Henkt Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Hi guys I need some assistance with the axpert settings for the Pylontech batteries. I have 2 x 5KVA inverters and 2 x Pylontech batteries. Batteries are a single feed to both inverters The challenge that I am facing is that both inverters show the battery voltage as 28% (50.5V - program 27??) I have the settings as follows: Program 2 = 50A Program 5 = USE Program 12 = 48V Program 13 = 51V Program 26 = 53.2V Program 27 = 50.5V Program 29 = 47.5V Any assistance will be much appreciated. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hobson Posted March 5, 2018 Share Posted March 5, 2018 Program 2 should be 20A as you have 2 batteries and therefore limited to 50A charging. However you cannot set the Axpert to 25A. So go with 20A to get a overall charging rate of 40A. (20A x 2 Axpert = 40A) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henkt Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Hi Chris - thanks for that. Made the change of setting 2 to 20A The batteries still does not reach 100% (between 28 - 30%) and as such the inverters never switch to solar/battery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coulomb Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 On 06/03/2018 at 6:29 AM, Chris Hobson said: However you cannot set the Axpert to 25A. So go with 20A to get a overall charging rate of 40A. I believe that the current settings are separate. So setting one to 20 A isn't enough, you have to set them both. So you can set one to 30 A (if one has more panels, make it that one), and set the other one to 20 A. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henkt Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Thanks for the feedback Coulomb. I'm not sure if that will allow the batteries to go beyond 30%? Program 29 is set to 50.5V (can be set as high as 58.4V as per manual). So the Inverters stop charging when the voltage is 50.5V and doesn't switch back to battery as 13 is set to 51V. I think I'm missing something somewhere. Apologies for all the questions and I really do appreciate all the assistance so far. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hobson Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 4 hours ago, Henkt said: The batteries still does not reach 100% (between 28 - 30%) and as such the inverters never switch to solar/battery. Is this according the Axpert's SOC or the LED SOC on the battery? You can ignore the Axpert SOC it is not accurate and is thrown even more awry by changing Program 29 from the default 42V. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henkt Posted March 7, 2018 Author Share Posted March 7, 2018 Hi Chris I have a voltmeter on the battery feed which shows the same V as Watchpower and ICC. Apologies - that should program 27 - floating charge voltage Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hobson Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 You going to need a sensitive voltmeter. LiFePO4 has a charging plateau. It is roughly 30% SOC at 3.2V/cell and over 90% (depends on manufacturer) at 3.3V. So battery starts charging at 48V and is nearly full at 50V Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hobson Posted March 7, 2018 Share Posted March 7, 2018 2 hours ago, Henkt said: So the Inverters stop charging when the voltage is 50.5V and doesn't switch back to battery as 13 is set to 51V. Is this with Coulomb's firmware? If so your voltage needs to drop by 1.2V below float voltage i.e.(50.5 -1.2 = 49.3V) before it will go out of float. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted March 8, 2018 Share Posted March 8, 2018 17 hours ago, Chris Hobson said: So battery starts charging at 48V and is nearly full at 50V That is part of what makes it so efficient of course. The biggest loss in other batteries is due to something called voltage efficiency. To take a typical example, suppose I take a full 100Ah battery, and I discharge it at an average of 12V (so it starts at say 12.9V and drops to 10.5V towards the end), then I got 12 * 100Ah = 1200Wh out of it. To recharge it, I now have to put in 100Ah at an average of 14V (starting at 10.5V and hitting say 14.8V towards the end of the absorption phase). So I put back 14 * 100 = 1400Wh. 1200/1400 ~= 85%. Do the same for NiFe aka edison batteries and the numbers are even worse. Then do it for lithium with that narrow voltage range and you immediately see why it is so efficient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henkt Posted March 16, 2018 Author Share Posted March 16, 2018 Thanks for the replies gents - makes more sense to me now. How do I convince the the inverters to see it like that so that at 50.5 they should report battery state as 100% (or close to that) and not 28%? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Hobson Posted March 16, 2018 Share Posted March 16, 2018 4 hours ago, Henkt said: How do I convince the the inverters to see it like that so that at 50.5 they should report battery state as 100% (or close to that) and not 28%? Don't think that is possible. A BMV can give you a more accurate picture. With Lithium cells I don't think one can warrant the expense. Easiest way of getting an accurate SOC reading is to look at the battery LEDs Each LED represent 16% SOC So 3 LEDs roughly 48% SOC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
___ Posted March 17, 2018 Share Posted March 17, 2018 My advice is to ignore the SoC reported by the inverter. It's wrong even for lead acids :-) Chris Hobson 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 Hi all I have just installed two x US 3000 Pylons to my Axpert 4KA Sol1 and cannot seem to get them to run smoothly I get full charge and can run most items except for the dishwasher which draws 12.5 amps on heating cycle which is well within limits. System runs for a couple of minutes changes back to utility for another 2 minutes or so then comes up error 08 and goes into fault mode. error 08 is either "component failure" or "bus voltage too high" depending on which part of the instuction booklet you look at. I have set up the parameters as specified by Pylon. I have set current to 50A but I see that Chris Hobson suggests 20A ?? I have never had this problem in the past with lead acid batts Any suggestions and help would be appreciated Brian Lubbe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coulomb Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 1 hour ago, Brian said: I have just installed two x US 3000 Pylons to my Axpert 4KA Sol1 and cannot seem to get them to run smoothly I assume that's a typo, and it's supposed to be a 4kW Axpert, probably a Mecer "SOL-I-AX-5M". 1 hour ago, Brian said: I have never had this problem in the past with lead acid batts So you are saying that this same inverter, several years old, has worked fine with lead acid batteries, and is now connected to two US 3000 PylonTechs, failing with fault code 08? 1 hour ago, Brian said: I have set current to 50A but I see that Chris Hobson suggests 20A ?? I believe it's 25 A per module for the US 2000Bs, but the Axperts can only set the current limit in tens of amps, so it's usually 20 A. But the US 3000s are larger. I see a figure of 37 A recommended charge/discharge current, so for two it should be double that, or 74 A. So 50 A charge current should not be a problem, and you should be able to increase that to 70 A (assuming one inverter). Riaanh 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 Correct unit operated fine with lead acid. If we pushed the limits with say dishwasher and pool pump runniing unit would kick over to utility until my wife remembered to switch off the pool pump ( another story). The system would change back to solar without any problems. Now when it kicks over to utility the solar charges the battery for a few minutes, then disconnects from charging the battery. After another couple of minutes( Utility is still on bypass and running the dishwasher) Fault 08 comes up and shuts down the inverter. Can reset immediately by switching battery off and on again. System runs just fine aas long as we stay under 50% load or so My software version is 72.4. I believe updating might also be an option?? I found this on the Aussie forum which may be of interest. As mk12 says, error 08 is bus voltage too high. This is the internal ~400 VDC bus that drives the inverter IGBTs. The electrolytic capacitors on this bus are rated at 500 VDC. They can take a voltage overload for some minutes, but it will not be good for them to do this long term. The firmware measures the bus voltage continuously. You get error 08 if the bus voltage exceeds 500 VDC without exception for 10 seconds, and in addition, if the bus voltage is at least 10 VDC higher than the measurement at 1 second of over-voltage. The instant the bus voltage falls to 500.0 V or below the counter is reset to zero and the whole thing starts again. So it's pretty tolerant. The bus voltage is generally close to 8.0 times the battery voltage, because the high frequency transformer has an 8:1 turns ratio. So a very high battery voltage could possibly cause this. [ Edit: or possibly a poor (high resistance) battery connection, perhaps a bad crimp etc. ] However, I think it's more likely to happen during utility (mains, AC input) charging. At this time, they do something I don't yet understand to the inverter, such that it pulls power from the AC input to the DC bus. I think it's a bit like regeneration in an AC electric vehicle, except that there is a "DC transformer" with an 8:1 turns ratio between the inverter "input" (now really an output) and the battery. There is a buck stage to buck this bus voltage to whatever is needed to push power back into the battery at the desired current. I think that sometimes they get the dynamics wrong and the inverter (running in reverse, so now a battery charger) puts too much charge into the bus capacitors, and you get the occasional error 08. Perhaps this can happen if the utility or generator voltage increases suddenly, perhaps due to a big load coming off (it might not be your house, but someone down the street or the next farm or whatever). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coulomb Posted February 15, 2019 Share Posted February 15, 2019 33 minutes ago, Brian said: My software version is 72.4. I believe updating might also be an option?? Yes. Updating to 73.00e may help, as it has KettleKomp™. This does load compensation on critical battery measurements, so that it hopefully switches to line (bypass) mode less often. Maybe you could discourage Utility charging by setting the maximum AC charge current to say 2 A. On the rare occasion that you need to charge from utility after several rainy days, change the setting manually, and put it back to 2 A afterwards. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Earnshaw Posted January 14, 2020 Share Posted January 14, 2020 Morning all, Greetings and I trust you are all well. Does anyone have optimal settings for Axpert MKS II 5K with 4 x Pylon US3000 3.5kWh Li-Ion Solar Batteries. The solution is totally off-grid with no ESKOM present. The solution is powered by 6 x Canadian Solar 360 Watt panels. The estate restricts the amount of panels otherwise I would have added more. Is the below 100% complete or are there other settings changes required? I have the settings as follows: Program 2 = 60A Program 5 = USE Program 12 = 48V Program 13 = 51V Program 26 = 53.2V Program 27 = 50.5V Program 29 = 47.5V Any assistance will be much appreciated. Thanks Regards, Geoff Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Louw Posted January 14, 2020 Share Posted January 14, 2020 2 hours ago, Geoff Earnshaw said: Morning all, Greetings and I trust you are all well. Does anyone have optimal settings for Axpert MKS II 5K with 4 x Pylon US3000 3.5kWh Li-Ion Solar Batteries. The solution is totally off-grid with no ESKOM present. The solution is powered by 6 x Canadian Solar 360 Watt panels. The estate restricts the amount of panels otherwise I would have added more. Is the below 100% complete or are there other settings changes required? I have the settings as follows: Program 2 = 60A Program 5 = USE Program 12 = 48V Program 13 = 51V Program 26 = 53.2V Program 27 = 50.5V Program 29 = 47.5V Any assistance will be much appreciated. Thanks Regards, Geoff Hi I run a 5kw Axpert with 3 x 3000 Pylon offgrid with 18 x 250 watt solarpanels . The settings is 1. Sol 2. Should be 37 A per battery . I suggest to set to Max wat your 6 panels can deliver 5. User 12. 46 volt 13. 50 Volt 16. SNU (to allow charging from generator ) 26. 52.5 Volt 27. 52.0 Volt 29. 46 Volt Running for 5 months no problems . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coulomb Posted January 14, 2020 Share Posted January 14, 2020 6 hours ago, Geoff Earnshaw said: Program 12 = 48V ... Program 29 = 47.5V You should always have a 2.0 V gap between programs 29 and 12, otherwise, the effective back to grid setting is setting 29 plus 2.0 V. See FAQ question 2. So 46.0 V, as @Chris Louw suggests. He suggests setting 01 at SOL; this is appropriate if you are in a bad load shedding situation, and want to keep the battery as full as possible at all times. For example, this will switch the loads over to utility at sundown, if the utility is present of course. Otherwise, if you want to minimise grid usage, I'd suggest SbU. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoff Earnshaw Posted January 19, 2020 Share Posted January 19, 2020 Thank you gents. Really appreciated the assistance. I will try these today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonno solar Posted October 20, 2020 Share Posted October 20, 2020 Hi guys I found this solution... https://centurionsolar.co.za/about/shop/ It uses ICC software on a raspberry Pi to control the axpert or any voltronic inverters. It reads the true SOC from the pylontec. You set your limits on the ICC software and it will tell the inverter when to swing back to grid say when you have reached 80%DOD on your pylontec bank. It uses the console port of the pylontec to relay info to the Pi via USB. Then the Pi makes decisions based on its setting and relays it back to the inverters via the USB cable provided by voltronic. Check out the ICC software https://iccsoftware.co.za/about/shop/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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