February 2, 20206 yr Hi guys, I am a complete Noob currently trying to install a backup system using a RCT axpert 5k VM3 inverter with a Pylontech US3000 battery. The RCT inverter has a sticker with date indicated as 2019/09, so I guess the firmware should be rather recent (U2 - 02.00 ; U3 - 00.21). The RCT inverter indicates a code 61 error when I try to set it up (which, according to installation manual appendix, means that the inverter is unable to communicate with the BMS). I set the battery dip switches (1,0,0,0), and selected "Pyl" on program 5 on the inverter. I have tried a few combinations with the pinout connections between battery's RS485 port and the inverter's battery com port (by modifying the cable that came with the pylontech battery cable pack, but I am probably not doing this correctly). The code 61 error comes up after about 3 minutes when I start up the inverter (powered from the battery). Please let me know if there is any advice regarding a way forward. Is there a custom cable that can be purchased for connecting the battery RS485 port to the RCT inverter battery comm port? Thanks, any responses would be much appreciated.
February 2, 20206 yr @Watt_The_F I recently went through the same process, also modifying the cable that came with the cable pack. The connection that worked for me is: Inverter <-> Pylontech US3000 Pin 3 <-> Pin 8 Pin 5 <-> Pin 7 No other connections needed. Hope this helps
February 2, 20206 yr Thanks for the replies. If I assume that each RJ45 plug pin is named pin 1 to pin 8 - from left to right - as viewed in the in the pics above, then:- Option A (TomasCrespo) Inverter <--> Pylontech Pin 1 <--> Pin 3 Pin 2 <--> Pin 5 Pin 3 <--> Pin 1 Pin 5 <--> Pin 2 (no other pins connected) Option B (Calvin) Inverter <--> Pylontech Pin 3 <--> Pin 8 Pin 5 <--> Pin 7 (no other pins connected) Going to give these options a try. Thanks again, much appreciated.
February 3, 20206 yr 14 hours ago, Watt_The_F said: Option B (Calvin) Inverter <--> Pylontech Pin 3 <--> Pin 8 Pin 5 <--> Pin 7 Hi, I have used this on the US3000 and US2000, work on both batteries.
February 3, 20206 yr 14 hours ago, Watt_The_F said: Option A (TomasCrespo) Inverter <--> Pylontech Pin 1 <--> Pin 3 Pin 2 <--> Pin 5 Pin 3 <--> Pin 1 Pin 5 <--> Pin 2 (no other pins connected) I purchased an Axpert VM III and I received the original BMS cable, but it was not long enough, so I made the one in the pics with the same pinount. Its working perfectly for about one year. Of course I have configured the inverter in PYLON mode. If I disconnect the BMS cable the inverter beeps with error code 61 (I'm not really sure about the code number). If I connect again error disapears. This pic is the original cable I received: Edited February 3, 20206 yr by TomasCrespo
February 3, 20206 yr 19 hours ago, Watt_The_F said: 5k VM3 inverter I will check on the email if the pin-out was the same
February 3, 20206 yr 5 hours ago, TomasCrespo said: I purchased an Axpert VM III and I received the original BMS cable, but it was not long enough, so I made the one in the pics with the same pinount. Its working perfectly for about one year. Of course I have configured the inverter in PYLON mode. If I disconnect the BMS cable the inverter beeps with error code 61 (I'm not really sure about the code number). If I connect again error disapears. This pic is the original cable I received: I have made up the cable according to option A as indicated above. Have the battery dip switches set to (1,0,0,0), and "Pyl" selected on program 5 of the inverter. So far, it seems to be working well with no errors. The battery icon on the inverter has started flashing as indicated in the manual, so the inverter is communicating with the BMS. The battery charge level indicated on the inverter definitely seems more in line with the charge level indicated by the LEDs on the battery. I now assume that the battery is adequately protected without any additional controllers required (I hope). The low DC cut-off voltage (program 29) is set at 47V. The bulk and floating charge levels (program 26 and 27) are set at 53.2V. Thanks again for all the assistance.
February 4, 20206 yr Congratulations, communication between your inverter and your Pylontech is definitively working 19 hours ago, Watt_The_F said: now assume that the battery is adequately protected without any additional controllers required (I hope). The low DC cut-off voltage (program 29) is set at 47V. The bulk and floating charge levels (program 26 and 27) are set at 53.2V. However, one note about this. Firstly, I'm not totally sure about this, I had only one experience for the moment. The low cut-off voltage parameter has no sense with Li-ion batteries. It has sense for acid batteries. Your Pylontech battery will auto-switch off itself as protection measure, before 47v (max cut-off value in Inverter). I have that configuration, I have no grid and I have set low cut-off voltage set at 47v, but this winter with various cloudy days my system went off one night. However at sunrise my system switched on (because VMIII can work without batteries), but at sunset my system was off again. Next day same history, with the sun all working (pool pump, security cameras, internet connection...), with the night all off. I connect remotely to that installition during working days and only visit the installation on weekends. When I got there I realized that Pylontech batteries were off. I had to switch it on manually. Inverter can NOT even charge the batteries when they are off My guess are: If Pylon discharge deeply they auto switch-off, before inverter's low cut-off voltage been reached. Inverter can NOT charge the batteries even with a lot of sun until you switch on the batteries manually I suposse that if Inverter's low cut-off voltage were reached, the batteries will not auto-switch off, so, at sunrise they will be charged correctly.
February 5, 20206 yr When the communication work properly, the low cut-off voltage do not matter, you can reset it to 45v if you want, within a couple mins the batteries will change that setting back to 47v. What happened in your scenario, the batteries probably went down to below 10% and shut off to protect against total discharge, or at whatever setting you had set it up to. Unfortunately, you have to manually reset/restart the batteries after that. I don't know how far they will go down but on 9th January while I was in hospital, we had a cloudy day, load-shedding, and me not able to tell someone to lower the load. My electrician luckily went past my home to pick up his RPi and saw the hectic mess starting to evolve. He quickly lowered the load, reset the batteries, they were only beeping with alarm and did not shut down yet and were at 7% (the batteries according to my graph still show 47v), right at that moment of reset apparently the sun came out behind the clouds and all were well again. Our major problem currently is cloudy/rainy weather with a combination of load-shedding. If load-shedding is not there, the weather don't matter, if load-shedding is there, then hopefully at that time your batteries are full enough to carry through the cloudy weather.
February 6, 20206 yr Your are right. The thing is that I would preffer that inverter were off before batteries were off. I think if low cut-off voltage is reached inverter will not use the batteries and hence will switch itself off (because I don't have any source of energy). At sunrise, inverter will go on and recharge the batteries. Currently the low cut-off voltange (47v) is never reached. When batteries get below 10% they auto shut off, and their voltage is above 47v. This morning example, at 19% it is 48v. It will be great low cut-off parameter could be set at 48.5v or even better, set the low cut-off paramter by SoC Edited February 6, 20206 yr by TomasCrespo
February 7, 20206 yr I think I know what you want to do. You want your inverter to stop supplying power and deplete the batteries further until there is sun again the following morning to start to charge. I have no idea if this can be done. How many batteries do you have on-site, won't it be better (I know it is expensive) to add another brick? In the event that you can not control the inverter somehow. I would imagine something like a switch, but I guess you will have to initiate the process from where you are. I know that my batteries sometimes run for 2+ hours on 22% and yes, they never go, or never before gone below 47v. Is there maybe a load that you can reduce for that early morning/night time hours to reduce battery depletion, there should be if you are willing to switch off power for the time being.
February 9, 20206 yr The only idea I have to avoid my batteries go off, is put a smart-switch (something like sonoff switches) in the cable between Pylon and inverter. That way I could "disconnect" the batteries to avoid they auto power off, and at sunrise "connect" again the batteries. On 2020/02/07 at 2:21 PM, Wilfred said: won't it be better (I know it is expensive) to add another brick? I will do it in a near future. On 2020/02/07 at 2:21 PM, Wilfred said: Is there maybe a load that you can reduce for that early morning/night time hours to reduce battery depletion Yes. I use ICC + Home Assistant to control the instalation, so if the batteries are discharging too much I switch off almost everything.
February 15, 20206 yr On 2020/02/03 at 1:04 AM, Watt_The_F said: Option A (TomasCrespo) Inverter <--> Pylontech Pin 1 <--> Pin 3 Pin 2 <--> Pin 5 Pin 3 <--> Pin 1 Pin 5 <--> Pin 2 (no other pins connected) Option B (Calvin) Inverter <--> Pylontech Pin 3 <--> Pin 8 Pin 5 <--> Pin 7 (no other pins connected) Hi Guys. Given the two different RS485 pin-outs that seem to work per this thread, has someone perhaps compared functionality for potential differences, perhaps in commands or feature sets supported or does it not matter which pin-out is used between these two?
February 25, 20206 yr Having added the 1x Pylontech US3000 to my 2x Pylontech US2000 stack, I now receive an error from the inverter, fault #69. Did not receive this error with only the 2x US2000 batteries. According to the inverter display, the batteries now charge to 53.2V, then the error message is displayed whilst the voltage drops to 52.2V, then the error disappears whilst the batteries charge back up to 53.2V and this process keeps repeating. Has anyone else come across this?
February 25, 20206 yr Error 69 appears to be a generic error message that the King displays whenever the Pylon BMS reports an error to it. I had the same error when expanding my stack from 2 to 8 US3000s. Turned out to be a dud battery - the BatteryView software showed multiple cell over-and-under voltage errors on this battery. Had it swopped out - problem solved.
February 26, 20206 yr Update: I found this (from the July 2019 version of the King manual) "If battery status is not allowed to charge after the communication between the inverter and battery is successful, it will show code 69 to stop charging battery." It seems consistent with the high cell voltage errors that I got.
February 26, 20206 yr 16 hours ago, Calvin said: Error 69 appears to be a generic error message that the King displays whenever the Pylon BMS reports an error to it. I had the same error when expanding my stack from 2 to 8 US3000s. Turned out to be a dud battery - the BatteryView software showed multiple cell over-and-under voltage errors on this battery. Had it swopped out - problem solved. Calvin - Where can I find a copy of BatteryView ? Been searching and cant seem te get it anywhere. Got a bank of Pylon with internal error reported to the Victron side - but we need to find out which battery is actually the issue.
February 26, 20206 yr @Eujean Hugo normally, your reseller/distributor should be able to assist with diagnostics, or getting the BatteryView software to you. Since distributors generally don't care, just check my LAB for the donwload. The link is in the description bellow. PS: Download, the guide on creating a serial cable, and how to use the software is in the middle of the page2 Edited February 26, 20206 yr by Youda
February 26, 20206 yr Author 19 hours ago, 0 |>\/\/3|<|<3Я said: I now receive an error from the inverter, fault #69. Did not receive this error with only the 2x US2000 batteries. It's a warning, not an error. You may not have connected your last battery module when it was at a similar state of charge to the others. It will have trouble balancing the modules. It may be worth disconnecting the newest module, and waiting for the other modules reach a similar state of charge before reconnecting it. I believe that warning 69 arises specifically as a result of a "Charge Current Limit is zero" message from the BMS. It likely means that one cell is in danger of getting overcharged. Edited February 26, 20206 yr by Coulomb "battery" -> "battery module"
February 26, 20206 yr 1 hour ago, Coulomb said: It's a warning, not an error. You may not have connected your last battery module when it was at a similar state of charge to the others. It will have trouble balancing the modules. It may be worth disconnecting the newest module, and waiting for the other modules reach a similar state of charge before reconnecting it. I believe that warning 69 arises specifically as a result of a "Charge Current Limit is zero" message from the BMS. It likely means that one cell is in danger of getting overcharged. Following Coloumb guess, you should disconnect your new battery, connect only your 2xUS2000 and charge them at 100%. Then disconnect your 2xUS2000 batteries and connect your 1xUS3000 battery and charge to 100%. Then connect all the batteries.
February 29, 20206 yr Thanks for the input @Coulomb and @TomasCrespo. An update on fault 69: it also self-corrected like it did for @Bruce K. I'm assuming the mention of the different SOC's for the different batteries was the reason for the error in the first place and as pointed out by @JCV, this likely only happens in the beginning until the batteries are in sync. For me a full cycle wasn't required, merely a couple of hours of charging. Even after using the batteries, re-charging seems to happen smoothly since the error has not re-appeared.
March 15, 20206 yr On 2020/02/02 at 7:41 PM, Watt_The_F said: Hi guys, I am a complete Noob currently trying to install a backup system using a RCT axpert 5k VM3 inverter with a Pylontech US3000 battery. The RCT inverter has a sticker with date indicated as 2019/09, so I guess the firmware should be rather recent (U2 - 02.00 ; U3 - 00.21). Hi, hope you can help. I recently bought an InverMax branded VMIII 5K. Went through the whole exercise to connect it to 2 Pylontech US2000 batteries. All seems to work fine, but I have noticed that the SOC indicator lights on the batteries cycle on and off at random intervals. Its almost as if they are resetting themselves. Does yours do the same? The Inverter also sometimes shows only 1 battery in the group, and other times 2. What is your U1 firmware number if I may ask?
March 15, 20206 yr Does anybody know how the cooling fans on the Axpert VMIII 5K should behave? I read that it is an algorithm that changed with different firmware updates. Mine seems to act very strange. The fans will run quite loud for about 10 minutes every half hour or so and then just go off. This all happens in Bypass mode (on ESKOM power) with less than 500w load, without the load being increased (and the PylonTech batteries fully charged). Does this sound right and is it possible to change this? I bought the inverter 2 weeks ago, and its an InverMax branded model. It is the newer PylonTech-ready model with the removable display, and Pyl in the menu #5. My firmware is U1= 41.3, U2 = 2.0, U3 = 0.21 Any help will be greatly appreciated
March 15, 20206 yr My U1 displays 41.03 as well. The SoC indicator behaves the same way as your, flashing intermittently, say every 10 seconds while the inverter indicate charging from grid. I always thought that it was a sign that the inverter was communicating with the BMS, but I dont really know. My inverter fans also switch on randomly, even when supplying from the grid. Hopefully one of the more knowledgable guys will respond whether this is normal.
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