On the 8 August 2023 @ 11:00 am,  my CFE debacle came to an eventual end -  the saga if anyone has interest or wants to see the history HERE

I would love to be able to say that the many many hours of trouble shooting - help, comments and questions from numerous forum members like @HendrikBigChief for analysing endless graphs and reports - much appriecated your advice and willingness to hear me out and offer solutions to look at, @Zak @I84RiS and others i'm sorry if i forget to mention you, not least being banned/kicked out from a CFE whatsapp group (what a misreable lot) resulted in the problem batteries being sorted out - rather the situation with the CFE batteries got so bad that no load over 2000watt could be run in BMS only mode (which i'm sticking to my guns on is how the batteries are supposed to be run) without getting F56 errors F26 errors the list was endless - CFE where unhelpful eventually flashing the 2 batteries at least two more times and then proclaiming that it was the inverters firmware that was the issue - we (SolarAdvice and I) relented and got DEYE to push an unneeded but never the less non-problematic firmware update to my 8kw inverter for only the exact same things to continue happening. (just a note we did try to run the batteries in AGM but we couldn't get more than 30min reliably in AGM / manual settings without both batteries tripping out even when idle and not under load)

I had to travel for work and its been more that a month but it had already been agreed with SoalrAdvice that we had exhausted all options - they really have been no nonsense about exchanging them - the delay was more from my side to exhaust all options and mostly my patience. But its the batteries and thier bad BMS.

The contenders where Solar MDs 14.3kw(single battery) or two DEYE 6.14kw batteries and given Budget and my existing diesel gensets conversion to automation and final sound proofing of the generating room,  just a few weeks from being completed, the DEYE where deemed the best compromise as the 8.1kw solar array still to be commisioned together with the Genset and automated system in place as well as low household base load means we'd be fine off grid. There is space being made for a posiible 3rd DEYE Battery towards December but right now the Genset project needs to be completed and Solar Commisioned before Feb 2024 to claim the rebate.

Almost one week in and with Loadshedding back to 5-6hrs for us i'm happy to report so far that the DEYE batteries have performed flawlessly (fingers crossed of course) -  even though we've only grown usable capacity buy 2kw or +-18-20%  we're seeing different consumption/efficiency/conversion numbers running all the same loads as before and conversion/efficiency wise we're seeing an actual net gain of almost 25-30% from the batteries. I cannot say why right now and I only have 6-7 days data vs 255days data from the CFE's but something is different (time will tell if this a indeed a gain of sorts and i'll be monitoring it) - off the top of my head the only notable change is battery temps. the inverter battery settings have remained unchnaged and we're running in BMS mode with the inverter showing 00 & deye next to it under lithium - the CFE's always opperated between 27-35°C even at idle in a 21°C space - and loads even reaching 39-40°C - but the DEYE units are sitting @19-21°C under load, maybe there is a better thermal layout inside or better passive cooling but even now with them being on load for 2.5hrs during loadshedding and then charging @40A back to 100%, tempreture is 21°C and its notably warmer outside today. Time will tell is guess.

I'd just want to again mention that SolarAdvice where champs in getting this all sorted from the re-order, allocation, booking a team to do the swap/install and keeping me in the loop the awesome two guys (cannot remember their names) that did the swap out and wall mounted them for me without makign a mess, breaking anything and just being really pleasant to chat to - this business is doing this right and all my interactions with them over the last 7+ months has been consistently excellent - they're patient and I know I can be difficult - but there was no need to be as they where just really professional about dealing with all of this - highly recommend them.

I'll post an update in about a months time and again am happy to answer any questions and hopefully keep up and contribute info to the forum - theMafiaman - out.

 

Edited August 14, 20232 yr by TheMafiaMan - NotMuffinMan
typos

Thanks for posting your experiences! I too am an unfortunate user of 5100s batteries (the Raystech variant) and my saga with 40% to 0% soc drop is ongoing. Absolute run around from CFE support. They've got me debugging all sorts of stuff to "prove" that it is in fact the battery that is trash.

Saga continues. 1 of my batteries was sent in for diagnosis. The single battery that I'm running on is now doing the same thing.