Using Solarman risks voiding Hubble Warranty?

[PEH]

Hello,

I am in conversation with Hubble about doing a firmware update to overcome different SOC between two AM-5 batteries connected in parallel.

In the process they have warned me that using the Solarman Smart monitoring app (connected via wireless to my Deye inverter) might void my battery warranty.

This seems a little off to me.

Thoughts?

[TaliaB]

1 hour ago, PEH said:

n the process they have warned me that using the Solarman Smart monitoring app (connected via wireless to my Deye inverter) might void my battery warranty.

This seems a little off to me.

You quite right it is off!!! The lengths that Hubble would go to. Scare tactics to force you to use Cloudlink. Solarman has got no relevance to their batteries

[JayMardern]

31 minutes ago, TaliaB said:

Solarman has got no relevance to their batteries

Agreed. There's also no way of them ever knowing that you're using it since it communicates with the inverter, not directly to the batteries. I do kind-of understand apprehension of connecting equipment directly to the batteries themselves, but Soalrman is absolutely not that. It's worth noting that the guys doing remote firmware updates (in my experience) aren't high-level support, so I'd take what they say with a grain of salt...

1 hour ago, PEH said:

I am in conversation with Hubble about doing a firmware update to overcome different SOC between two AM-5 batteries connected in parallel.

As an aside, the changes to SOC are sorted under new firmware by the master averaging the output. So if one battery is at 50% and the other is at 60%, the master now reports 55%.

[PEH]

33 minutes ago, JayMardern said:

As an aside, the changes to SOC are sorted under new firmware by the master averaging the output. So if one battery is at 50% and the other is at 60%, the master now reports 55%.

Thanks for that info. What I am more concerned about than what the master reports is how to get both batteries to full charge (assuming enough input). If the master (even after averaging) shows a higher value than the slave, will the slave continue to charge once the master shows 100% SOC?

[JayMardern]

12 minutes ago, PEH said:

Thanks for that info. What I am more concerned about than what the master reports is how to get both batteries to full charge (assuming enough input). If the master (even after averaging) shows a higher value than the slave, will the slave continue to charge once the master shows 100% SOC?

Exactly. If Master is at 100% and Slave is at 90%, the Master reports 95% to the inverter (i.e., the average) and the slave will continue to charge (albeit at a slower rate than when both batteries are actively bulk charging); until both are at 100% (at which point the average is now 100% - which is what gets reported to the inverter as the battery bank's SOC.)

Edited June 25, 2024 by JayMardern

[PEH]

2 hours ago, JayMardern said:

Exactly. If Master is at 100% and Slave is at 90%, the Master reports 95% to the inverter (i.e., the average) and the slave will continue to charge (albeit at a slower rate than when both batteries are actively bulk charging); until both are at 100% (at which point the average is now 100% - which is what gets reported to the inverter as the battery bank's SOC.)

Ok, I get it now. Perhaps not the fastest way to get to full charge, but it will still work. Thanks.

[CobusK]

5 hours ago, PEH said:

I am in conversation with Hubble about doing a firmware update to overcome different SOC between two AM-5 batteries connected in parallel.

In the process they have warned me that using the Solarman Smart monitoring app (connected via wireless to my Deye inverter) might void my battery warranty.

This seems a little off to me.

Wow, not very wise...

[GreenFields]

Just my take: If Hubble batteries are being marketed as being compatible with Deye, then that must include everything in the box, and the SolarMan dongle is part and parcel of the Deye inverter package. Maybe a grey area, and I'm no legal expert, but my personal sense of fairness from a customer perspective says it's misleading to advertise compatibility with the inverter, but then not honour the warranty because of the included dongle.

 

Edited June 26, 2024 by GreenFields

[HendrikBigChief]

18 hours ago, JayMardern said:

Agreed. There's also no way of them ever knowing that you're using it since it communicates with the inverter, not directly to the batteries. I do kind-of understand apprehension of connecting equipment directly to the batteries themselves, but Soalrman is absolutely not that. It's worth noting that the guys doing remote firmware updates (in my experience) aren't high-level support, so I'd take what they say with a grain of salt...

As an aside, the changes to SOC are sorted under new firmware by the master averaging the output. So if one battery is at 50% and the other is at 60%, the master now reports 55%.

This does not sound very good at all, lets say you limit your minimum SOC to 20% to preserve your battery life, but now with this averaging approach, the one battery is at 30% and the other at 10%, but averages to 20%. Now your one battery will be far below the 20% minimum thus damaging it. The real fix is to always display the battery with the lowest SOC.

[PEH]

1 hour ago, HendrikBigChief said:

This does not sound very good at all, lets say you limit your minimum SOC to 20% to preserve your battery life, but now with this averaging approach, the one battery is at 30% and the other at 10%, but averages to 20%. Now your one battery will be far below the 20% minimum thus damaging it. The real fix is to always display the battery with the lowest SOC.

Does going below 20% SOC damage the battery / lower its life expectancy? Is there published battery performance data that supports a minimum desired SOC, specifically for LiFePO4 battery type (such as Hubble AM-5)?

[PEH]

1 hour ago, PEH said:

Does going below 20% SOC damage the battery / lower its life expectancy? Is there published battery performance data that supports a minimum desired SOC, specifically for LiFePO4 battery type (such as Hubble AM-5)?

I found this video on YouTube.

Maybe the creator is completely wrong - I don't have the knowledge to know. But he is suggesting that the charge and discharge curves for this technology are such that the "traditional" rules for minimum 20% and maximum 80% SOC to ensure battery life don't apply. He is suggesting to simply stay away from the extremes in voltage, which translates in practice to a minimum of, perhaps 5-10% SOC and a maximum of, perhaps 99% SOC. I would be curious to hear from knowledgeable people in this forum.

Lastly, this conversation has moved far away from the original topic title. I would appreciate advice on how to change this. Do I need to start a new topic?

[TaliaB]

4 minutes ago, PEH said:

Lastly, this conversation has moved far away from the original topic title

To close the original topic NO Hubble can't void the warranty if you are using Solarman monotoring software!!! 

 

10 minutes ago, PEH said:

Do I need to start a new topic?

Yes start a new topic.

[HendrikBigChief]

6 hours ago, PEH said:

I found this video on YouTube.

Maybe the creator is completely wrong - I don't have the knowledge to know. But he is suggesting that the charge and discharge curves for this technology are such that the "traditional" rules for minimum 20% and maximum 80% SOC to ensure battery life don't apply. He is suggesting to simply stay away from the extremes in voltage, which translates in practice to a minimum of, perhaps 5-10% SOC and a maximum of, perhaps 99% SOC. I would be curious to hear from knowledgeable people in this forum.

Lastly, this conversation has moved far away from the original topic title. I would appreciate advice on how to change this. Do I need to start a new topic?

This might be valid, however most lithium manufacturers are not going to honor their warranties if they see you going down to 5% SOC on a regular basis regardless of the voltage.

[zsde]

12 hours ago, HendrikBigChief said:

the one battery is at 30% and the other at 10%

The BMS itself will shut the battery down that reaches 20% if that is the value set in BMS Parameters. 

Just for info, they use PBMS Tools to access your battery remotely but also stated originally that your warranty is void if you use PBMS.
They are not very eager or fond to correct the mess created by these modified Firmwares where they artificially restrict Ah displayed capacity.

[JayMardern]

3 hours ago, HendrikBigChief said:

This might be valid, however most lithium manufacturers are not going to honor their warranties if they see you going down to 5% SOC on a regular basis regardless of the voltage.

The warranty document for the battery lists numerous exclusions but SOC isn't one of them, so they'd have a hard time using that as grounds for rejecting a claim. I chatted to my installer and he's mentioned good warranty service from them (and very few questions asked) on the now-150 Hubble's he's installed in the field (3-day turn around time on both his claims, which were both hardware failures) so I'm not that worried (and I'd go through him if I ever needed to claim).

That said it's always best to be safe, so I've attached the latest version of this warranty document here, on the public record, in case we ever need to use it in future - and I'll absolutely point them to this post if they ever hassle me.

 

1 hour ago, zsde said:

Just for info, they use PBMS Tools to access your battery remotely but also stated originally that your warranty is void if you use PBMS.
They are not very eager or fond to correct the mess created by these modified Firmwares where they artificially restrict Ah displayed capacity.

The tool they used when upgrading the parameters on my batteries (after a firmware upgrade) was a green-themed piece of software called "BMS Tools V3.31 [ZWN]" that seems to be from "VKING" if memory serves. They selected a 'VKPH' BMS Board type when administering mine. I previously thought the AM-5 used Pace BMS's, though I'm not so sure after seeing this.

 

1 hour ago, zsde said:

The BMS itself will shut the battery down that reaches 20% if that is the value set in BMS Parameters.

During an extended outage I took my (then only-one) battery down to zero on one occasion.

You get a slow-flashing Alarm light at under 15% SOC but it keeps going until it hits zero.

In parallel, with the latest firmware, if one of the batteries hits zero (again tested during an extended outage), the SOC lights all switch off on that unit and the Run light continues to flash to indicate Standby mode, and the Master then reports the remaining-batteries' Maximum Discharge value to the inverter whilst keeping Maximum Charge at the combined value.

So in my case, my typical two-battery '200A Maximum Discharge' dropped to 100A when the one battery hit zero (since we were now running on just the remaining battery), but the 'Maximum Charge' stayed at 200A (since both batteries were still available to charge). And it continued until the second battery also nearly hit zero, before the inverter shut off at the 2% Shutdown value I'd specified. Best of all when the sun came up, they charged as normal without requiring any restarts; including the one we'd zero'ed.

So low-SOC scenarios seem to be catered for in the BMS firmware; and knowing I can run them that low in an emergency gives me a bit of peace of mind.

Hubble Energy AM-5 Warranty V2.pdf