Costa Posted February 15, 2021 Posted February 15, 2021 (edited) Hello Guys and Girls, This is my first post on the forum! I have spent enough hours lurking around, reading through various posts with extremely useful info and have realised that this community has some exceptionally knowledgeable people. So I started typing my first post… in panic…to seek advice, when my FCS-KING-5000W-MPPT wouldn’t power up and displayed “Error 32”… Rewind and background info: My (current V2.0) installation has been running since Dec 2018. I am using the 5kW KING purely for UPS backup power for all my essentials at home. It is powered by 4x 200Ah Allgrand AGMs. The load varies between 250W to 600W (ignoring the startup spike from the fridge). I also have a 9KVA gennie (for additional backup) when the Jhb city council leaves us in the dark for day’s on end (aging distribution infrastructure + frequent cable theft and substation vandalisms). On the odd occasion, my batteries are able to carry me through the whole night until the gennie is fired up in the morning and the batteries can get a 4h bulk charge at 30amps…and again another 4h bulk charge before we go to bed! My system is currently offline, because the AGMs have lost capacity and I am busy with efforts to recondition/recover them (I will post a separate writeup with those details and the mixed results and progress). Last night, after completing another round of individual battery capacity load tests, their individual discharge states were similar enough that I was confident to use the onboard charger to bulk charge the lot. I have recently added a HA02 battery balancer (more about that in the separate writeup). So, I hooked them up to the KING and attempted to power up…and got the “Error 32”! I have spent the whole day today trying to read up and only found the following: Power Forum - Axpert King Inverter Firmware Power Forum - Axpert King 5kva (Mustek unit) Remote Display not working YouTube - how to repair inverex vm 3 inverter fault 32 I also spoke to Paul at FCS. He also indicated that Error 32 was related to the LCD display and possibly a faulty board. I would have to bring it in for inspection/repair – hopefully only 1 or 2 days turnaround for repair. So, while typing this post, I went back and tried to power it up again, to take a photo of the error screen. Voila! It powered up normally! No Error 32! So, since I had already prepared this writeup, I decided to post it nonetheless. Has anyone had any similar experience? Any thoughts or insights on this? I have had to power up and power down a few times over the last couple of weeks, as part of conducting individual battery tests. Could the “relatively frequent” power ups and downs have caused this? PS. I have a lot of empathy for the initial charge-up of the capacitors. I don’t like the high inrush current exhibited by the Axpert king when you connect the batteries. So I copied the idea of the pre-charge button used by Microcare (my previous installation V1.0) and installed a momentary bush-button to pre-charge the capacitors via a 22Ω 100W resistor (limits the current to approx. 2 amps) and only then engage and latch the fuse. Edited February 15, 2021 by Costa typing error Quote
Coulomb Posted February 16, 2021 Posted February 16, 2021 14 hours ago, Costa said: Could the “relatively frequent” power ups and downs have caused this? I would not think so. But then again, was your pre-charge circuit in place for those frequent power ups? Everyone should be using pre-charge from day zero. The extremely high charge current is not good for the capacitors, which protect the MOSFETs, but also the high rate of current change could combine with various inductances to create high voltage spikes, which can definitely cause harm, and conceivably recoverable glitches such as you found. Warning 32 (why can't people distinguish errors from warnings?) must presumably be instigated by the removable display processor. I haven't found that pathway as yet, so I can't confirm. It isn't documented anywhere that I've found (but that's sadly not surprising). Quote
Costa Posted February 16, 2021 Author Posted February 16, 2021 Hello Coulomb, Thank You for your response. Yes, the pre-charge was already in place and I have been using it meticulously. Apologies for my oversight in refering to Warning 32 as an Error (I will edit the post and rectify accordingly). Some additional info (possibly relevant) regarding the power down that preceded the occurrence of Warning 32; I had just completed another round of individual battery capacity tests, but due to unforeseen delays, this had taken much longer than planned and I had started partially charging the 2x batteries that were sitting discharged for more than 5hours. Once the 4th battery was also ready for recharge, I powered up the KING to recharge the lot. I immediately observed an overvoltage condition on one of the batteries (>16V) due to the very unbalanced SOC’s of the 4 batteries. So in my haste/panic, I botched the power-down sequence. I first disconnected the DC fuse to stop the charging . I recall the KING hovering in charging mode, trying to deliver 56.8v into an open circuit. I waited a few seconds and it just hovered in charge mode. I then cut the AC supply to the KING and abruptly shut it down! The more I think about it, it is most likely that this is what caused the Warning 32 which appeared on the next power-up! (ie interrupting the DC before the AC). (Doesn't the KING's display processor also handle the comms with external battery BMS's?....perhaps the Warning 32 was referring to loss of battery DC & comms as opposed to an LCD warning) GreenMan 1 Quote
GreenMan Posted February 16, 2021 Posted February 16, 2021 I pushed the "Like" button for your pre-charge arrangement. Your setup was a bit easier as you only have 1x fuse. Costa 1 Quote
Costa Posted February 16, 2021 Author Posted February 16, 2021 4 hours ago, GreenMan said: I pushed the "Like" button for your pre-charge arrangement. Your setup was a bit easier as you only have 1x fuse. Thank You GreenMan Quote
Ant Posted February 22, 2021 Posted February 22, 2021 Thanks Costa for your post, it was helpful in trouble shooting my Warning 32 , on an Axpert 5kw King after installing some fresh Pylontech batteries. After several attempts to boot without this Warning 32 , I gave up and called it a day. It was highly frustrating , I disconnected batteries and PV solar strings and attempted a clean boot many a time from the battery power, to no avail. On return the next day I decided the only thing left to do to get a clean boot without this error is to FIRST disconnect my AC Input voltage completely, the PV string and batteries were already off the entire night . And presto, on first start I had no Warning 32 the next day! I surmise that the AC Input was keeping something alive in the Axpert enough to hold the warning in memory, even though the batteries were off for longer than 5 minutes the day before, and the unit appeared absolutely powered off. Perhaps you really need to rest the unit for a stubbornly long time to get all the caps drained! i.e. hours ! We know that this unit can ONLY be powered up by a battery , but this situation perhaps suggest that the AC input has a small enough effect to keep the warning 32 in memory? -Just my opinion. My suggested solution for anyone else having this problem, would be to disconnect the PV solar strings, AC Input, and then the batteries and watch the unit power off. Wait as long as you can . Then power up the batteries only to get the clean boot and no warning 32. Switch on your PV Input and AC Input once the unit has settled. Costa and Clint 2 Quote
Mervyn Posted March 17, 2022 Posted March 17, 2022 Hi Ant. I seem to be having this same issue. Several attempts to follow your suggestions have not helped. Perhaps I am missing something. Can to detail a step by step manner of switching off and starting up again and the duration of time to have the Inverter switched off. Quote
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