1 hour ago, Nexuss said:

Something worth noting is a friend of mine had some issues with one of his 3000C modules throwing high voltage errors and disconnecting in the first week after commisioning (turned out to be a BMS issue reporting incorrect cell voltage of 4,1V) . The battery was sent in for warranty replacement only to be sent back saying there is nothing wrong with it.

I've had that on a battery 3000C. I knew it was an issue and e mailed Pylontech with a copy of the error log asking for advice and about the updated firmware. Sent it twice but never got a reply back. I am on 2.7 firmware and 2.8 is supposed to fix it.

1 hour ago, Nexuss said:

Might be worth updating your firmware to the latest versions as that will wipe all the event and cycle data and then you can start from a clean slate. I have been updating my firmware regularly so all that info is lost every time so they wont be able to use it against you/me in the future anyway. 

I have 8 US3000Bs that I have upgraded twice, and all the historical data have survived the firmware upgrades.

Edited June 8, 20233 yr by Calvin

1 minute ago, Calvin said:

I have 8 US3000B that I have upgraded twice, and all the historical data have survived the firmware upgrades.

Interesting , mine definitely got reset,cycles, SOH ,events everything. Did you select 'clear eeprom'?

1 hour ago, OzzyMozzy said:

I'm so new to this forum I'm not even sure how to tag you correctly!

You type an @ then immediately start typing the user name that you want to tag.

It looks just like this
@OzzyMozzy

27 minutes ago, Nexuss said:

Did you select 'clear eeprom'?

If you clear the eeprom it might raise suspicion when you do try and claim under warranty. The number of times the eeprom has been erased is logged, so they can see that it has been done. If you go into the console and use the soh command (I think - memory is a bit fuzzy) it displays a whole bunch of statistics, amongst others the number of times the eeprom was erased.

@OzzyMozzy Just my 2c if I look at this it tells me the BMS parameters are either not set properly or at a higher voltage. Just remember the BMS has a cell protection voltage and an overall pack voltage which ever comes first the BMS must provide that protection and shut down.

2 minutes ago, Raj35 said:

the BMS must provide that protection and shut down.

The virtual world of make belief.
Many things are claimed that are supposed to happen, i.e. the BMS protection. They obviously don't, and when that safeguard fails you, you are the responsible party. Welcome to the "guarantees" who's only real guarantee is that your claim will be at their discretion

 

Hi @OzzyMozzy

I am the same - did not know how to tag you😀. Thanks @Bobster. for showing how to tag.

@OzzyMozzy OK, thanks for the information. I was hoping you managed to get it out of the system yourself. (I suspect Segen uses their(?) Batteryview software to get this data. I was looking at the software and the special cables required to link this to your computer. I still need to make one of these cables up.)

Just my advice when purchasing  batteries look at the type of cells they are made from for whatever reason the battery fails most times its cell replacement and your warranty is not honored can it be repaired and can you get a cell that can match. There are plenty of bms available out there my personal favorite is thee JBD. I'm sure I the coming years lifepo4 cell will be more easily to get.

7 hours ago, Nexuss said:

Interesting , mine definitely got reset,cycles, SOH ,events everything. Did you select 'clear eeprom'?

No I did not - I was not aware that it can be done and anyway I have nothing to hide - my batteries have had a very uneventful life.

Anyway, as @PierreJ said I would have thought that that would be a sure-fire way to get Pylontech to refuse a warranty claim....

Have you got the data for last year as well?

To me it looks as if the inverter setting is wrong.

I can't see how just those 2 packs would go overvoltage it's not possible without the other 2 also going overvolt as well.

Looking at your data it's not as if it's just short spikes eg when a load is suddenly removed. It is consistently high.

Was their a power outage while you were away and the inverter has lost its settings? Have you got communication (CAN or RS485) between the batteries and the inverter?

Edited June 8, 20233 yr by Tinbum

27 minutes ago, Tinbum said:

I can't see how just those 2 packs would go overvoltage it's not possible without the other 2 also going overvolt as well.

Good point. It's possible that the BMS in one battery could go crazy and report a pack voltage that is higher than it actually is, but for two to do it at the same time seems unlikely. My money is on the charge voltages according to the logs being accurate, and Pylontech's contention that the inverter charge voltage was set too high therefore correct.

Whether that gives them the right to refuse the warranty claim when the BMS is supposed to protect the battery is a different debate. They do cite in their warranty document that the warranty is void in case of "failure to install, operate or maintain the product in accordance with the Product Instructions". The last two words are capitalized, so one would assume it refers to a specific section in the battery manual, but no such section exists.

It's clear that the batteries were already toast by the first entry of the event log, given that one of the cells were at 3.75V. It's odd that there are no prior entries, unless the event log files are not complete.

3 hours ago, PierreJ said:

Good point. It's possible that the BMS in one battery could go crazy and report a pack voltage that is higher than it actually is, but for two to do it at the same time seems unlikely. My money is on the charge voltages according to the logs being accurate, and Pylontech's contention that the inverter charge voltage was set too high therefore correct.

Whether that gives them the right to refuse the warranty claim when the BMS is supposed to protect the battery is a different debate. They do cite in their warranty document that the warranty is void in case of "failure to install, operate or maintain the product in accordance with the Product Instructions". The last two words are capitalized, so one would assume it refers to a specific section in the battery manual, but no such section exists.

It's clear that the batteries were already toast by the first entry of the event log, given that one of the cells were at 3.75V. It's odd that there are no prior entries, unless the event log files are not complete.

The Event log files do not seem to record all the details. IE to me the most important event that should be recorded was a date of first use, startups and shutdowns. but they only record "warning and alarm level events". There is a history file that also can be downloaded from the batteries but they only show the last 30 days of activity at 30 minute intervals. This log does show power ups but not any power downs in that time.

Hi All,

I had exactly the same issue as above. I bought 3 Pylontech US2000's and had them connected to a Voltronic (Axpert). During this time which was almost 5 years ago the battery went over voltage once or twice according to battery logs (Axpert is not great at controlling battery voltage as there is no feedback from the battery to the inverter on battery voltage (no CAN comms)).I moved over to a Goodwe inverter which controls the voltage to the batteries much better. I added another US2000 a year later and then a US3000 another couple of years later. In November last year i saw an error on the BMS and inspected the batteries. Noticed that one of the US2000's from the orginal 3 was swollen. Removed it from the rack and because of holidays it only went in to Segen January this year.

Feedback from Segen was almost the same as the people above. Over voltage in the first 3 months of the life of the battery, never again after that. No other alarms until the failure in November. Segen also did not want to honour the Warranty. I also argued that the Pylontech documents says that it will protect it self against over voltage, and should disconnect or switch of the battery. If that is not the case and the BMS keeps the battery alive, they should honour the warranty as that is normal operation of the battery. If 54V is so critical then the battery must disconnect itself and wait for manual reset.

All i can say from this is if you have an Axpert or Voltronic type inverter witbout the can comms to the battery and you have Pylontechs, then you probably have experienced over voltage and probably have no warranty.

Very frustrating as the main reason I purchased the batteries was for the 10 year warranty.

Just wanted to let you all know that i have reported Pylontech to the ACCC over this matter. Though they won't help my situation, i do think if anyone who has had the same warranty denied by pylontech reports it to the ACCC, then maybe someone else might actually get the warranty they paid for from Pylontech. The more people who do report them the better the odds of the ACCC taking action.

Here is my reasoning.

1) If the battery BMS is passive only which Pylontech have informed me, then the battery protection is only for a very short time (as my logs show a 4 second window between entries in some cases) and not a true disconnect as i would expect, then a lot of the errors they claim void the warranty would not have occurred at all. All the extra over voltage entries occurring due to this, would lessen my entries 30 fold if i didn't make changes to the inverter and just restarted the batteries no knowing what had happened.

2)If the battery does not disconnect how is a end user to know when a over voltage event has ever happened? Is the user required to sit in front of the unit staring at the little red error LED waiting for it to go on for the 3 seconds that the error is happening over before the BMS resets and things return to normal status?

3) Pylontech does not make the Batteryview software publicly available for people to check the errors on the batteries to find any faults to correct.

4) having a passive BMS that does not disconnect the battery is misleading and unsafe. I and I'm sure plenty of others purchased these batteries because they thought the BMS would protect the battery against most of the potential problems that do damage to the cells.

5) Saying you have to have an approved inverter when they don't publish what inverters they do support up front. And if they did and they change what brands they support would your support inverter at time of purchase be claimed as a unsupported inverter years later when you try to make a claim?

Good luck @OzzyMozzy

I find this thread very interesting, especially seeing as the  Pylotech's have 15cells which results in them having lower voltage settings than most other 48V batteries.

I was involved in a Facebook discussion a few days ago where there was a user who said that the Sunsynk inverters defaulted to a 57V float charge which is above most batteries specifications and could result in battery damage due to charging at too high a voltage. I have always been under the impression that the inverters charge and float voltages are set by the battery BMS when there are comms between the inverter and battery pack.

Does anyone know if this is actually how it works or does the battery BMS just check it is within specifications and then either accept or reject it? 

 

 

 

 

39 minutes ago, Sc00bs said:

I was involved in a Facebook discussion a few days ago where there was a user who said that the Sunsynk inverters defaulted to a 57V float charge which is above most batteries specifications and could result in battery damage due to charging at too high a voltage. I have always been under the impression that the inverters charge and float voltages are set by the battery BMS when there are comms between the inverter and battery pack.

One undocumented feature of the Sunsynk is (was?) that if BMS comms failed, it silently reverted to the Bat-V settings.

So it is always a good idea to first put the battery settings in 'Voltage' mode, set some very conservative default values, and then switch the battery settings to Lithium mode.

I said (was?) as I think a recent firmware change may have changed this behaviour to shut down the battery instead when BMS comms fail.

40 minutes ago, JustinSchoeman said:

One undocumented feature of the Sunsynk is (was?) that if BMS comms failed, it silently reverted to the Bat-V settings.

So it is always a good idea to first put the battery settings in 'Voltage' mode, set some very conservative default values, and then switch the battery settings to Lithium mode.

I said (was?) as I think a recent firmware change may have changed this behaviour to shut down the battery instead when BMS comms fail.

Thanks. Could you perhaps clarify what Sc00bs asked that the BMS controls the charge. 

Are some BMSes not just asking for charge without knowing what voltage it would receive from the inverter? 

3 minutes ago, Scorp007 said:

Are some BMSes not just asking for charge without knowing what voltage it would receive from the inverter? 

BMSs provide all charge parameters (maximum charge voltage, maximum charge current, minimum discharge voltage, maximum discharge current).  The Sunsynk does a pretty decent job of sticking to these limits.

Thank you @JustinSchoeman 

That is very interesting to know 

On 2023/06/08 at 10:22 PM, Tinbum said:

Have you got the data for last year as well?

To me it looks as if the inverter setting is wrong.

I can't see how just those 2 packs would go overvoltage it's not possible without the other 2 also going overvolt as well.

Looking at your data it's not as if it's just short spikes eg when a load is suddenly removed. It is consistently high.

Was their a power outage while you were away and the inverter has lost its settings? Have you got communication (CAN or RS485) between the batteries and the inverter?

Hi @Tinbum

The invertor bulk charge setting is 53.2 V. Pylontech allows for a 0.8V margin so it should have stayed under 54V.

All batteries are connected to the invertor via the CAN cables.

Would you know how to pull the data from my remaining batteries? As you say it would be interesting to see if there were spikes on my remaining batteries and to see if they correspond to my failed 2.

I am a proper newbie to all of this, not because I have no interest but because it was supposed to be a plug and monitor situation...

If you have a link to the appropriate software and a "how to" guide I would be very happy to share the results.

2 hours ago, OzzyMozzy said:

Hi @Tinbum

The invertor bulk charge setting is 53.2 V. Pylontech allows for a 0.8V margin so it should have stayed under 54V.

All batteries are connected to the invertor via the CAN cables.

Would you know how to pull the data from my remaining batteries? As you say it would be interesting to see if there were spikes on my remaining batteries and to see if they correspond to my failed 2.

I am a proper newbie to all of this, not because I have no interest but because it was supposed to be a plug and monitor situation...

If you have a link to the appropriate software and a "how to" guide I would be very happy to share the results.

These 2 links will point you in the right direction.

 

 

 

Pylontech Low Voltage Battery Mornitoring and Maintenance Tool Guidance 0228_3.pdf

Edited June 13, 20233 yr by Tinbum

On 2023/06/08 at 3:40 PM, Raj35 said:

Just my advice when purchasing  batteries look at the type of cells they are made from for whatever reason the battery fails most times its cell replacement and your warranty is not honored can it be repaired and can you get a cell that can match. There are plenty of bms available out there my personal favorite is thee JBD. I'm sure I the coming years lifepo4 cell will be more easily to get.

Hi @Raj35

I have been working in the film and television industry for longer than I care to admit and I can tell you quality Lithium batteries are worth every penny. Right now I'm sitting with 7 camera batteries, 4 X genuine Sony batteries and 3 X generic. All 3 generic are swollen in just 3 years. 

Perhaps we as consumers need to take a much closer look at the quality of the lithium that goes into the battery as well as the ins and outs of the warranty provided.

16 hours ago, Scorp007 said:

Are some BMSes not just asking for charge without knowing what voltage it would receive from the inverter? 

Here you can see the data transmitted by the Pylontech BMS to the inverter.

PYLON BMS CAN-Bus-protocol-PYLON-low-voltage-V1.2-20180408.pdf

It seems that the warranty claim was forwarded to Pylontech China and refused on that side so I have the email address of the individual and have followed up with him directly.

Is Segen the only importer of Pylontech batteries into South Africa?

It would be interesting to see if there is another importer and if they are more sympathetic to these issues with their batteries?