Growatt Inverter + Pylontech Batteries : BMS Comms Guide

[Rooney Hat]

2 hours ago, Iss said:

Hi Rooney, Please check your option 21 =  low dc cut-off voltage, it should be set lower than your warning limit.

Hmmm, My 21 is set to 5% and my switch back was set at 10%...
But I can try some testing over the weekend to double check...

As it is, I have had my my switch back at 20% and the logs are telling me it drops to 15% before switching back to mains, so maybe it at 10% it still dropped past that to 5% then did the cutoff. I'm on the latest GW firmware, so not sure why it's doing that. 

Maybe I should re-crimp another cable that has 12345678 -> 876456321, as it is I cut the other pins except 12 and 3 (ground).

[Maxderik]

I have same inverter my problem is i have 1 us3000 c and 1 b battery cant communicate 

[Maxderik]

On 2020/03/09 at 3:17 PM, MRK said:

 

Hi SiliconKid 

we are experiencing the same problems Can you please email me the firmware updates as well as the instructions 

[email protected] Cell 0836394786

Me to please

[email protected]

[Rooney Hat]

So looks like it's a faulty BMS on the battery, I'll be sending it back.

Had to manually crimp a RS232 cable to connect to console on the battery. And I found the 1 battery only gets to around 90% charged before it appears to do nothing while the other one charges. Another thing I spotted was the temperature increases much higher than the other battery while charging.

 

[TJ Human]

On 2020/02/23 at 7:58 AM, SiliconKid said:

Hi

No problem, glad I could help.

Just be aware that when you are in USE mode there is actually NO comms between the inverter and the BMS. The inverter is using the voltage levels on the voltage leads coming from the batteries to make decisions about charging.

And that's a problem because it means the BMS, which we paid a lot of money for, is being ignored, and it also means that the inverter is NOT using the accurate SOC values from the BMS itself to govern charging, or display current charge levels, or to do anything else related to the battery really.

When you have BMS comms working properly there is essentially an inversion of control:  The battery takes control of all battery related things and tells the inverter what to do and when.

When you do not have BMS comms working the inverter has to make all the decisions based on observed voltages, which is not as reliable because the voltage range band for Lithium batteries is far narrower than it is for the older types of batteries and apparently the inverters are not able to monitor the voltage level at a fine grained / accurate enough level to make very accurate decisions.

Short version:  Your batteries are not being managed 100% properly if the expensive BMS that's built into them is not involved in their management

@SiliconKid can I also get that firmware update please. Can you mail it to me please [email protected] thanks

[TJ Human]

On 2020/03/12 at 2:42 PM, Igubu said:

Received same instructions from Dyness as well - when I mentioned the manual says 0100 - "try both"   Advised to use the supplied BMS cable from Dyness, but I'm sure you can try the Growatt one as well should the battery one fail. (Dyness one is a normal straight through fly lead if I look the pin outs) But yes the firmware is your next step.

Keep us posted!

Hi @Igubu I received 2 comm cables with my Dyness battery,1 that is completely black and 1 that is black but have 1 orange head. The orange 1 is stated using for the growatt spf 5000 es that i have. I connected it to the battery in port and to inverter RD485 and not the can. Looks like it is working now,will see what happens when loadshedding returns.

[Rooney Hat]

On 2021/06/02 at 1:21 PM, Iss said:

Hi Rooney, Please check your option 21 =  low dc cut-off voltage, it should be set lower than your warning limit.

So I have disconnected the faulty battery and have left a single US300c connected.
I noticed that once in bypass, the batteries continued to discharge at around 50w, I thought this was due to the faulty battery, but even now with just the working one connected, it still appears to be discharging at 0.8 amps according to battery view. 

It looks like that is what was causing the Inverter to turn off overnight because it was getting to the low voltage cutoff.

Anyone else know what could be causing that or have the same issue?
I have the custom BMS and custom Console cable connected, but I doubt that could be causing the drain. Though I'll try testing.

 

[George_S]

Hi,

I have a Growatt SPF5000ES and Pylon US3000C battery. 

No solar , so being powered from the grip.

I am struggling to get the BMS comms working.

When going into Prog 5 , LI, then either choosing Prog L02, 036 or L52, 036 by battery stops charging.

Only when I am in USE mode does it charge.

Perhaps my cable is not working ; straight through UTP cable like it came with.

I've tried from the CAN port on inverter as well as RS485 port to both the CAN and 485 ports on the battery but still no success.

 

Any suggestions please? 

 

Thanks

 

[De0n19]

This worked for me with the growatt spf 5000 es and us3000c.

Can bus pin 4&5 on inverter to rs485 pin 4&5 on battery I used 05-li,36-L52

Battery side DIP switch：1000----ON OFF OFF OFF

[Iss]

8 hours ago, George_S said:

Hi,

I have a Growatt SPF5000ES and Pylon US3000C battery. 

No solar , so being powered from the grip.

I am struggling to get the BMS comms working.

When going into Prog 5 , LI, then either choosing Prog L02, 036 or L52, 036 by battery stops charging.

Only when I am in USE mode does it charge.

Perhaps my cable is not working ; straight through UTP cable like it came with.

I've tried from the CAN port on inverter as well as RS485 port to both the CAN and 485 ports on the battery but still no success.

 

Any suggestions please? 

 

Thanks

 

Hi George,

Please look at my post. You will notice that the cable needs to be a cross over. 
Know some suppliers change the cable.

Attach is the troubleshooting guide. Good luck!

R…

Iss

20200811100957704 2.pdf

[Bafaro69]

Bonjour chers,

Moi je dispose 5 onduleurs spf5000es en parallèle avec 4 armoires de 7 batteries US2000 chacun,  la communication se passe avec 05=Li et 36=L52. Tout se passe relativement bien sauf que j'ai assez souvent des erreurs BMS sur un onduleur de façon fréquente. Cela entraîne un arrêt du système. 

[George_S]

10 hours ago, De0n19 said:

This worked for me with the growatt spf 5000 es and us3000c.

Can bus pin 4&5 on inverter to rs485 pin 4&5 on battery I used 05-li,36-L52

Battery side DIP switch：1000----ON OFF OFF OFF

Thanks

This didn’t work for me assuming it’s a straight cable that you used.

[George_S]

8 hours ago, Iss said:

Hi George,

Please look at my post. You will notice that the cable needs to be a cross over. 
Know some suppliers change the cable.

Attach is the troubleshooting guide. Good luck!

R…

Iss

20200811100957704 2.pdf 271.48 kB · 3 downloads

Thanks Iss

The attachment is unavailable.

With regard your other post on this topic, I read it thanks, and have a question.

You mentioned the following.

“cross-over cable 1&2 to 7&8 as below. 6 other cables are straight through. Meaning from above img. Orange to brown remains in that order”

So pin 1 goes to pin 7 and 2 goes to 8?

The diagram on your post seems to show 1 to 8 and 2 to 7 (unless I’m reading it wrong )

Thanks

[Iss]

1 hour ago, George_S said:

Thanks Iss

The attachment is unavailable.

With regard your other post on this topic, I read it thanks, and have a question.

You mentioned the following.

“cross-over cable 1&2 to 7&8 as below. 6 other cables are straight through. Meaning from above img. Orange to brown remains in that order”

So pin 1 goes to pin 7 and 2 goes to 8?

The diagram on your post seems to show 1 to 8 and 2 to 7 (unless I’m reading it wrong )

Thanks

You are correct, with your pin out. Some guys cut the remaining cables. I opt to crimp it. Note the Ground (GRN) pin3 from the Growatt side to batt. Pin 6

[George_S]

17 minutes ago, Iss said:

You are correct, with your pin out. Some guys cut the remaining cables. I opt to crimp it. Note the Ground (GRN) pin3 from the Growatt side to batt. Pin 6

Thanks. I will get a cable made up today and give it a try. 

Appreciate the help

[hoohloc]

On 2021/06/15 at 8:38 AM, Rooney Hat said:

So I have disconnected the faulty battery and have left a single US300c connected.
I noticed that once in bypass, the batteries continued to discharge at around 50w, I thought this was due to the faulty battery, but even now with just the working one connected, it still appears to be discharging at 0.8 amps according to battery view. 

It looks like that is what was causing the Inverter to turn off overnight because it was getting to the low voltage cutoff.

Anyone else know what could be causing that or have the same issue?
I have the custom BMS and custom Console cable connected, but I doubt that could be causing the drain. Though I'll try testing.

 

Growatt SPF5000TL uses battery power to stay ON. Even when on bypass you will still continue to draw from the battery.  With the ES model, you should be able to select an option to power it ON from the grid because it can run without a battery being connected. Other models can't

I had the same issue of getting low voltage alarm on my inverters in the morning if I selected to charge the batteries from solar only, setting 14 - OSO. With setting 12 at 40%, the battery would discharge to around 29% SOC and then the alarm for low voltage would come. I was lucky enough not to set that to 20% according to how low my Pylons can go because then my inverter would switch off as the batteries switch off. The best way to get around this issue was to set my back to utility at a higher percentage. Now at 50% and when my batteries gets to 50% at night, the inverter switched to by-pass/grid and then uses about 10% to power up till sunrise.

50% is safe because some nights, the batteries drops to around 39% SOC before sunrise, just powering the inverter. Another option is to select setting 14 to be CSO, solar first and utility charges when solar is not available, then you can take setting 12 to as low as 21% for US2000B. Theoretically, the inverter should not switch OFF because when you hit 20% SOC, you will start charging the batteries from the grid and solar will take over at sunrise. Still to test this theory

[Rooney Hat]

16 hours ago, hoohloc said:

Growatt SPF5000TL uses battery power to stay ON. Even when on bypass you will still continue to draw from the battery.  With the ES model, you should be able to select an option to power it ON from the grid because it can run without a battery being connected. Other models can't

I had the same issue of getting low voltage alarm on my inverters in the morning if I selected to charge the batteries from solar only, setting 14 - OSO. With setting 12 at 40%, the battery would discharge to around 29% SOC and then the alarm for low voltage would come. I was lucky enough not to set that to 20% according to how low my Pylons can go because then my inverter would switch off as the batteries switch off. The best way to get around this issue was to set my back to utility at a higher percentage. Now at 50% and when my batteries gets to 50% at night, the inverter switched to by-pass/grid and then uses about 10% to power up till sunrise.

50% is safe because some nights, the batteries drops to around 39% SOC before sunrise, just powering the inverter. Another option is to select setting 14 to be CSO, solar first and utility charges when solar is not available, then you can take setting 12 to as low as 21% for US2000B. Theoretically, the inverter should not switch OFF because when you hit 20% SOC, you will start charging the batteries from the grid and solar will take over at sunrise. Still to test this theory

Thanks for the incite!

I have tested and found that the Inverter does move the usage back over to grid in bypass when it's low enough, and for me, that is 11% SOC with my single battery atm. 

To test this, I dropped my back to grid at 15% and it dropped to 11% and remained there. Then last night I set the back to grid to 11% and when it went to bypass, it stayed at 11%. And with it being a US3000C, that is exactly where I want to cut back. But I can see how the A and B models wouldn't be able to do that.

My 2nd battery that is in for warranty now was at around 10%-15% lower SOC than the working battery and must have dropped below the safe level causing a low voltage shutoff.

[li0n_za]

What is the most efficient way to run a solar setup? Assuming 7kWh (US3000C) batteries and a 5kW inverter (Growatt ES), with 0.6-1kWh usage in the evenings

Should I run batteries as low as possible during the evenings, probably around 30-40%, focus solar charge during the day and rinse repeat?

 

Edited June 21, 2021 by li0n_za

[Rooney Hat]

Nope, nevermind. I'm still stumped. 

Last night I dropped to 11% SOC early, it stayed at 11% for 4 hours, then started to drop till 5% and Auto AC charge kicked in. However I am seeing the battery voltage and SOC are oddly off.





 

[Rooney Hat]

15 hours ago, li0n_za said:

What is the most efficient way to run a solar setup? Assuming 7kWh (US3000C) batteries and a 5kW inverter (Growatt ES), with 0.6-1kWh usage in the evenings

Should I run batteries as low as possible during the evenings, probably around 30-40%, focus solar charge during the day and rinse repeat?

 

Just depends on what you're trying to achieve really. Low as possible is 5% with 6000 cycles on the US3000C. But will take longer to charge up during the day.
If you want to use as little of Eskom as possible, you'll want to deplete your batteries as low as you can, factoring in if you want to have a little bit in reserve in case of late night load shedding. Then, Depending on daytime load and panels, you can set your inverter to go back to solar/battery as soon as the panels can handle the load and charge your batteries. Finding out what SOC level that is will just take testing.

[Neil27]

Hello @SiliconKid

 

Thank you for sharing your experience and information here. I have scoured the web as well and your post is the only piece of relevant information I can find on this issue. 

I recently installed a Growatt SPF5000TL inverter and a US3000C battery. After following your instructions, I still get the errors. I have not done any firmware updates though. Please can you send me the updates if you don't mind? Where did you download the ShineBus app from. The one I downloaded does not allow me to enter the COM port number.  

I would greatly appreciate your assistance! 

[email protected] - 074 652 1855

[Bafaro69]

Hello dear all,

I have a system with 5 spf5000es growatt inverters and 28 us2000 batteries in 4 groups with the communication accessories namely the hubs for the inverters and for the battery groups.  they operate in parameter setting mode 05 = Li, 36 = L52.  I had to restart already three times in 24 hours of operation.  on the other hand in USE2 mode, I have no error message.  In my opinion, it is the shutdown of the inverters which creates certain error messages.  I am looking for advice if anyone has the same communication error and UPS shutdown problem and if there is a solution for it.  

thanks for any advice.

[Nishantr]

On 2020/03/21 at 9:03 PM, Digital Clouds said:

Hi all, reading the posts here has been very useful. I can confirm and agree with Tsa. After many dead ends, Andy, an official dyness importer (Aspergo) visited my house this morning in Bellville. Did a FW update on my one Dyness powerbox (my second powerbox is the newer model and already had later FW on it). We then also realized the comms cable between the master dyness and growatt hub (as I have two 5kw growatts) was incorrect, and needed to be a 2 pin crossed lead. Once this was done, the growatt took the li 01 setting perfectly and all is working great so far. 
 

Just some additional notes, my growatts would not load both firmwares, only the first one loaded, the second one just didn’t ever kick off. 
 

One slight concern, the Battery charge rate often drops to 5amps, which is pretty low. Not sure why this is, even when running from Eskom. 
 

Andy did mention that for all the battery modules to calibrate correctly with the dunes a FW, the battery needs to charge to 100 percent, then behind a discharge, then charge to 100% again, after which all should be calibrated. 
 

I’ll say again, Andy was next level helpful and genuine. Excellent service. 
 

 

Hi How did you sort the issue with the failed growatt firmware. I'm having the same issue with my growatt

[Bafaro69]

On 30/08/2020 at 15:12, TMAN99 said:

Salut Zimnismoboy34, veuillez partager le dernier firmware 500.80 pour l'onduleur Growatt, ayant une erreur BMS. [email protected]

Salut mon cher, j'ai le même problème d'erreur BMS avec mes onduleurs spf5000es,  donc si vous pouvez partager avec moi la mise à jour logiciel.  Mon adresse mail c'est [email protected]

Merci d'avance. 

[Bafaro69]

1 minute ago, Bafaro69 said:

Salut mon cher, j'ai le même problème d'erreur BMS avec mes onduleurs spf5000es, donc si vous pouvez partager avec moi la mise à jour du logiciel. Mon adresse mail c'est [email protected]

Merci d'avance. 

Hi dear, I have the same BMS error problem with my spf5000es inverters, so if you can share the software update with me.  My email address is [email protected]