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BMS not correct in detecting capacity

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Posts: 29
(@dougl)
Eminent Member
Joined: 2 months ago

My concern with your setup would be what did you set at the low SoC trigger to stop discharging and why did your system not stop discharging at that SoC.  I've set mine to 5% and purposefully discharged to test that worked by charging an EV. I would have also looked at your cell voltages when you saw it showing 0% SoC because that will tell you what the batteries are really at.

My 314aH cells have a manufacturers spec of 2.5V for max low limit and 3.65V for max high voltage. 40V and 58.4V respectfully.

If you do set your discharge trigger levels to Voltage you will want to use something at or above the cell manufacturer specs.

 

You are the 2nd EG4 users who was told by Signature Solar to set your LiFePo4 battery charging to lead acid. I've yet to see anything which explains why that is even a thing.

One more thing, I don't know if this is the same for all battery BMS's but my batteries, Basengreen DIY 48V 16.2kWh packs will avgerate the SoC which is reported to the EG4 18KPV.  So if one battery SoC gets off spec, it will affect the charge limits and could prevent fully charges from happening. example: if 2 batteries report correctly at 50% and the 3rd incorrectly report 75% then the system will incorrectly be reporting 58% Soc and likewise when it gets up to 100% and stops charging your batteries will not really be fully charged.  You should be able to tell if your batteries are at the same SoC by looking at the individual charge currents and if they are all within 100mA they're pretty equal.

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Ron
Posts: 69
 Ron
(@ron)
Estimable Member
Joined: 4 months ago

What are the voltage settings everyone is using when utilizing voltage instead of SOC for the indoor wall mount batteries

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(@tristan)
Joined: 4 months ago

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Posts: 16

@ron I'l be using the chart supplied by JLankford in an earlier reply on this thread.  I don't regularly fully recharge the battery since mine is mostly in storage and disconnected.  I power up the system monthly for exercise and/or updates unless there is an actual grid outage - which rarely happens in this area.

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(@dougl)
Joined: 2 months ago

Eminent Member
Posts: 29

@ron I don't know what battery cells you have but the manufacturer of my cells, EVE, state that the min low voltage is 40V(2.50V each) on the pack of 16 cells and max high charge cut-off voltage is 58.4(3.65V each) for the 16 cell pack.

I found that the packs I'd cycled once had a pack voltage of 50V at 5% SoC so I set my on-grid low cutoff voltage to 50.0V and my off-grid cutoff to 45.0V since I'm ok with not getting too close to fully depleting the cells.

Realistically you shouldn't have to worry about SoC once you have your upper and lower levels set but there are some notifications you can set in the web app if you are concerned with getting notified if the battery gets too low. Once using voltage over SoC your BMS is basically just managing the balancing and upper and lower ends of the battery since it can disconnect the output when hitting thresholds set in the BMS settings.

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Ron
Posts: 69
 Ron
(@ron)
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Joined: 4 months ago

I thought EG4 recommended 56.2

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(@tristan)
Joined: 4 months ago

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Posts: 16

@ron I see a 56.2 among the charging specs, but I'm not sure that's relevant for assessing SOC when not charging.  My battery currently indicates 84% and 53.3 volts.  The chart says 80% = 53.2, which looks close enough.  But you are right to question the 100% voltage in the chart.  I'd want to double check that somehow before betting the farm on it.  I wish I really understood this stuff.

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Posts: 18
(@signaturesolarjess)
Eminent Member
Joined: 4 months ago

Posted by: @dougl

You are the 2nd EG4 users who was told by Signature Solar to set your LiFePo4 battery charging to lead acid. I've yet to see anything which explains why that is even a thing.

The "Lead Acid" mode is our user defined mode. This is not just for lead acid batteries, it's just the setting that allows you to manually set the parameters if you need to deep cycle or recalibrate the battery 🙂 

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(@tristan)
Joined: 4 months ago

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Posts: 16

@signaturesolarjess Is  there a need to "recalibrate" the battery if you're using voltages to manage SOC?  i.e. Not using SOC%.

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(@signaturesolarjess)
Joined: 4 months ago

Eminent Member
Posts: 18

@tristan Not necessarily, the recalibration just resets the SOC for the BMS to recognize its high and low points.

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Joel Brodeur
(@joel-brodeur)
Joined: 4 months ago

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Posts: 274

@signaturesolarjess Is there a TSB for performing a calibration - resetting SOC -  for the different type of EG4 batteries?

I would love to get mine calibrated (2 X indoor wall mounts) but I have yet to see a specific step by step to perform the process.

I use SOC to control my charging from my gen and I understand why some folks prefer to use Volts but here is my thinking and perhaps I am wrong, please feel free to let me know if I am outta whack here:

Using voltages is great in a circumstance where the batteries are in a stable state (no loads). But when loads (especially variable loads) are applied they affect the voltages of the battery and then make the reading less meaningful. 

I am off grid with no utility power, so my batteries are almost always under a load or in a charge state so I personally, would rather rely on SOC.

If I was looking at storage and emergency use, voltage would be much more accurate to hit that fill point.

Downside of using SOC is of course the SOC drift and inaccuracy at low draw.  So, I would like to help compensate for that by setting a maintenance cycle were I "reset" the BMS's SOC levels once every 6 months or something (I just need to know the correct methodology and recommendations for frequency).  In the summer my solar tops off my batteries pretty much daily, but from October to February it is a different story, Gen runs about every three to 4 days depending on loads.

Just my 2 cents.  🙂

Thanks,

JB 

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(@signaturesolarjess)
Joined: 4 months ago

Eminent Member
Posts: 18

@joel-brodeur 

So here are the steps to deep cycle the batteries, but I do recommend calling into our tech support department to provide the eg4 inverter dongle info and have a tech review or apply those settings 🙂

Deep Cycling Batteries:

Our first step to solve the off-balance SOC lights would be to discharge the batteries to 20% (46v) and then allow them to fully charge back to 100% (56.4v.) You can accomplish this by simply using your loads more until this voltage is met. Ex: Use your microwave more often, run extra loads of laundry, have a movie night, etc. They do not need to be isolated or disconnected from the bank.
You can do this as many times a day as possible for 7-14 complete cycle and this will push those SOC lights to realign with the correct voltages of the batteries. It's best to do this by automating it by going into your settings and changing batt type to USE or Lead-Acid (depending on inverter) and applying float, bulk, and low DC cut off settings according to your batteries specs.

Lithium batteries are designed to be charged and discharged repeatedly, but if they're only partially discharged and recharged each time, they can develop a memory effect. This means the battery "remembers" the smaller capacity and doesn't fully charge to its maximum capacity anymore. This can result in shorter battery life and reduced performance over time.

 

I hope this helps! 

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(@middlesiggy)
Joined: 2 months ago

Active Member
Posts: 3

@signaturesolarjess I have also experienced the same issue as described in this thread. I am now a week into running my (EG4 18kpv & 3 x EG4 Indoor 280Ah wall mount batteries) in the Lead-Acid mode per Signature Solar Tech support.

I have also done a few full cycles of letting the system fully drain the batteries (normal daily usage) and then using either Solar, or Solar + AC Charge to fully charge the batteries.

I would prefer to run the system in the native EG4 Lithium mode and utilize SOC as my measurement, and like the others here I am having issues, I think because I live in Ohio and we just don't get enough solar to charge the batteries to 100% through the last few months.

Can you clarify some points in your latest answer:

You stated the 7-14 complete cycles, is that a hard coded value? so given I have done a week worth of charge / discharge maybe I should do a second week to make sure I minimally hit the 7 cycles or more. Where exactly is the line? is it more than 7? or more than 10? or is it actually 14 full cycles?

Can you also clarify a few of the specs setting for me.

In the EG4 Indoor 280Ah specs, it states the "Charging Voltage" as 56.0 (under BMS) and 56.2 (+/- .2v) under Recommended. Is that where your statement is 56.4v should be used for the "

And as far as running the battery all the way down, are you saying we should literally let the batteries run to 0% and ultimately disconnect from the communication? or use the "Low DC Cutoff" value which is 44.8v (BMS) or 47-45.6v (Recommended - Start High, Lower as needed) <- I would assume to get the batteries to 1% so they don't disconnect?

At this point, the % value on the EG4 18kpv is so off it has no bearing as to what is actually reporting on the batteries themselves.

Thank you

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(@jlankford)
Joined: 4 months ago

Estimable Member
Posts: 135

Posted by: @signaturesolarjess

Lithium batteries are designed to be charged and discharged repeatedly, but if they're only partially discharged and recharged each time, they can develop a memory effect. This means the battery "remembers" the smaller capacity and doesn't fully charge to its maximum capacity anymore. This can result in shorter battery life and reduced performance over time.

Can you please explain this statement? Perhaps provide some data or a reference citation. You are describing the primary problem with Ni-Cad chemistry. I haven't seen it written anywhere that memory effect is a significant concern for LFP.

 

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(@dougl)
Joined: 2 months ago

Eminent Member
Posts: 29

@jlankford I believe the post by @signaturesolarjess was more of a 'battery system' symptom when the BMS doesn't count the coulomb correctly and the State of Charge(SoC) stops representing the battery cell(s) true state of charge.

And example, I recently brought up 2 batteries and did a deep discharge followed by an attempt at a top charge to realign the BMS with the cells. My mistake was I used SoC(default) to stop the charge so it stopped at what it thought was 100% SoC. But looking at the cell voltages, they were way below full charge at 3.45v(54.4V pack). I changed the Full Charge trigger to Volts set to 3.65V(58.4) and I saw 8 more kWh of charge go into the batteries above their previous "100%" charge level. Had I not done this resetting of the BMS SoC calculations, my system would have been operating in more of an 90%-5% range instead of the full range. They are 314aH battery cells and clearly it was not using the full battery until the BMS was calibrated. Now long that'll last is a question I've not found or learned from empirical testing. 

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(@jlankford)
Joined: 4 months ago

Estimable Member
Posts: 135

@dougl 

Yes, I understand all of that, and BMS SOC-calculation drift might have been the intended meaning of @signaturesolarjess ' statement, but using the phrase "memory effect" when discussing battery behavior has a very different context.

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(@dougl)
Joined: 2 months ago

Eminent Member
Posts: 29

@jlankford it's only out of context when it considered to be talking about the cells/batteries instead of the system(BMS+batteries) since it is the BMS which reports the SoC to the inverter. That was the point I was trying to make.  SignatureSolarJeff could have done a better job with that description though.

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Posts: 13
(@twistedroutes)
Active Member
Joined: 2 months ago

I have 2 EG4 indoor wallmount batteries (Lithium).  When at the same voltage one will have an SOC different from the other by 8-10%.  I think I need to do the above process, but the voltages don't seem to match that chart (which makes sense if the SOC is off!).  I am off-grid and only charge via Solar or Generator (which I want to kick in at around 20-15% until solar is available again)

So do I:

  1. Set battery type to: Lead-Acid
  2. Set the Lead-acid Capacity ?
  3. Generator Charge Type: Battery Voltage (According to)
  4. Generator Charge Start Battery Voltage(V): 51.2V (20%) or do I deplete completely?
  5. Generator Charge End Battery Voltage(V): 58.4V (100%)

?  Thanks!!

 

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(@twistedroutes)
Joined: 2 months ago

Active Member
Posts: 13

right now I am reading (from inverter) 100% at 54.8V..

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