OK Good News.

I finally got my BMS coms to work to my battery.

It turns out that two pins need to be shorted on the battery side to make the cable work!

Pin 7 and Pin 6 needs to be shorted going towards the battery side.

The 1 - 3 and 2  - 1 still applies.

I have got to give Andy all the credit and his help has really been key in me getting this problem solved and thanks  for the top class service I have received from you.

Not every day the owner himself goes to great lengths to get his product to work !

Tip of the hat to you my good sir ! 

@willietes Thats great news! Glad you also got sorted out. Interesting, so the Pin 6 & 7 seems to be related to the non DIP switch models then. 

@Tsa that is correct. Now all the questions start eg % charge and DOD and what the best settings are. been reading on battery university the following article

https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries

Interesting what they say...

 

 

Basically Running at full charge is not ideal ??

 

@Coulomb  what is your take on this ?

 

 

I started having those same questions and here is a link to a discussion I started regarding the Dyness batteries.

https://powerforum.co.za/topic/5212-dyness-b4850-charge-settings/?do=findComment&comment=72183

 

4 hours ago, willietes said:

Basically Running at full charge is not ideal ??

@Coulomb  what is your take on this ?

Interesting. It certainly shows that charging to 3.6 VPC (100% SOC for LFP) isn't good for battery life, so it reinforces my arguments for a more moderate top charge voltage (51.8 V instead of 53.2 V).

But it looks like it would be even better to limit the charging to 75% SOC; this seems to deliver the most total energy over the life of the battery. That means spending even more money up front (to cover the lost 50% of capacity per cycle), to save more money over the total life of the battery.

I note that between cases 2 and 3, you need an extra 20% of battery capacity, to deliver an extra 25% of total energy. So that's really only about a 5% saving.

I found it interesting too. So at the moment my BMS is set to max charge of 95% and min of 50 %

So according to this theory set your top to 75% the low to 25% how would the float voltages work then ?

The 50% available battery capacity works for guys like me

I don't get load-shedded much and just need the bat to supplement for clouds etc on my solar.

My power is also very constant 1.4kw constant so it just needs to carry the bit of clouds I  get

This is me on a sunny day 

 

And this a day like today with rain 

 

 

Edited April 1, 20206 yr by willietes

Hi @SiliconKid,

Can you please let me know if you know if the firmware you have will work for the Growatt SPF 5000TL HVM-WPV (The High voltage unit),  basically the unit can handle 120Vdc - 430Vdc on Solar side...

If you know if this firmware will work for the unit, can you please forward it to me as well? If not, can you send me the contact details of the guys at Growatt so that I can try and find out from them?

Thanks

[email protected]

12 hours ago, BeesBlaas said:

Can you please let me know if you know if the firmware you have will work for the Growatt SPF 5000TL HVM-WPV (The High voltage unit),  basically the unit can handle 120Vdc - 430Vdc on Solar side...

My strong suspicion is no. The Axperts that the Growatts are presumably copied from have completely different firmware for the high voltage SCC models; basically, the DSP does the boost converter "in its spare time", whereas the 145 V max (115 V max MPPT) models have their own SCC processor that communicates via a serial link.

Hi everyone,

I'm experiencing problems with the Shine Wi-Fi data logger whenever the battery type is set to Li01.

I have a SPF 5000 HVM/P inveter and Dyness Powerbox 10 battery.  DIP switch set to 0110, cable is correct (crossed over), latest firmware obtained from Mahone and loaded successfully. Communication between inverter and battery working 100%.

The blue LED on the Wi-Fi module only flashes 3 times and then nothing for at least 30 seconds. Then 3 flashes again, sometimes 3 1/2, and so it continues. No data gets sent to the server at all. Once it actually started sending some at 2:00 the morning, but then stopped about 20 mins later.

The moment I just change the battery type to "USE", the Wi-Fi module's blue LED starts flashing constantly again, and it works perfectly. All data sent to tbe server and displayed by ShinePhone app.

Change the battery setting back to Li, and the Wi-Fi module starts to malfunction again.

I tried this with another inverter and Wi-Fi logger (brand new, unopened box, purchased 3 weeks ago) and it's doing the same. Thus far Mahone has been unable to help.

Has anyone else encountered (or heard of) this problem yet ?

My dreaded power tripping on setting Li(05) has re-appeared. So now I am wondering if anyone else still has the tripping issue post these fixes. Mine was running perfectly after the battery FW and board fix, probably close to 2 weeks, and then all of a sudden it reappeared. Twice in 24hours. 

I just need to catch it during the day so that I can confirm the warning codes and if it is again warning 04 and 20. The other morning it tripped at 00:35! Power to house off for a few seconds, inverter beeping,  and then everything came back on. 

On 2020/04/03 at 8:10 AM, charlvnk said:

Hi everyone,

I'm experiencing problems with the Shine Wi-Fi data logger whenever the battery type is set to Li01.

I have a SPF 5000 HVM/P inveter and Dyness Powerbox 10 battery.  DIP switch set to 0110, cable is correct (crossed over), latest firmware obtained from Mahone and loaded successfully. Communication between inverter and battery working 100%.

The blue LED on the Wi-Fi module only flashes 3 times and then nothing for at least 30 seconds. Then 3 flashes again, sometimes 3 1/2, and so it continues. No data gets sent to the server at all. Once it actually started sending some at 2:00 the morning, but then stopped about 20 mins later.

The moment I just change the battery type to "USE", the Wi-Fi module's blue LED starts flashing constantly again, and it works perfectly. All data sent to tbe server and displayed by ShinePhone app.

Change the battery setting back to Li, and the Wi-Fi module starts to malfunction again.

I tried this with another inverter and Wi-Fi logger (brand new, unopened box, purchased 3 weeks ago) and it's doing the same. Thus far Mahone has been unable to help.

Has anyone else encountered (or heard of) this problem yet ?

Just for everyone's reference who finds this at some point, we are discussing this specific issue here..

https://powerforum.co.za/topic/5535-growatt-data-missing/

 

5 minutes ago, Tsa said:

My dreaded power tripping on setting Li(05) has re-appeared. So now I am wondering if anyone else still has the tripping issue post these fixes. Mine was running perfectly after the battery FW and board fix, probably close to 2 weeks, and then all of a sudden it reappeared. Twice in 24hours. 

I just need to catch it during the day so that I can confirm the warning codes and if it is again warning 04 and 20. The other morning it tripped at 00:35! Power to house off for a few seconds, inverter beeping,  and then everything came back on.

It really is starting to sound like one of the pieces of hardware involved is faulty somehow, and I'm inclined to think it's the battery given your reports to date. 

21 minutes ago, SiliconKid said:

It really is starting to sound like one of the pieces of hardware involved is faulty somehow, and I'm inclined to think it's the battery given your reports to date. 

My worry as well. Thing is the batteries were patched and new boards put in, so I was hoping that resolved it. I just now need to confirm if it is the same error codes popping up.

Then try and find out who will be taking ownership of resolving it. The importers, distributor\ installer.

The latter being the ones who have said to put it in USE mode.

57 minutes ago, Tsa said:

The latter being the ones who have said to put it in USE mode.

Of course they did. The standard answer to all problems when Li batteries are involved apparently. 

Hi SiliconKid,

I would like to PM you for the firmware but is waiting more than a week now for account approval from admin.

Can you please email me at [email protected] with the details?

Much appreciated

Philip

Some feedback on my experience with the firmware upgrade of a Growatt SPF 5000TL HVM-P inverter and two Pylontech US3000 batteries.

@SiliconKid, your instructions at the start of this topic were spot-on, except for one change on this particular system.  @Egbertdt, thanks for forwarding the files.  With the lockdown, I did the firmware upgrades via Teamviewer on my father-in-law's system.  He lives in Vleesbaai and I'm in Paarl.  After both firmware updates were completed and the inverter restarted, all was seemingly well.  However,  when the battery type (setting 5) was changed to Li and setting 36 to L02 for the batteries, the inverter went into an alternating fault mode 04 (battery voltage too low) and 20 (BMS comms error), despite the batteries being fully charged (confirmed by the LEDs on the batteries). The menus on the inverter was inaccessible and powering down all inputs (solar, Eskom, batteries) to the inverter to factory reset it, made no difference.  The continuous error-beeping was becoming unnerving.  I made contact with Mahone from Growatt.  He was very helpful. He first confirmed that both firmware updates were correct.  There are no newer updates available.  The eventual resolution was to move the BMS comms cable on the battery from the CAN port to the RS485 port.  After about 30 seconds to a minute, the warnings cleared and all was working 100%.  

24h have passed and the only issue was Eskom kicking in last night when the batteries reached 50%.  Setting 12 (battery status when returning to utility) has now been changed to 25%. Setting 1 is set to SBU.  Holding thumbs that the system will now run 24/7 without Eskom 🙂

12 minutes ago, FransRossouw said:

Some feedback on my experience with the firmware upgrade of a Growatt SPF 5000TL HVM-P inverter and two Pylontech US3000 batteries.

@SiliconKid, your instructions at the start of this topic were spot-on, except for one change on this particular system.  @Egbertdt, thanks for forwarding the files.  With the lockdown, I did the firmware upgrades via Teamviewer on my father-in-law's system.  He lives in Vleesbaai and I'm in Paarl.  After both firmware updates were completed and the inverter restarted, all was seemingly well.  However,  when the battery type (setting 5) was changed to Li and setting 36 to L02 for the batteries, the inverter went into an alternating fault mode 04 (battery voltage too low) and 20 (BMS comms error), despite the batteries being fully charged (confirmed by the LEDs on the batteries). The menus on the inverter was inaccessible and powering down all inputs (solar, Eskom, batteries) to the inverter to factory reset it, made no difference.  The continuous error-beeping was becoming unnerving.  I made contact with Mahone from Growatt.  He was very helpful. He first confirmed that both firmware updates were correct.  There are no newer updates available.  The eventual resolution was to move the BMS comms cable on the battery from the CAN port to the RS485 port.  After about 30 seconds to a minute, the warnings cleared and all was working 100%.  

24h have passed and the only issue was Eskom kicking in last night when the batteries reached 50%.  Setting 12 (battery status when returning to utility) has now been changed to 25%. Setting 1 is set to SBU.  Holding thumbs that the system will now run 24/7 without Eskom 🙂

Hi

Glad to hear you came right.

I'm a little confused as to how my original post was not clear on this though.

In my original post I noted this:

It turns out, the Growatt does NOT communicate via the CAN port. It communicates via the RS485 port that is positioned below the CAN port on the master battery.

And in addition to that, it requires a 9600 baud rate, which you can set using the 4 small white dipswitches on the master battery.

For the Growatt you must set those dipswitches to:  1 0 0 0 (ON OFF OFF OFF)

When connected to the CAN port and put into Li (L02) mode, the Growatt inverter faults and gives an error 20 and an error 04 constantly.

When connected to the RS485 port with the dipswitches set to 1000, comms is immediately established and it works as intended.

That seems to clearly state that you must NOT connect the cable to the CAN port and need to connect it to the RS485 port, in bold and red 

Were you speed reading maybe?

Edited April 24, 20206 yr by SiliconKid

😂🤣😂🤣🙊🙈 and you went to so much trouble in your post to highlight what should not be done!  Yeah, I read everything meticulously the first time but at the time of implementation 3 weeks later, I was clearly not diligent enough... and stupid enough to broadcast it 🤣. Hope my embarrassment help someone else to do it right the first time 🤣

On 2020/04/06 at 2:15 PM, Tsa said:

My dreaded power tripping on setting Li(05) has re-appeared. So now I am wondering if anyone else still has the tripping issue post these fixes. Mine was running perfectly after the battery FW and board fix, probably close to 2 weeks, and then all of a sudden it reappeared. Twice in 24hours. 

I just need to catch it during the day so that I can confirm the warning codes and if it is again warning 04 and 20. The other morning it tripped at 00:35! Power to house off for a few seconds, inverter beeping,  and then everything came back on. 

I caught it using PV keeper as the shinewifi is crap. Inverter goes into a "standby' mode on pvkeeper log

Update just had a reply my query was at the bottom.

 

Hi Wilhelm，

when pv solar start to charge battery，battery SOC will go up to 100% finally，at this point，battery will send an order to PV charger to shut down，stop charging battery and stop supplying power to your house load at the same time，avoid charging battery too much and damage battery，battery will take over to supply your house load if it's SBU mode in program 01 setting，

after a while，if battery SOC drop below 95%，PV panels will start working automatically again to supply power to the load and charge battery until it's charged 100% fully again，you can add more load to have a test，PV panels will start immediately if there are much more load that battery can't hold it，

in this way，battery will always keep almost full if there is main grid outage suddenly，

 

----------------------------------------------

Any question, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Yours sincerely,

Mahone Wang | 汪齐锐

¶

Africa Service Technician

E : [email protected]

W ：+86 18668813227

W : www.ginverter.com

Growatt New Energy Technology Co.,Ltd

No.28 Guangming Road, Longteng Community, Shiyan, Bao'an District, Shenzhen, P.R.China.

On 4/24/2020 21:08，Wilhelm Tesnaar wrote：

Hi Mahone

 

Any news ? Also I have notice at about noon the PV stops and inverter runs on battery. This while there is not a cloud in the sky and the load is a constant 1.9kw.

¶

This is really getting bad.

1 hour ago, willietes said:

Update just had a reply my query was at the bottom.

What Mahone says makes sense to me. Essentially when the battery reaches full charge the inverter shuts off input from PV, for both charging and direct supply to load.

It then allows the battery SOC to drop to around 95%, at which point it enables PV input again. That is pretty much the same behaviour I see on mine with mains supply only (I have no PV).

Apparently they do that to protect the battery from over charging, and they aren't allowing it to drop below 95% because they don't want it to ever have a lower SOC than that if the mains supply suddenly drops completely (load shedding) and you need your batteries at as close to max capacity as possible, immediately.

So that's all good and well and makes some sense, but I still find the approach interesting because I'm not entirely sure why stopping the battery from charging needs to also result in your PV no longer supplying the load directly. I think that's because the load is ALWAYS supplied via the battery, I don't think there is a full bypass mode where the inverter can take the input from the PV and pass it straight to the load, which means that when they cutoff the PV input to the battery, they also effectively stop the PV from supplying the load in any way.

And then there is the issue of your inverter randomly going into Standby mode, which still hasn't been explained. Given that you've had that happen in the middle of the night when the PV is clearly not involved, that would still seem so be a completely separate issue that is not related to PV.

It would be interesting to know all the official reasons why those inverters decide to go into Standby mode. What is the set of conditions that trigger Standby mode?

I wonder if Mahone can give you that set of conditions so we can better understand what is triggering Standby, because I suspect that going into Standby mode is actually a symptom of something else.

Edited April 26, 20206 yr by SiliconKid

 

@SiliconKid I think that was someone else. Mine has only dropped during the day and not at night. Moved it to SBU mode. lets see how that goes now.

On 2020/04/26 at 1:17 PM, willietes said:

I caught it using PV keeper as the shinewifi is crap. Inverter goes into a "standby' mode on pvkeeper log

Thats good news, now the question is just WHY? Is it going into standby due to the batteries having an issue or due to a comms being disconnected issue. 

On 2020/04/26 at 1:30 PM, willietes said:

when pv solar start to charge battery，battery SOC will go up to 100% finally，at this point，battery will send an order to PV charger to shut down，stop charging battery and stop supplying power to your house load at the same time，avoid charging battery too much and damage battery，battery will take over to supply your house load if it's SBU mode in program 01 setting

It is exactly during the start of this safety cycle that I lose my data flow. Only once batteries reach 89/90% SOC a few hours later does the data return. On days that my batteries do not fully charge via PV and do not go into this auto discharge safety cycle, the data flow is constant, no issues. First day batteries getting fully charged and it kicks into the auto discharge it stops data flow. This I have been trying to explain to Mahone over and over.

 

On 2020/04/26 at 2:44 PM, SiliconKid said:

I think that's because the load is ALWAYS supplied via the battery, I don't think there is a full bypass mode where the inverter can take the input from the PV and pass it straight to the load

Suspect this is the case yes. Definitely the case when running in UTI mode as well. It is via the batteries. Realised that the other day when I wanted to power down the batteries, but could not put them in sleep when the inverter was in UTI mode. 

On 2020/04/26 at 2:44 PM, SiliconKid said:

And then there is the issue of your inverter randomly going into Standby mode, which still hasn't been explained. Given that you've had that happen in the middle of the night when the PV is clearly not involved, that would still seem so be a completely separate issue that is not related to PV.

That was me. Had the tripping issue all hours of the day so far. Since the PCB and FW upgrade of the batteries I have had it one day so far only. But twice  in 24hours. Randomly around 10am and around 00:30. Has not happened since.  

 

On 2020/04/26 at 2:44 PM, SiliconKid said:

It would be interesting to know all the official reasons why those inverters decide to go into Standby mode. What is the set of conditions that trigger Standby mode?I wonder if Mahone can give you that set of conditions so we can better understand what is triggering Standby, because I suspect that going into Standby mode is actually a symptom of something else.

That would be some good detail. @willietes Have you been able to ask Mahone this? 

sorry just to chime in quick as im doing some work on these growatt units and ive found that there is no canbus transceivers on the coms board .. infact both ports are rs485 modulated so if any one had any hope of the unit communicating on canbus it wont happen.

Hmmm seems I should not talk of this because then it happens! Last night around 19:45 with a load of about 350W I had a trip. It is max 5 seconds that it is down and beeping in error\warning, so again missed the code on the LCD to confirm if it is still warning 04 and 20. I need Mahone to supply me with a way of logging these somewhere so that we can get some answers. 

20 hours ago, Tsa said:

That was me. Had the tripping issue all hours of the day so far. Since the PCB and FW upgrade of the batteries I have had it one day so far only. But twice  in 24hours. Randomly around 10am and around 00:30. Has not happened since.