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Kodak VMiii Axpert 48v inverter and Pylontech US3000 settings


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Posted

Sorry if this is a repeat.  I did a search but couldn't find any information in this regard.  I'm looking for the above inverter's settings if connected to a Pylontech US3000.

Thanks in advance.

Posted (edited)

You probably have the option of direct connection to the Pylontech's BMS. What is your removable display (U2) firmware version?

Edit: and if you use the direct to BMS cable, there are many fewer settings that need attention.

Edited by Coulomb
Posted (edited)
On 2020/08/13 at 5:23 AM, Coulomb said:

You probably have the option of direct connection to the Pylontech's BMS. What is your removable display (U2) firmware version?

Edit: and if you use the direct to BMS cable, there are many fewer settings that need attention.

It is a friend's inverter I helped installing it.  Yes there was a cable with the Kodak for direct connection.  And after I selected "pyl" as battery typed basically everything important was automatically set.  Only one thing is bothering me.  After about an hour the inverter's alarm starting beeping and inverter displays Fault 69.  I phoned the supplier and he assured me it's not a a fault, its only the battery that is busy stabilising and that it could take 2 - 3 days.  Have other members also experiencing the same thing?

Edited by Cassie
Spelling mistake
Posted
15 hours ago, Cassie said:

inverter displays Fault 69.  I phoned the supplier and he assured me it's not a a fault, 

Yes, it's just a warning. I believe that in later removable display firmwares, they suppress the beeping. Others have mentioned this.

Posted
4 hours ago, Coulomb said:

Yes, it's just a warning. I believe that in later removable display firmwares, they suppress the beeping. Others have mentioned this.

Thanks Coulomb,  I noticed in Batteries, under the thread about this problem, you suggested that one must change setting 27 to 51.8v, and leaving setting 26 at 53.2v.  We're going to try it.

Thanks 

Posted (edited)
On 2020/08/15 at 5:57 PM, Cassie said:

Thanks Coulomb,  I noticed in Batteries, under the thread about this problem, you suggested that one must change setting 27 to 51.8v, and leaving setting 26 at 53.2v.

Actually, 53.2 V is high, and could be causing problems. If you're not using a direct-to-BMS cable, these are my recommended Pylontech-related settings:

 

image.png.2c7365e2b10fa145f61c9e158aa7ba82.png

[ Edit March 2021: Added green text to image. ]

Edited by Coulomb
Posted
On 2020/08/15 at 10:58 AM, Coulomb said:

Actually, 53.2 V is high, and could be causing problems. If you're not using a direct-to-BMS cable, these are my recommended Pylontech-related settings:

Yes as said before I used the direct BMS cable.  The Kodak is set on Pyl, the battery is fully charged all the green Leds are on and the inverter shows 53.1v  - but the inverter is keep on charging like it's trying to constantly pushing current to the battery because, I presume. it thinks the battery is not yet fully charged.

What must I do because on pr. 5 it's set on Pyl (as said before) and that disable me from changing the Charge- and/or the Float voltages. ?  Plase help we are worried that we can damage the battery, or will the BMS of the Pylontech prevents that?

Thanks

Posted
2 hours ago, Cassie said:

What must I do because on pr. 5 it's set on Pyl (as said before) and that disable me from changing the Charge- and/or the Float voltages. ?

I had the same thing happening with a Phocos inverter, I had to set it to user first make all the changes for charge settings and then change back to pyl again. It might be worth trying it.

Posted

I have this inverter and Pylontech battery. I honestly recommend using the ICC software + Pi to manage communications between battery and inverter. It allows you to also setup / change a bunch of things remotely and not need to go to the inverter. 

 

Here's my setup: 

290142482_Screenshot2020-08-22at11_56_43.thumb.png.f75e7be4e94543a1747344b798206b26.png

Posted
1 minute ago, Rclegg said:

I have this inverter and Pylontech battery. I honestly recommend using the ICC software + Pi to manage communications between battery and inverter. It allows you to also setup / change a bunch of things remotely and not need to go to the inverter. 

Thanks.  I understood (when it was bought by a friend of mine) that for this Inverter one did not need to us the ICC +Pi.    But surely it's not handling the Pyl correctly.  I have 2 Axperts in parallel and running it smoothly with ICC + Pi.

Posted
16 minutes ago, Gerrie said:

I had the same thing happening with a Phocos inverter, I had to set it to user first make all the changes for charge settings and then change back to pyl again. It might be worth trying it.

Thanks Gerrie, when you change it back to Pyl (after the changes to the charge settings)  didn't the charge settings jumped back to the Pyl charge settings again or did it stay as you changed it?

Posted
1 minute ago, Cassie said:

Thanks.  I understood (when it was bought by a friend of mine) that for this Inverter one did not need to us the ICC +Pi.    But surely it's not handling the Pyl correctly.  I have 2 Axperts in parallel and running it smoothly with ICC + Pi.

 

It doesn't "need" it no. But it helps so much to get a visual on what is happening and it reads the Pylontech battery much better than the Inverter can and make decisions based on SOC of battery. Eg when to switch to Solar Vs Grid. Also has better control over your battery voltages and cut off voltages etc. 

Posted
29 minutes ago, Cassie said:

didn't the charge settings jumped back to the Pyl charge settings again or did it stay as you changed it?

The settings did stay the same as I changed it when switching back to Pyl.

Posted
5 hours ago, Cassie said:

Yes as said before I used the direct BMS cable

Sorry; I'm across a lot of posts.

5 hours ago, Cassie said:

What must I do because on pr. 5 it's set on Pyl (as said before) and that disable me from changing the Charge- and/or the Float voltages. ?  Please help we are worried that we can damage the battery, or will the BMS of the Pylontech prevents that?

I don't believe that you'll damage the battery, at least not in an immediate sense. Hopefully, some sort of compromise will be worked out so that these inverters don't keep causing this warning, hopefully by using a lower voltage than recommended by the BMS, which will also increase battery life. To a very large extent, the BMS will save the battery, although I do wish they would not recommend (in specifications and in the BMS values sent to the inverters) such high charging voltages.

It will be good to know what the remote display firmware (U2) version is, if/when you can get to it. I believe that the VM III remote panels share the same firmware as Axpert Kings remote panels, with some run-time splitting of code. I've not heard anything about VM III firmware versions; I wonder if they're being left behind. It's possible that there are bugs in the VM III specific parts of the firmware (something like 99% of the code is common, with tiny divergences here and there).

If it's no extra trouble, I'd also be interested in the U1 (main DSP) firmware version.

Posted
2 hours ago, Gerrie said:

The settings did stay the same as I changed it when switching back to Pyl.

Interesting. But I think as soon as the inverter decides it's talking directly to the BMS because it's receiving BMS packets, it will just ignore the EEPROM settings (other than locking you out from changing them).

I think it happens like this: the BMS tells the inverter to charge to 53.2 V. The inverter does so, or gets close to it with the available sunlight. A load drops off, and/or the sun comes out from a cloud, and the battery voltage surges to say 54 V. The inverter notices this, but its control system suffers from integral windup, so it's still working on old information which was "go flat out, you're not quite at  the target voltage (which was 53.2 V) yet". So the battery voltage keeps rising, to say 55 V, and the BMS sends the "stop all charging" command. Inverter says "oops, OK", and drops the charge current but turns on the warning beeper and shows warning 69. Now the battery voltage drops to say 51 V, and the BMS tells the inverter to target 53.2 V again, and the whole cycle repeats.

Meanwhile, the value you set in EEPROM is ignored; overridden by the BMS commands, which are taken literally (you asked for 53.2 V, you got it, and a little more). There may be other commands setting the maximum charge current, which the removable display communicates to the DSP, and it works on the next lowest multiple of 10 A, because current limits are communicated in very few bits in CAN packets between master and slaves. That's when there are paralleled machines of course, but even a stand alone system has the same limitations, because one day it may be called on to become a parallel master or slave. My guess is that the VM III, which can never parallel, still keeps the same limitations, to make the firmwares similar and easier to manage.

At least, that's how I see it, without understanding all the code as yet. But if you find otherwise, that only helps trying to figure out what's happening.

Posted
19 minutes ago, Coulomb said:

It will be good to know what the remote display firmware (U2) version is, if/when you can get to it. I believe that the VM III remote panels share the same firmware as Axpert Kings remote panels, with some run-time splitting of code. I've not heard anything about VM III firmware versions; I wonder if they're being left behind. It's possible that there are bugs in the VM III specific parts of the firmware (something like 99% of the code is common, with tiny divergences here and there).

If it's no extra trouble, I'd also be interested in the U1 (main DSP) firmware version.

Hi Coulomb,

I will see my friend in the near future again (maybe next week end), then I will check on the firmware for you.  Sorry I'm not so familiar with all the techno language yet and how to get it.   The Kodak VM  III is completely new to me.

Posted
On 2020/08/22 at 2:43 PM, Coulomb said:

It will be good to know what the remote display firmware (U2) version is, if/when you can get to it. I believe that the VM III remote panels share the same firmware as Axpert Kings remote panels, with some run-time splitting of code. I've not heard anything about VM III firmware versions; I wonder if they're being left behind. It's possible that there are bugs in the VM III specific parts of the firmware (something like 99% of the code is common, with tiny divergences here and there).

If it's no extra trouble, I'd also be interested in the U1 (main DSP) firmware version.

Hi Coulomb, I managed to get you the firmware versions.  I took shots of it.  The secondary CPU version is : 00002.40  and the Main CPU version is:  00041.14  and the Secondary Bluetooth version is:  00000.24

IMG_6465.jpeg

IMG_6469.jpeg

IMG_6457.jpeg

Posted
On 2020/08/22 at 12:45 PM, Cassie said:
On 2020/08/22 at 12:43 PM, Gerrie said:

The settings did stay the same as I changed it when switching back to Pyl.

Ok thanks Gerrie, going to try it

Hi Gerrie,

I changed it but didn't change back to Pyl.  We left it on user (2 days ago) just to see how the inverter and pylon behave.   So far it's going perfect, the inverter behave itself (not trying to charge continuously) and the battery displays 52.9 - 53.1V.    

Posted
2 hours ago, Cassie said:

 We left it on user (2 days ago) just to see how the inverter and pylon behave.   So far it's going perfect, the inverter behave itself (not trying to charge continuously) and the battery displays 52.9 - 53.1V.

It's starting to sound like the direct to BMS firmware in the Axperts isn't worth all the trouble, and the best route seems to be to connect ICC to the battery rather than the inverter's removable display. It's possibly going to lead to avoidable disconnection at some point, but only if the cells become out of balance or some other unusual issue crops up.

A possible exception might be for those battery BMSs that are supported by the Axpert firmware (there are 6 now, including Pylontech), but not (as yet) by ICC (as of this post, ICC seems to support 4 BMSs).

Is that what most users have come to believe?

  • 5 months later...
Posted

I saw the following on a site which makes me think the pylontech want make 100% use of the BMS/CAN? 

 

OG5.48 & OG-PLUS5.48 is not currently compatible with the Kodak L1 Battery standard communication protocol. Custom inverter settings need to be set.
  • Setting 12: 47.5V (setting back to grid)
  • Setting 13: 52.2V (Setting back to solar)
  • Setting 26: 53.2V (Bulk charge voltage)
  • Setting 27: 51V (Float charge voltage)
  • Setting 29: 46.5V (Cut- off voltage)

Important

Please ensure you use the communications cable supplied with the Kodak VMIII inverter and not that supplied in the Pylon cable pack when connecting the 5KW Kodak Solar Inverter to Pylon batteries. OG5.48 & OG-PLUS5.48 is not currently compatible with the Kodak L1 Battery standard communication protocol. Custom inverter settings need to be set.

  • 1 month later...
  • 2 weeks later...
Posted
On 2020/08/15 at 10:58 AM, Coulomb said:

Actually, 53.2 V is high, and could be causing problems. If you're not using a direct-to-BMS cable, these are my recommended Pylontech-related settings:

 

image.png.2c7365e2b10fa145f61c9e158aa7ba82.png

[ Edit March 2021: Added green text to image. ]

Hi Coulomb

 

Thanks for the info thus far. 

 

Brand new to solar, I just got my Panels connected up this morning to my Kodak VMIII.

 

Quick confirmation on the above:

-My BMS seems to be working properly, can I keep Program 05 on PYL or do I need to switch over to USE to get the best life out of my batteries? I don't mind using a bit more Grid power if it means my batteries last much longer.

-If I am on PYL, will it allow me to change these values you list or will it default back to the predetermined values?

-On Program 02, I have 2x US3000Cs, does this mean I set it to 2x37A = 74 rounded down to 70A?

 

Alwyn ("Vetplant" account still needs to be authorized by Admin)

Posted
20 hours ago, Vetplant2 said:

-My BMS seems to be working properly, can I keep Program 05 on PYL or do I need to switch over to USE to get the best life out of my batteries?

I would say leave it on PYL for now, see how it goes. maybe Weber and I will be able to release a version of the removable display firmware that will respect some of the limits, especially battery voltage limits.

Quote

-If I am on PYL, will it allow me to change these values you list or will it default back to the predetermined values?

I think it will let you change the values, but with PYL battery type, it will ignore the values. I think it reports the dynamic values from the BMS, I don't recall.

Quote

-On Program 02, I have 2x US3000Cs, does this mean I set it to 2x37A = 74 rounded down to 70A?

Yes.

Posted
On 2021/03/20 at 11:14 AM, Coulomb said:

I would say leave it on PYL for now, see how it goes. maybe Weber and I will be able to release a version of the removable display firmware that will respect some of the limits, especially battery voltage limits.

I think it will let you change the values, but with PYL battery type, it will ignore the values. I think it reports the dynamic values from the BMS, I don't recall.

Yes.

Thanks for the advice 👏

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