not the root cause. And yes on the lithium units - haven't seen anyone complain on the gel variants.

we wont know until we actually get some proper feedback from OEM, not mustek or kool energy as they haven't a clue...

Who is the OEM?

I have Kool Energy 1.5kw with 100ah LifePo4 battery.

 

Got it in Jan 2023.  Monday it was on 0% battery according to the LCD but lasted for 4hr loadshedding session and my server drawing 150to200w.  No loss of power.  Supplier told me to reset, i.e. switch everything off and restart.  It went back to showing 100% battery, but soon dropped gradually.  Now showing 90%.  It is stuck there and battery image keeps showing it is charging.  My main concern is battery gets damage because system thinks it must continue charging even though it is full.  Will this happen?

Supplier is waiting on some technician to respond.

 

13 hours ago, Skobbejakkals said:

Who is the OEM?

Unsure - likely a Chinese based OEM as there are different branded (mecer, kool energy) units which are all basically the same.

Possibly CNBM? Their South African page is just tough to navigate.

This page says that Kool Energy is one of their authorised brands:

https://www.cnbmoverseas.com/subPhotovoltaicIntegration/list.aspx

Edited February 23, 20233 yr by Skobbejakkals