Good morning to you,

I'm new to the forum and need help please. I have a 5Kva Mecer inverter and a US3000 Pylontech with an ICC. I added another pylon tech but it's a US3000C. The US3000C is the master and all the connections are done correctly as specified. The US3000's Link Port 0 goes to the US3000C's Link Port 1 and the ICC is in the Console Port. The US3000C goes into protection mode at least once a day and then switches off. Is the US3000 and the US3000C compatible with each other? Furthermore, the ICC also does not show the US3000 battery, but only the US3000C.
Can anyone give me advice please?

Can't comment on ICC and your specific setup. 

I've added a new US3000C battery on Monday to my existing bank of 3 x US3000B batteries and everything seems to be working fine. 

I did balance my battery bank first before connecting them back to the inverter. 

Has this been happening since adding the new battery? 

Edited March 17, 20215 yr by Achmat

Hi Achmat,

Thanks for your feedback. Yes the system ran very well before I hooked up the US3000C. The problem started when I added the US3000C. Can I ask you how you got your dip switches on the batteries? Could this possibly be the problem?

It is critical that you balance the batteries (get them to the same SOC) before connecting, as @Achmat said.  Did you do this?

10 minutes ago, Bouts said:

Hi Achmat,

Thanks for your feedback. Yes the system ran very well before I hooked up the US3000C. The problem started when I added the US3000C. Can I ask you how you got your dip switches on the batteries? Could this possibly be the problem?

Dip switches are all down in the same position for all batteries. 

Your batteries should be balanced before connecting them to the inverter. 

I did it slightly different. 

Step 1 charge existing battery bank to 100% SOC. 

Step 2 disconnect existing battery bank from inverter. 

Step 3 connect new single US3000C battery to inverter and charge it to 100% SOC. It comes shipped at 50% SOC. 

Step 4 disconnect new battery from inverter after 100% SOC is reached. 

Step 5 connect new battery to existimg battery bank and wait for them to balance each other. All led lights should go off and battery should go into standby when this is achieved. Mine took less than 20 minutes as they all were at 100% SOC. 

Step 6 connect the full battery bank to the inverter making sure that that the new battery is the master.

I did not balance the batteries. This may be my problem. I will do that and then give you feedback. Thank you very much for your help and advice. I sincerely appreciate it.

2 minutes ago, Bouts said:

I did not balance the batteries. This may be my problem. I will do that and then give you feedback. Thank you very much for your help and advice. I sincerely appreciate it.

Hope it fixes your problem. 

The balancing information should really be included in the manual by pylontech when adding a new battery to an existing battery bank. 

Is it possible you have the correct cable to connect ICC to the US3000C ?

I do know that when I added a US3000C to my 2 US3000B I had to get a new CANBus cable to connect the Victron to the BMS - apparently the pinouts have changed - the Victron picked up the battery fine with the old cable, but there were some funnies (e.g negative temerature and random battery disconnects). Replacing my old CANBus cable with the new one for the US3000C sorted all my issues.

 

see also https://powerforum.co.za/topic/7901-pylontech-us3000c/

 

Edited March 17, 20215 yr by starmage

Hi Starmage

Yes I got the cable from Centurion solar specifically for the US3000C to the ICC that connects to the Console port

They have different cables for both models.

 

On 2021/03/17 at 11:08 AM, Bouts said:

I did not balance the batteries. This may be my problem. I will do that and then give you feedback. Thank you very much for your help and advice. I sincerely appreciate it.

Hi Bouts,

Did you get your problem fixed. I seem to have the same problem. I got in contact with Pylontech and the say the battery is faulty.

Here are my symptoms that I sent them:

"I am having problems. I bought a US3000B battery last year and it was running fine. I then wanted to expand the system and got a US3000C battery to connect with the US3000B as one battery bank.

1. US3000B does not accept being the master. Both batteries turn on but US3000B show a error.

2. When I make US3000C the master all seems OK and both charge to 100% SOC. When they discharge the US3000C gives a error when it got to approximately 50% SOC. The US3000B continued supplying power.

3. I tried balancing the batteries. Nothing else connected just the batteries to each other. Both were fully charged and the US3000C charged the US3000B for about an hour and then the US3000B's lights went out. The US3000C's lights were still on. I left it for another hour but the US3000C's lights never went out. I return the batteries to service but this morning the US3000B soc was at 20% while the US3000C was still at 55% SOC.

Could you please assist and tell me what to do or to try. The dip switch settings is not very clear from the US3000C manual, must they be up or down?"

Their Reply:

"Thanks for your information. Your connection is correct, but I'm afraid the sampling cables on the PCB of the US3000C has broken, could you tell me the serial number of your US3000C and where you bought this battery from? We will arrange a free further service for you."

And a further explanation:

"Thanks for your technical support. Limiting battery's depth of discharge(can be charged to full but can not be charged to low SOC)  is an obvious phenomenon for sampling cable error (the cable was possibly to be corroded by the mist on the sea surface because the batteries were shipped to SA), and it is required to swap the PCB in the battery to fix it. If you want, you can try to run the US3000C by itself, it may also stop discharging at 50%. "

Hope this help. If you solved your problem please let me know. I will also update.

Hi thanks for sharing 

I've just added a 3000c to 3x 3000b

I've balanced the batteries as per above twice but the c won't discharge lower than 61%. The older went down to 35%.

Has your problem been resolved with the new battery?

Hi I did this:

I connected the US3000C by it self and every thing went as expected.
It charged normally and discharged fully. I ran it for 2 cycles with no problems.
I then let it charge fully and then connected to the US3000B witch was fully charged when I disconnected the US3000C.
I then connected the batteries with only the high power cables and switched them on.
It almost balanced immediately but I left them to sit like that for 15 minutes.
I then turned them off and connected the link cable(RJ45 cables) and the rest of the system.
It ran one full cycle with out any problem now.

I have sent this to Pylontech and waiting their reply to see if they still feel there is a problem.

I will still test to see if every thing is fine now. It seems the US3000c had to first run a full cycle on its own.

This is what it looked like this morning at 07:00. Both at 30% SOC.

Edited March 22, 20215 yr by Henwilsch
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Hi Pylontech replied:

"That's wired. In this case, the system looks normal. Please observe a few more cycles."

 

Thanks for the reply 

Did you check the voltages were the same on both batteries at the SOC?

Is it normal for the Red Fault light to flash intermittently? It seems to  flash when the pv and utility charge is high about 95A.

 

33 minutes ago, Henwilsch said:

Hi Pylontech replied:

"That's wired. In this case, the system looks normal. Please observe a few more cycles."

 

Hi RobG,

I got max charging set to 50A for  the two batteries. Did not notice any flashing reds.

Just some feedback.

The US3000C is definitely faulty. I cleared all its log data and even the cycle count went back to 0. Now it charges to 53% soc and thinks it is full. It ran fine for 2 days and then started giving problems again.

This does not boost any confidence in the model US3000C batteries.

I there another brand of battery that can be used together with Pylontech batteries?

I returned mine as faulty and am waiting for the report before buying another.

Really frustrating when the brand you were trusting decides to change it all after 2 years.

Pylontech promised to replace the battery, hopefully next week. We will see if the new battery is any better.

After letting the US3000C cycle alone as Henwilsch did, the problem seems to be solved. I ran it 3 cycles alone and then hooked up with the US3000(SOC 100%). I then left the two alone for about 20min to sync. It ran all weekend without any problems.
Henwilsch has your battery gone into protection mode again? Why did you decide to clear the data log?

40 minutes ago, Bouts said:

After letting the US3000C cycle alone as Henwilsch did, the problem seems to be solved. I ran it 3 cycles alone and then hooked up with the US3000(SOC 100%). I then left the two alone for about 20min to sync. It ran all weekend without any problems.
Henwilsch has your battery gone into protection mode again? Why did you decide to clear the data log?

Mine is definitely faulty. I ran fine for two days and then started with problems again. See above post.

Is there any documentation from Pylontech about setting up with the older batteries?

Segen Solar are the supply people.

I called and spoke to someone there who said that they can't post the correct procedure on the Forum!! Why I don't know. It seems up to us, the end users to figure it out and let them know. She said that the Master dip switch number 1 should be on!! That seems wrong 

22 hours ago, Bouts said:

After letting the US3000C cycle alone as Henwilsch did, the problem seems to be solved. I ran it 3 cycles alone and then hooked up with the US3000(SOC 100%). I then left the two alone for about 20min to sync. It ran all weekend without any problems.
Henwilsch has your battery gone into protection mode again? Why did you decide to clear the data log?

Sorry I did not see your last question. I see I made a typo. Should read: " It cleared all its log data and even the cycle count went back to 0." The battery did that by itself, no doing of mine.

This is interesting. Losing confidence in Pylontech now.
Mine are still running well from last week Friday, but there was just too many issues. I got this link that you use to look at the data on the BMS, and see why the battery goes into protection mode. You need to use the ICC cable from the console port to your PC. I have not yet had a chance to see if it works. Maybe you can try it if you want and let us know🤪
 
https://wetransfer.com/downloads/c8b26d7370b0194ee82fef9990745d0620210326113037/fd7f6988daecdd963a9548a5bcca08a220210326113103/5f4d69

I actually got a newer version from Pylontech "BatteryView_us2000b_series_3.0.24" and I was busy getting the Log data of the Battery for them. I could only get Cycle data. Event data and Chg/Dischg Data showed an out of bounds message. Then the battery lost all data, even cycle count. After that the battery would not go to 100% SOC anymore. Though all cells was sitting at 3,5V it remained at 53% soc.

I received this from my supplier.

The docs are attached

It`s been noticed that among new installations of US2000C/US3000C,in fewcasesof the moduleswill suffer buzzer ringingwithalarm lighting on permanentlyafter installation in a short period.The root cause of buzzer ringingwith alarm lighting on permanentlyis the modules have experienced overcharge to above 55Vdc or power device on BMS is damaged,which triggered the secondary protection elementsdeployed on the BMS. In either case it will need a replacement of the BMS.During further analysis, it`s found that in all cases the modules have beenovercharged to above 55Vdc.This ismainly due tothe communication between inverter and battery haven`t been set up properly.

Note US2000C&US3000C- Dip Switch & Cable Pins.pdf