I just called Microcare to get a progress report. They are still busy re-writing the program. Apparently it takes 2 to 3 weeks to do this as I requested specific parameters. They have to write and test, write and test............ until they get it right. 

Good thing I still have my winter array and controller charging my batteries. 😥

So I finally got my charge controller back. They couldn’t get the program to work as I requested. So they “widened” the available settings. My float charge is now ranging from 12.5V to 14.5V. The boost charge is now from 13V to 16V. And now I can turn the boost to float time (absorption) off. 

For now I have made the settings:

Float charge: 12.5V (3.33V per cell) 

Boost charge:  13.1V (3.49V per cell) 

Boost to float voltage: Off

Boost to float current: >3A

These settings may make no sense to anyone else, but just seem logical to me.

I will report back in a week. 😁

Hallo @Solaris what is the step changes?

0.1V or smaller? For example can you decide between 12.5 and 12.6 ?

Im also struggling with Microcare at the moment.

50 minutes ago, Jaco Venter said:

what is the step changes

All settings are in increments of 0.1V (in a 12V configuration) So in 48V you set in 0.4V increments. 

51 minutes ago, Jaco Venter said:

can you decide between 12.5 and 12.6 ?

You can decide between 12.5V and 12.6V, so in a 48V system that would mean 50V and 50.4V respectively. Therefore for a 15S battery it would be a difference of 0.0266V per cell.

57 minutes ago, Jaco Venter said:

Im also struggling with Microcare at the moment.

You are just one of many. Getting mine reprogrammed took me a month. 

This is just some feedback on how the week went with the new MPPT settings. I got to put the batteries to some heavy usage this weekend doing a lot of washing and tumble drying. Then when I got to around 50% SOC there was an alarm. Checking the cell voltages there were quite a few at 3.31v and two at 3.18v. So I am back to a severe cell imbalance at the lower MPPT settings. I realize that the cell balancing only happens somewhere from 3.5V to 3.6V per cell. For now I have put the boost voltage back at 54V (as per Coslight recommendations) and set the float to 50.8V (approximate rest voltage when charged) I will drop the boost voltage slowly over the next few weeks until I can charge at the lowest setting while still maintaining cell balance. 

It’s all a learning curve. 😊

I am running 2 microcare MPPTs with my LA batteries. My next wet of batteries will be lithium I'm sure, but looks like the Microcare units are not the right ones for the job. Which MPPTs are suitable for use with Lithium? 

Hi @DeepBass9 I might be speaking out of turn, but I actually think we make the charging of lithium batteries more complicated as what it is.

I think it is crucial to have the correct floating voltage set and not to boost these batteries.

The BMS (Battery Management System) of these batteries will do the rest.

I commissioned my system and the batteries were not fully charged, although the Victron Battery monitor indicated it as 100%. I am making use of the ICC software to trend battery state only. As the system reached 100% during the day the batteries will accept the energy (kW) coming their way up to a point where the batteries actually reach the real 100%. I reached this point after I decided to charge the batteries with Eskom power one Friday. I charged the batteries at a rate of 50A from Eskom and at about 20:00 the Friday night the batteries were fully charged. The Amps drawn from Eskom suddenly dropped to Zero.

Since then my batteries did not react strangely to high loads or give strange alarms since SOC (State of Charge) was actually much closer to reality.

I had to disconnect the Victron battery monitor to install a bigger fuse on my battery system and after startup the monitor indicated full batteries again although it was at about 80%.

I'm slowly catching up to the real 100% again but have not reached it yet as I do not want to pump Eskom power into the batteries again.

Yes I agree that the Microcare MPPT's Voltage range for float needs to be changed to accommodate for lower Voltages as my batteries actually require 51V (12.75V x 4) as floating charge. I did a test whereby I set the floating charge to 52.8V and 53.6V respectively and on the ICC software it actually indicates that the float charging voltage is around 50.5V in both cases. (The BMS must have something to do with it)

While you use the battery power every day say between 90% and 50% I do not think that you need anything else as to focus on floating charge voltage. It might be a good idea to charge it once every few months to real 100% but other than that I'm fairly happy with the way my batteries perform currently.

Hope this help.

Should anyone have a different view please share it with us?

14 hours ago, DeepBass9 said:

I am running 2 microcare MPPTs with my LA batteries. My next wet of batteries will be lithium I'm sure, but looks like the Microcare units are not the right ones for the job. Which MPPTs are suitable for use with Lithium? 

I'm not sure about too many other brands, but the MLT Nomad MPPT's support Lithium batteries and have CAN that is compatible with Pylontech, Freedom Won and probably others.

3 hours ago, Stanley said:

Pylontech, Freedom Won

Without getting into details, the protocols of these batteries are very similar, but while most of it is the same for almost all batteries out there, there are two groups inside of this larger concensus and these groups do things a tiny bit differently. Pylontech, Sony/Muratta and LG is in one group. The rest is in the other group.

So if Pylontech and FreedomWon are both supported, that means there is support for both "groups" and it is likely going to support almost everything out there.

Just now, plonkster said:

So if Pylontech and FreedomWon are both supported, that means there is support for both "groups" and it is likely going to support almost everything out there.

No, at the moment it supports the Pylontech comms, which is often attributed to Victron. In fact with the Solar MD logger you have to enable the Victron translator for the MLT Nomad to work correctly with it. For Freedom Won, if you tell them it will be used with MLT products, then they load a different profile into the BMS, which then uses the same CAN messages as Pylon.

I don't think it would be too hard to add support for others if they are very similar though.

1 minute ago, Stanley said:

For Freedom Won, if you tell them it will be used with MLT products, then they load a different profile into the BMS, which then uses the same CAN messages as Pylon.

Aaah ok then! That explains it. FreedomWon of course uses the OrionBMS, so they literally just program it differently.

 

It has been two weeks now charging at 54V (3.6V per cell) and floating at 50.8V (3.38V per cell) and I am happy to report that the cells are pretty much all at 3.37V at rest. One of the 30 cells is at 3.36V but I won’t let it bother me. 
I have dropped the boost voltage to 53.6V (3.57V per cell) and dropped the float voltage to 50V (3.33V per cell) 

I will report back in a week or two 😁