Waking up a Pylontech battery

[russellw1]

Tell me more about the capacitors, why would they not charge from AC? Because I did the same thing, created a 48V battery and managed to successfully power the inverter on, after initializing the inverter can stay on from AC only without the battery, as soon as I close the battery isolator the inverter trips and shuts down.

There are about 4 (I think) heavy duty capacitors on the battery input of the Axpert. This is what causes the high current spark when connected to a battery. They also cause my old US2000 to make a thump sound when I press the on button. The capacitors can run the Axpert for a few seconds untill the voltage drops to below 48V (on default settings). I have estimated it also uses about 50Watts so a 50VDC 80VA power supply should be able to keep it running.

 

[DuracellBunny]

@TheChamp what steps you taking when you starting up the batteries?

 

[TheChamp]

@TheChamp what steps you taking when you starting up the batteries?

Make sure inverter is power on from the mains.

Make sure that the battery is off.

Open the battery isolator

Use the point of the isolator towards the inverter to plug the external battery.

Inverter wakes up, initializes and when it's done it start charging my battery, (the Jumpstarting battery)

Take the jump-start battery off, inverter still on, close the battery isolator.

Power the battery on, few seconds after the battery shows signs of life with SOC LEDs it trips the whole thing down.

I repeated the process a couple of times hoping with no luck.

 

[russellw1]

Make sure inverter is power on from the mains.

Make sure that the battery is off.

Open the battery isolator

Use the point of the isolator towards the inverter to plug the external battery.

Inverter wakes up, initializes and when it's done it start charging my battery, (the Jumpstarting battery)

Take the jump-start battery off, inverter still on, close the battery isolator.

Power the battery on, few seconds after the battery shows signs of life with SOC LEDs it trips the whole thing down.

I repeated the process a couple of times hoping with no luck.

Probably the Axpert is doing low battery shutdown if the pylontech voltage is 48V or less. This is working correctly if I'm right.

 

[Sinbad]

Make sure inverter is power on from the mains.

Make sure that the battery is off.

Open the battery isolator

Use the point of the isolator towards the inverter to plug the external battery.

Inverter wakes up, initializes and when it's done it start charging my battery, (the Jumpstarting battery)

Take the jump-start battery off, inverter still on, close the battery isolator.

Power the battery on, few seconds after the battery shows signs of life with SOC LEDs it trips the whole thing down.

I repeated the process a couple of times hoping with no luck.

Any way of interrogating the inverter? Can you see logs/events etc?

 

[Priapus]

Make sure inverter is power on from the mains.

Make sure that the battery is off.

Open the battery isolator

Use the point of the isolator towards the inverter to plug the external battery.

Inverter wakes up, initializes and when it's done it start charging my battery, (the Jumpstarting battery)

Take the jump-start battery off, inverter still on, close the battery isolator.

Power the battery on, few seconds after the battery shows signs of life with SOC LEDs it trips the whole thing down.

I repeated the process a couple of times hoping with no luck.

Set the inverter cutoff voltage for the battery to 46v

 

[DuracellBunny]

Make sure inverter is power on from the mains.

Make sure that the battery is off.

Open the battery isolator

Use the point of the isolator towards the inverter to plug the external battery.

Inverter wakes up, initializes and when it's done it start charging my battery, (the Jumpstarting battery)

Take the jump-start battery off, inverter still on, close the battery isolator.

Power the battery on, few seconds after the battery shows signs of life with SOC LEDs it trips the whole thing down.

I repeated the process a couple of times hoping with no luck.

Could possibly be that the BMS in the batteries have not woken up to change its state to allow charge/discharge, Had a customer experience similar setup (4Xus3000 and Kodak king) battery completely refused to charge or discharge. After it was discharged too low. Below is what I sent to them that helped ( Little Edit here and there )
When you switching the battery isolator to on for the Pylons, the state of the BMS is on protection so when the inverter is happily trying to charge it, BMS is no no I take you down.

You can disconnect the batteries from the inverter and from each other if you have more than 1 batteries connected up.
Switch the battery on and hold the SW button for a few seconds till the soc led start flashing and leave them till they stabilize, once they are solid this would of woken up the BMS and then you can
test the voltage on the battery terminals, if it shows a voltage then the BMS has woken.

Do this for all the batteries, and then when you have got a voltage from all the batteries. Connect them back up together but still not connected to the inverter, Start up all the batteries and just press the SW on the master again for
a few seconds, all of the soc leds on all the batteries should flash to establish a connection between them, give them a few minutes to stop flashing and then test there is a voltage coming out from the leads that will be connected to the inverter.

Shut Down, Hook up batteries to the inverter. With the inverter still switched off and AC off, Start up the batteries, SW button on master, slaves flashy and bow solid. Give it a few seconds then switch the inverter on, Give it a few seconds to let the
inverter know there is batteries and for the Pylons to know its being discharged, if there is no trip, Switch AC on

(Check voltage on the panel and if its near cut of voltage, drop the cut off voltage to 44V) so this will give you some time to switch the AC on and charge the batteries and then have the settings back to the recommended.

You mentioned no communication. What settings are you running also on Program 5/12/13/26/27

 

[TheChamp]

Could possibly be that the BMS in the batteries have not woken up to change its state to allow charge/discharge, Had a customer experience similar setup (4Xus3000 and Kodak king) battery completely refused to charge or discharge. After it was discharged too low. Below is what I sent to them that helped ( Little Edit here and there )
When you switching the battery isolator to on for the Pylons, the state of the BMS is on protection so when the inverter is happily trying to charge it, BMS is no no I take you down.

You can disconnect the batteries from the inverter and from each other if you have more than 1 batteries connected up.
Switch the battery on and hold the SW button for a few seconds till the soc led start flashing and leave them till they stabilize, once they are solid this would of woken up the BMS and then you can
test the voltage on the battery terminals, if it shows a voltage then the BMS has woken.

Do this for all the batteries, and then when you have got a voltage from all the batteries. Connect them back up together but still not connected to the inverter, Start up all the batteries and just press the SW on the master again for
a few seconds, all of the soc leds on all the batteries should flash to establish a connection between them, give them a few minutes to stop flashing and then test there is a voltage coming out from the leads that will be connected to the inverter.

Shut Down, Hook up batteries to the inverter. With the inverter still switched off and AC off, Start up the batteries, SW button on master, slaves flashy and bow solid. Give it a few seconds then switch the inverter on, Give it a few seconds to let the
inverter know there is batteries and for the Pylons to know its being discharged, if there is no trip, Switch AC on

(Check voltage on the panel and if its near cut of voltage, drop the cut off voltage to 44V) so this will give you some time to switch the AC on and charge the batteries and then have the settings back to the recommended.

You mentioned no communication. What settings are you running also on Program 5/12/13/26/27

The battery is not with me, just to catch you up, it belongs to a friend and I am trying to help up.

Regarding the settings, iirc.

5 is set to user, setting it to Pylon sets up a loss of comms alarm.
12 is set to 45V, to avert the famous Axpert low battery alarm.
13 I can't recall
26, someone suggested not more than 53.5V so I set it to 53V, I think I set 27 to the same value.

I also mentioned earlier that there is an issue with communication, so I still need to organise te cable since te one that came with the battery is not working.

The owner is in his way to the supplier with the battery for assessment so we will hear after they are done with testing.

 

[DuracellBunny]

The battery is not with me, just to catch you up, it belongs to a friend and I am trying to help up.

Regarding the settings, iirc.

5 is set to user, setting it to Pylon sets up a loss of comms alarm.
12 is set to 45V, to avert the famous Axpert low battery alarm.
13 I can't recall
26, someone suggested not more than 53.5V so I set it to 53V, I think I set 27 to the same value.

I also mentioned earlier that there is an issue with communication, so I still need to organise te cable since te one that came with the battery is not working.

The owner is in his way to the supplier with the battery for assessment so we will hear after they are done with testing.

Awesome of you to help him.

No worries at all, Let us know what the supplier says on the battery.

 

[Koosvanwyk]

Is the Pylontech "woke" yet?

 

[TheChamp]

Is the Pylontech "woke" yet?

Off to the supplier, 31 days turnaround time, haven't heard from them so far.

 

[Sinbad]

That's really sucky. When one of my BYDs went faulty they sent me an interface cable and software, took me through remote diagnosis, then sent up a new battery and the same courier took the old one away.
(was during lockdown)

 

[TheChamp]

That's really sucky. When one of my BYDs went faulty they sent me an interface cable and software, took me through remote diagnosis, then sent up a new battery and the same courier took the old one away.
(was during lockdown)

Yeah, I get the feeling that Pylontech support is not so great, it seems like there is no local support, unless it's only the suppliers who have this information.

 

[TheChamp]

Some feedback, according to the supplier it seems the battery was overloaded at some point and damaged the BMS. It has been repaired and it will be delivered soon, but with a strict warning that damages from overloading are not covered by the warranty.

We will have to review the circuits connected on it and think of some circuit breaker to limit the output of the inverter to a power draw that doesn't put a strain on the battery, technically limit it to around 1500W or thereabouts.

Thanks everyone for the assistance.

 

[AxField]

Some feedback, according to the supplier it seems the battery was overloaded at some point and damaged the BMS. It has been repaired and it will be delivered soon, but with a strict warning that damages from overloading are not covered by the warranty.

We will have to review the circuits connected on it and think of some circuit breaker to limit the output of the inverter to a power draw that doesn't put a strain on the battery, technically limit it to around 1500W or thereabouts.

Thanks everyone for the assistance.

Hmmm, the BMS in the Pylontech is pretty good and they trip pretty quick when going over 0.5C - not sure if I'm buying what supplier said. I mean, they'd look for any excuse to void warranty so if it was genuinely damaged because of an overload then I'm surprised they didn't charge you for the repair (I'm assuming they didn't). Just spitballing here...

 

[TheChamp]

Hmmm, the BMS in the Pylontech is pretty good and they trip pretty quick when going over 0.5C - not sure if I'm buying what supplier said. I mean, they'd look for any excuse to void warranty so if it was genuinely damaged because of an overload then I'm surprised they didn't charge you for the repair (I'm assuming they didn't). Just spitballing here...

I have always believed the battery needed a reset of sorts and I think all it took was a few clicks on the computer. But I think it's in their interest to make the customer feel like they went the extra mile to help, so saying it was just a small thing wasn't going to work.

Yes, no charge for the repair.

 

[Tim_vb]

I've been using a Pylontech batteries for three years now only for load shedding. Sometimes if we are lucky weeks will go by without them being cycled. So far all the health reports are showing perfect battery health.

same here