As my electrician woke up the whole system after a minor upgrade, a loud popping sound came from a battery, we think it's from the master one.

It's a Victron & Pylontech system:

• 3x Multiplus II 5000, 3x SmartSolar 250/100, Cerbo GX, Lynx, fuses, etc.
• 16x US3000c

Prior to that, the system worked nicely for almost a year, since its installation last summer.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

Not only the master battery popped and died*, but even though we've now disconnected all the other batteries, and started testing one by one, another battery popped. Quite scarry TBH.

* symptom of "died" :

• green led flashes every 2-3 seconds.
• no other signal.
• no voltage read at the terminals in spite of "ON" state.

I saw another forum post suggesting that BMS burned and need replacement. How does one do that?

Waiting for Pylontech support's follow-up. Hopefully they'll find a way to solve this without sending all 16 batteries back to the supplier. 

Hi @Jemdepending on where you are based  @BritishRacingGreencan help you. He has carried out, out of warranty repairs on fuses on Pylontech batteries. 

So as I write this so many people said this type of thing only happens to cheaper inverters like Voltronics and Axpert...Now we have Blue power doing the same. 

Pylontech products are increasing showing up with these issues. 

 Depends a lot on what has happened with your batteries. 1st prize is always to get the fix done within the warranty period. However, I have  seen Segen Solar refuse quite a few ppl based on this. They will probably insist on collection of the log files to rule out foul play & then make a judgement off of that. 

Best of luck & sorry to hear of this event. 

They have also dropped their normal warranty from 10yrs as previously was the case. 

Edited September 3, 20233 yr by Steve87

Hi and thanks @Steve87 thanks for your helpful follow-up.

Well, this isn't quite reassuring. And we have no idea of what caused this issue.

In the meantime, a first follow-up from Pylontech asks me to pull the logs from the batteries, just as you suggested; they even provided... wiring instructions. I'm trying to find a cable to extract the logs; I'm a bit surprised they give a wiring diagram to a consumer (RS232 to RJ45), this sounds like DIY & warranty void territory to me.

N.B. For @BritishRacingGreen, this is certainly a nice backup plan, however, being located in Belgium, I see he's a bit far (Germiston, South Africa, right?) ... but I'll certainly reach out for guidance if it comes to that point.

@Jemyes you are far away from us here on the Southern tip of Africa. Please keep us updated, we have received numerous issues with Pylontech batteries & BMSs doing almost exactly what yours has just done. After the repair of the batteries that was done by @BritishRacingGreenit also appears that they have placed fuses that cannot be replaced onto the BMS board. They can be replaced obviously but not by a normal person without Surface mount Board experience. 

Now I'm not an engineer neither am I a salesman, but sending a battery to world markets that has fuses that need specialist workmanship to replace is not a good way to go in this market. As you can see how far & wide these products go. Now you have a guy in South Africa whom has these skills pretty sure others around you in Belgium but it's just a show stopper. 

I hope they warranty you properly & with knowledge of the EU laws pretty sure you will be in good stead. Here in SA it's a whole other story with regards to what we have to stand on with the Warranty red tape.

Please keep us updated. 

Edited September 4, 20233 yr by Steve87

Good to know. I wonder if it's a design choice to burn the PCB in case of issue. It's probably a great way to ensure there is no risk of a damaged PCB allowing dangerous situations to happen.

Indeed, EU has good theoretical consumer protection, so I have my fingers crossed hoping we don't end up in a Mexican standoff where X blames Y who blames Z who blames X... I'll already start researching what entity could ensure the consumer protection part of the plan.

Keep you posted, and thanks again for your input.

13 hours ago, Jem said:

As my electrician woke up the whole system after a minor upgrade, a loud popping sound came from a battery, we think it's from the master one.

It's a Victron & Pylontech system:

• 3x Multiplus II 5000, 3x SmartSolar 250/100, Cerbo GX, Lynx, fuses, etc.
• 16x US3000c

Prior to that, the system worked nicely for almost a year, since its installation last summer.

Has anyone experienced something similar?

Not only the master battery popped and died*, but even though we've now disconnected all the other batteries, and started testing one by one, another battery popped. Quite scarry TBH.

* symptom of "died" :

• green led flashes every 2-3 seconds.
• no other signal.
• no voltage read at the terminals in spite of "ON" state.

I saw another forum post suggesting that BMS burned and need replacement. How does one do that?

Waiting for Pylontech support's follow-up. Hopefully they'll find a way to solve this without sending all 16 batteries back to the supplier. 

 

thanks @BritishRacingGreen, looking into that post now. Cheers!

What exactly was done in the minor upgrade?

The electrician replaced a 4mm2 segment of cable with 6mm2 cable, this to match the rest of the installation and offset voltage drop from the farthest panels.

Edited September 4, 20233 yr by Jem

14 minutes ago, Jem said:

The electrician replaced a 4mm2 segment of cable with 6mm2 cable, this to match the rest of the installation and offset voltage drop from the farthest panels.

Thanks, that shouldn't cause it.

Can you post photos of all your set up?

N.B Can't tell you the shutdown sequence the electrician followed as it escaped me, but he seemed quite adamant to do things in a very specific order.

Sure, this picture was taken when we started disconnecting the MPPTs and the batteries after the pop:

Edited September 4, 20233 yr by Jem

7 minutes ago, Jem said:

N.B Can't tell you the shutdown sequence the electrician followed as it escaped me, but he seemed quite adamant to do things in a very specific order.

Sure, this picture was taken when we started disconnecting the MPPTs and the batteries after the pop:

Very neat. Looks to be a lot of black cable. From the photo I can't see any markings. Are you certain the + and - haven't got swapped somehow?

Hi, my three have a similar issue, so assuming that pylontech wont honor the warranty ( they collected one today via a courier) would you sell the batteries for spares as my cells arent yet 3months old  pay for them to be repaired, or is there another bms that can be fitted by a specialist.

 

they were connected to a victron multiplus, all settings as defined in the victron / pylontech instruction page.

DVCC was enabled and the charge volt and current was reduced / set  as specified by victron

repair in the uk is around £300 + carriage

 

1 hour ago, StaffsLad said:

Hi, my three have a similar issue, so assuming that pylontech wont honor the warranty ( they collected one today via a courier) would you sell the batteries for spares as my cells arent yet 3months old  pay for them to be repaired, or is there another bms that can be fitted by a specialist.

 

they were connected to a victron multiplus, all settings as defined in the victron / pylontech instruction page.

DVCC was enabled and the charge volt and current was reduced / set  as specified by victron

repair in the uk is around £300 + carriage

 

Hi @StaffsLad,

I quite honestly think Pylontech isn't going to play a bad trick on me. I guess they just need to ensure there is no foul play on my end (as suggested by another forum member), so for now I cross my fingers with hopes that they'll help me get the logs, analyse them and understand it's only a "minor" repair that can be done by my electrician, provided they issue new PCB for the batteries.

Of course, that's the sunny day scenario.

We'll see how it plays out..!

 

2 hours ago, Tinbum said:

Very neat. Looks to be a lot of black cable. From the photo I can't see any markings. Are you certain the + and - haven't got swapped somehow?

Good point. The system booted once, all went fine, cells were being automatically balanced by the BMS, full capacity was detected. Then, we turned off everything, waited for the new cables... and you know the rest.

NB. actually there is a mark on the cables, it's not really visible on the picture. Wow, you gave me a sweat there for a second 🙂 

14 minutes ago, Jem said:

Good point. The system booted once, all went fine, cells were being automatically balanced by the BMS, full capacity was detected. Then, we turned off everything, waited for the new cables... and you know the rest.

NB. actually there is a mark on the cables, it's not really visible on the picture. Wow, you gave me a sweat there for a second 🙂 

Hi, all the best with yours , but quite honestly even if pylontech did fix mine then i would sell them on as i have lost confidence in them, i have  ordered a seplos mason 280 kit including  cells etc,  Pylontech and victron have worked together to come up with a solution, if that fails as in my case then ill go for a diy kit .

 

Hi, all the best with yours , but quite honestly even if pylontech did fix mine then i would sell them on as i have lost confidence in them, i have  ordered a seplos mason 280 kit including  cells etc,  Pylontech and victron have worked together to come up with a solution, if that fails as in my case then ill go for a diy kit .

Hey,

Did you get any news regarding your batteries?

Hello @BritishRacingGreen, do you know what Pylontech error codes refer to? I've downloaded the logs from the batteries.

In the master's event log:

Power Events    : 0x10000000 SYSERR

Then after that, still in the events log:

Now the master's history shows this 0x10000000 again:

 

One of the slave batteries reports that 0X10000000 as well, after reporting 0x80000

The other batteries don't report anything related to an error in the event log, however, the history log reports a 0x80000.

Didn't find much while googling those codes. Maybe you guys managed to get some docs, or collect some info?

Thanks..!

 

Hello @BritishRacingGreen, do you know what Pylontech error codes refer to? I've downloaded the logs from the batteries.

In the master's event log:

Power Events    : 0x10000000 SYSERR

Then after that, still in the events log:

Now the master's history shows this 0x10000000 again:

 

One of the slave batteries reports that 0X10000000 as well, after reporting 0x80000

The other batteries don't report anything related to an error in the event log, however, the history log reports a 0x80000.

Didn't find much while googling those codes. Maybe you guys managed to get some docs, or collect some info?

Thanks..!

I think @PurePower or @Youda , amongst other Pylontech gurus  , will be well equipped to relate to these codes.

 

I think @PurePower or @Youda , amongst other Pylontech gurus  , will be well equipped to relate to these codes.

hey, thanks already for your help @BritishRacingGreen.

I'll be thankful for their input too!

Hi @PurePower, @Youda, please let me know if you can have a look into these Pylontech error codes?

• Power Events    : 0x10000000 SYSERR

• history log error 0x200

• history log error 0x80000

Thanks 🙂

@JemShare the log files of your batteries here so we can have a look at them. The event and history file of each battery that has no voltage on the terminals.