Good info Maverick on the 3 hours. From Discover rack batts (5) &
Schneider
The closed loop charge voltage is around mid to high 55V, the current
will only decrease once the target charge voltage is reached.
You can see the target charge voltage on both lynk II and Schneider
side.
This will not damage the battery and it is beneficial for the batteries
since balancing only kicks in usually at the very top.
Dave Angelini Offgrid Solar
"we go where powerlines don't"
[1]https://offgridsolar1.com/ [2] [1]
e-mail [email protected]
text 209 813 0060
On 2025-05-17 7:49 am, Maverick Brown via RE-wrenches wrote:
Jason,
I think it is valuable to have SOC information available if you also
have an InsightHome device that can show the SOC data for reference
etc. For legacy inverters, voltage still makes the decisions.
I don't know of any battery that communicates together to balance
between individual battery entities. That still leaves the necessity to
charge via voltage high enough to get all batteries to high and similar
SOC.
The E-BOX says via Pylontech protocol that its battery voltage range is
46.5V to 56.8V, so I think 48V LBCO is fine and certainly 44 is too
low.
There is a ".8" version of battery firmware and a ".16" version. I can
send you the .16 version that I have (SPBMS16SRP2205V1.5.18.C16). I use
HyperTerminal to install the software and it is the absolute easiest
battery to view the details using the Pytes USB to Serial cable (other
cable brands could also work). HyperTerminal was provided free by
Pytes. I can send you that as well. A lot of this might still be on
their website.
I lieu of having a Pytes Hub to stack the existing bank as multiple
groups of 10 batteries, you could upgrade each battery to .16 firmware
and make two communicating stacks of 10 that don't communicate
together. If you have InsightHome, you can wire the CAN port of the
left 10 to Insight and the RS485 port of the right stack to Inight and
make "two battery banks" show up in Insight. On the Pytes, the CAN RJ45
Blue pair is CAN and the Orange Pair is RS485 (from the RS485 port). If
you have InsightFacity you can use both CAN ports. CAN devices show up
automatically and RS485 device need to be setup via InsightLocal /
Setup / Device Detection / Detect Device / RS-485: 1 to 10.
On the Charge Controllers, I would set Absorb to 55.2 for 3 hours.
I even started using EQ at 56.0 on some systems.
Good luck today!
Maverick Brown
Off-Grid Solar Commander since 2006
Maverick Solar Enterprises, Inc.
* Solar Commander Remote Power
* SunFlow Systems Cathodic Protection
[email protected]
512-460-9825
On May 16, 2025, at 6:22 PM, Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches
<[email protected]> wrote:
The advantages of closed loop communication between LFP batteries and
inverter systems are pretty obvious. But when you are operating in an
open loop because you are working with a legacy inverter that does not
support battery communication, how important is it for batteries to be
wired together?
I started contemplating this today when I ran into a Pytes stack of 20
E-Box 48100R (5kWh) batteries. Whoever installed them wired all 20 in
a single communication daisy chain. Come to find out, this version of
the battery only supports 8 or 16 in a communications network. The
bank is connected to a couple of XW+ inverters, so it is operating
based on voltage. The owner must have had to use an unconventional
method to turn the batteries on, because typically you would only
press the switch on the master battery. In this case, that doesn't
work because the communication chain is broken at some point.
The reason for my visit was the battery is sitting at 43 volts because
the generator didn't start and the low battery disconnect was set to
44 volts, well below the 49 volts recommended by Pytes. Side note: I
could not set the low battery cut out higher than 48V with these
inverters.
I was there to get these jump started with a Chargeverter. I rigged it
up and got things going, but various batteries were alarming out.
Ultimately I just disconnected the communication cables on all the
batteries and they all started charging from the Chargeverter which
was connected to the common bus. Awesome!
So back to the original question... Are the batteries really doing
anything in terms of balancing when they are connected in a
communications daisy chain when they are not enclosed loop
communications with an inverter? How important is the communication
anyway? And in this case, assuming that the maximum batteries in a
communication chain is eight, I would probably be better off setting
up four separate communications with four master batteries in groups
of five. Again, I'm not sure how important that is in terms of
balancing. What if I had different quantities per communication group?
They're not talking to each other anyway!
Not to muddy up this thread, but I will say that the Chargeverter
saved the day. Within 20 minutes, I was able to get the inverters
turned on and the SCP to help me identify what went wrong. Then I
turned on the inverters and got them charging the batteries
simultaneously with the Chargeverter and solar. It really just needed
a jump start! I had rigged it up in a way that I could easily do this
and then safely disconnect the Chargeverter while the rest of the
system continued to charge the batteries. It was my first experience
with this little gem, and I'm happy to have it in my toolbox now.
Tomorrow I am going back to restart the charging process and hopefully
get the batteries up to 100%. I also plan to check the firmware, which
I am almost positive is mismatched in this stack of batteries. All of
my off-grid systems are a boat ride away, so I'm going to pretend it's
a weekend and I'm not working. Haha.
Jason Szumlanski
Florida Solar Design Group
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