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Batteries & their total cycles / lifespan


PsyCLown

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22 minutes ago, Tariq said:

 

 

18 minutes ago, Brani said:

It is saying that in case you have a claim rejected and believe you are right, independent facility can test, and person in wrong must bare the cost. That seems like a fair deal in case of a dispute.

Saul had a faulty BMS on a brand new Hubble, and Leshen mentioned 2 cases of BMS fault on Hubble,where they replaced damaged batteries. So this is hardly a case of argument for one against another.

 

Saul didn’t have a faulty BMS. His battery had a cell that was defective. Regarding the 2 BMS failures, it was due to a voltage surge that occurred on the DC bus. 
 

We are discussing over-current issues on batteries where a BMS needs to shut a battery down, not total BMS failures. So that’s a moot point. 

Edited by Leshen
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26 minutes ago, Tariq said:

So the picture I am getting is that there is a bms, but if it does not do its job, it is not the manufacturers fault but somehow the clients fault, hmm interesting deduction.

Well that’s where matching a battery with an inverter is important so that the BMS doesn’t have to keep protecting the battery when an over-current occurs. 

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1 minute ago, Brani said:

Where did the surge come from on DC bus? Inverter or mppt? Wouldn’t that be a case of incorrect installation? If that is so, kudos to Hubble for replacing the batteries.

It was a case of improper installation. Loose connections on AC live wires, AC Surge Arrestor not wired. There are no panels, just battery backup. Just for background, this client had 2 inverters on different phases and both being used as a UPS with each having an AM2 and both BMS’s failed. 
 

Was definitely a voltage spike from the inverter. Hubble replaced it free of charge which was great for the client. 

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It's interesting to compare the warranties. Some observations:

  • The Pylontech warranty speaks about "The Territory" and in the definitions this does not include South Africa. I am guessing that Segen negotiated a deal with them to extend this, with Segen filtering warranty claims. This is possibly the reason why Segen gets to dictate stringent Ts and Cs. Glad it worked out for @Tariq.
  • The Pylontech warranty assumes a daily charge / discharge / ESS type system. In other words, if you're only using it for load-shedding (and thereby not discharging and charging everyday), then the warranty is void. "...be used on a daily cycle basis and only for energy storage system."
    Hubble on the other hand makes no such limitation, instead states " standby backup or daily cycling in UPS and Inverter systems including solar Inverters". 
  • Both warranties speak about temperature. Generally speaking, the Pylontech's wording about temperature appears to be very specific and strict, Hubble uses less strict language and generally appears to be far more reasonable.
  • Both warranties speak about having qualified people installing them. I have never encountered  " a Pylontech’s certified installer" in South Africa though, but I do know more than one " authorised Hubble Lithium reseller or installer".

Those are just the main differences, very interesting, and it may be useful to tabulate them for quick reference.

 

 

Edited by YellowTapemeasure
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7 minutes ago, YellowTapemeasure said:

It's interesting to compare the warranties. Some observations:

  • The Pylontech warranty speaks about "The Territory" and in the definitions this does not include South Africa. I am guessing that Segen negotiated a deal with them to extend this, with Segen filtering warranty claims. This is possibly the reason why Segen gets to dictate stringent Ts and Cs. Glad it worked out for @Tariq.
  • The Pylontech warranty assumes a daily charge / discharge / ESS type system. In other words, if you're only using it for load-shedding (and thereby not discharging and charging everyday), then the warranty is void. "...be used on a daily cycle basis and only for energy storage system."
    Hubble on the other hand makes no such limitation, instead states " standby backup or daily cycling in UPS and Inverter systems including solar Inverters". 
  • Both warranties speak about temperature. Generally speaking, the Pylontech's wording about temperature appears to be very specific and strict, Hubble uses less strict language and generally appears to be far more reasonable.
  • Both warranties speak about having qualified people installing them. I have never encountered  " a Pylontech’s certified installer" in South Africa though, but I do know more than one " authorised Hubble Lithium reseller or installer".

Those are just the main differences, very interesting, and it may be useful to tabulate them for quick reference.

 

 

Strangely though, at one point you were not allowed to use Pylontech in an off grid setup. Back then BYD was the only other battery that Segen offered which was off grid compatible. 
 

 

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From the Victron website. 
 

You must have the minimum number of battery modules to supply the inverters startup inrush surge currents that charge the capacitors when the inverter is first connected, this occurs prior to any loads being connected. There is also the subsequent potential current demands of the loads connected to the inverter. It is much more desirable to have the inverter/charger overload than the battery, as the inverter will automatically recover, whereas the battery may require intervention once in a fault state.

 

 

https://www.victronenergy.com/live/battery_compatibility:pylontech_phantom

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54 minutes ago, Brani said:

Hi Leshen,

isn’t this about pre-charging the DC bus, which many installers often don’t do? I have heard of few Pylontech batteries fail on startup due to this, with various inverters.

Hi Brani. 
 

Im glad you mentioned this because this is so contradictory to what all the Pylontech experts say. 
 

So Pylontech in their manual say on the one hand that AC power must be turned off when connecting their battery and on the other hand, they have a built in soft start feature to reduce the current strike when the inverter needs to start from the battery.  How else then is an inverter started? This feature is only available on the US3000C and UP5000. The US2000B seems to not have this soft start feature however no where in their manual does it ask to pre charge the DC bus on the inverter. Another contradiction. 
 

The so called embedded BMS doesn’t only work when a comms cable is attached, it’s working regardless and if the BMS was flawless as some think then we wouldn’t have all these over-current issues. That’s where good design is crucial because in my opinion it’s irresponsible to match an 8kw or 5kw inverter with 1 x US3000C and then expect the BMS to take care of everything. As I said before, for a BMS to detect an over-current event, it physically needs to occur as a BMS is a reactive control unit and why would anyone want to knowingly do that to a battery. 
 

The Pylontech experts would defend it and probably say that it’s my interpretation of the manual so maybe they will give another interpretation. 
 

 

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1 minute ago, Tariq said:

 The manufacturer designs the BMS to protect the battery, but will NOT stand behind their design, am I interpreting this correctly.

So is this true of every manufacturer or just Pylontech

Hi Tariq 

Maybe the installers of Pylontech can give more insight. I just showed what’s in the Pylontech installer manual as well as info from the Victron website. 

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On 2021/06/05 at 1:02 PM, Boerseun said:

The Pylontech installation manual provides clear steps to ensure the correct set-up and installation of the batteries in a system. Before installation, be sure to cut off the grid power and make sure the battery is in the turned-off mode. Also remember: • Wiring must be correct, do not mistake the positive and negative cables, and ensure no short circuit with the external device. • It is prohibited to connect the battery and AC power directly. • The embedded BMS in the battery is designed for 48VDC, please DO NOT connect the battery in series. • The battery system must be well grounded and the resistance must be less than 1 ohm. • Please ensure the electrical parameters of battery system are compatible to related equipment. • Keep the battery away from water and fire. 

This all sounds quite reasonable to me. Manufacturers should provide a warranty, but there should also be some responsibility on the other side that the equipment is being used reasonably and correctly.

It's been a long time, but I used to work on a bench servicing various types of electronic equipment made by a big name Japanese company. They were proud of their reputation and made sure that even a small (for them) operation like the South African franchise holder honored warranties and ran their workshop to the required standard (we even had a specification for solder, they didn't want just any old solder being used on their gear). But we had a constant fight going on because people used to do the most bizarre things with equipment (I have some lovely shaggy dog stories about this, including the one customer who complained that his watch stopped every time he got angry). Or they would get repairs or service done by some fly by night operation, or they would actually get the wires mixed up and put the negative where there positive should be. 

I now work in software. In a previous job we used a particular database product on a particular operating system. The vendor of the database product was not happy because their product was not certified on that operating system and threatened to withdraw all support. We said "but it works! This is our company's bread and butter system and we're not going to run it on any old pile of junk. Trust us. WE tested it." Their position (now I no longer have a dog in the fight I think it not unreasonable) is that they had not the opportunity to stress test their product on this particular operating system. Usually they would do this and then either just certify the vanilla product for that OS or modify the vanilla version to run on that OS and would ensure that you ran matched products. Their reputation was at stake as well our money, and whilst our combination did work and was very close to other combinations that they had certified, why should they allow the precedent of running their product on any old operating system and risk reputational damage?

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15 hours ago, Leshen said:

You must have the minimum number of battery modules to supply the inverters startup inrush surge currents that charge the capacitors when the inverter is first connected, this occurs prior to any loads being connected. There is also the subsequent potential current demands of the loads connected to the inverter

I am no expert but this does sound like good practice because Victron have biggish transformers unlike the Axpert type inverter and the inrush when the Victron transformer is powered could cause serious overloading on the supply side when energized , and to make things worse would be to try and start a 5KW motor load with a 3.5KWH Pylontech battery at power-up. This will push that battery to its limits even though it is for a few milli-seconds it could cause alarms or issues with the battery, the battery switching capacity is probably rated for 3.5KW plus a little extra for safety but abusing this capacity is going to have consequences. I suppose the battery would have a certain KA rating and if their is a fault current exceeding that KA it will be the end of that battery like with any electrical circuit breaker. 

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Wow, this thread really took off, a whole 5 pages happened over the weekend. lol

 

So warranty wise, it seems some brands are a bit more strict but I can understand why and this certainly needs to be taken into ones decision when looking at the various brands and which one to consider. Batteries play a big role in ones setup and they aren't cheap, we all know they have a limited lifespan so quite an important decision to be made.

 

Pylontech seem to have a battery which may achieve more cycles until it reaches its end of life, the downside being one needs to have a few batteries together in order to achieve higher charge and discharge rates and possibly to ensure a warranty claim is honoured.

 

@Boerseun @Leshen What is the issue with the US3000C batteries? I saw one of you make mention of the US3000C batteries having an issue or something?

I saw the US5000 battery has a shorter warranty now.

 

 

For interest sake, what other batteries might offer good value for money which would be fine to use with a Sunsynk inverter?

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On 2021/06/05 at 2:02 PM, Leshen said:

As requested. Anything else you would like from Hubble?

Hubble Lithium AM-2 Warranty (1).pdf 367.91 kB · 22 downloads

Hi,

I also last week did some research on batteries, and searched this forum a lot. Thanks for all the valuable info you guys share. Appreciated.

I also checked the warrantees and opened a copy of the document @Leshen shared before on the forum. Showed a 10 year warrantee. Also looked at the UP5000, but saw the warrantee now 5 years only. I then decided on the Hubble AM-2, but just before I pulled the trigger, asked for a warrantee terms document from supplier. Then got a new warrantee document for 5 years. Phoned Hubble and yes, they reduced their warrantee lately. 

So this concerns me, seems like the latest models of some manufacturers have less warrantee. Not sure why? I opted for the "older" 6.4kw bulls battery. Hope I made the correct decision...

@Leshen, for future ref, here is the new warrantee document attached.

 

Hubble-Lithium-AM-2-Warranty_2021_v3.pdf

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36 minutes ago, PhilipSm said:

Hi,

I also last week did some research on batteries, and searched this forum a lot. Thanks for all the valuable info you guys share. Appreciated.

I also checked the warrantees and opened a copy of the document @Leshen shared before on the forum. Showed a 10 year warrantee. Also looked at the UP5000, but saw the warrantee now 5 years only. I then decided on the Hubble AM-2, but just before I pulled the trigger, asked for a warrantee terms document from supplier. Then got a new warrantee document for 5 years. Phoned Hubble and yes, they reduced their warrantee lately. 

So this concerns me, seems like the latest models of some manufacturers have less warrantee. Not sure why? I opted for the "older" 6.4kw bulls battery. Hope I made the correct decision...

@Leshen, for future ref, here is the new warrantee document attached.

 

Hubble-Lithium-AM-2-Warranty_2021_v3.pdf 521.64 kB · 7 downloads

Just Spoke to Hubble Lithium they confirmed that their warranty on the AM2 is 10 Years 

 

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Local Warranty & Repairs

 
Direct Hubble Axpert integration

 

The AM series is backed by a 10-year local warranty.

A local warranty means we locally service and repair the units. This provides us to have a fast turnaround time and support our clients better.

We have service & repair centers in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

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Just now, hoohloc said:

They are taking long to respond, but let me send them a reminder

Thanks. Will be nice to hear what they say about pairing. Did you read what Victron says about pairing their inverters with Pylontech? 

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Hi all

stupid question: What is the recommended DOD of the Hubble AM? I see that for the AM-3 they write 3,000 cycles at 100% DOD and 6,000+ cycles at 50% DOD. That is a pretty big range between these numbers...

What DOD should I be cycling these to on a daily basis - to get a comparable cycle life e.g., to the Pylons?

Any ideas? 

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20 minutes ago, wolfandy said:

Hi all

stupid question: What is the recommended DOD of the Hubble AM? I see that for the AM-3 they write 3,000 cycles at 100% DOD and 6,000+ cycles at 50% DOD. That is a pretty big range between these numbers...

What DOD should I be cycling these to on a daily basis - to get a comparable cycle life e.g., to the Pylons?

Any ideas? 

Hi Andy. 
 

Cycle them down to 80% DOD. 

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