[FIXED] Careful if you ordered Apexium DIY Box (melted fuse cover)
- Thread starter MartyByrde
- Start date
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Better than nothing. If you have some vacume line you can split it and use it. Fish tank tubing would work as well.
Something else that would work - spit the sheath off a few inches or wire and line the circle with it.
Last edited:
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Nice, I like it. But, I was asking about the busbar inside the box covered with the orange shrinkwrap?
MartyByrde
Off-Grid Innovator
Oh, those are probably around 6 mm
MartyByrde
Off-Grid Innovator
If anyone can help me understand what went wrong, and any mistakes that I am personally made can you please chime in. I built this system off grid and spent four+ months designing.
I’ve taught myself by watching videos from Will and others on YouTube. This forum has been a tremendous help. I consider myself a cautious intermediate though. Therefore I meticulously spent hundreds of hours planning and to be at this point is disappointing.
Here’s how the battery system was laid out when it failed. Docan’s engineer stated that the batteries were okay on their side in case someone’s wondering.
I’m not sure exactly what I did wrong or if this was an issue related to following the Apex assembly manual. It seems like many others are having fine experiences with these batteries. The SOC was at 140Ah I discovered. When building the system, Docan had told me that I couldn’t modify the BMS. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding. This time I have the app. I’ve been out in the desert for the last 10 days trying to fix this and I’m going home tomorrow defeated.
I discovered today that when the damage occurred in the battery, it must have also damaged three of the six inverters in parallel. 1,3, and 5 (all odd) are not working when I attempt to run them on their own. Or they were damaged trying to get the system back on during the last couple days. There was a strange, clicking noise once or twice when attempting to run the inverters without battery. Battery-less was one of the reasons why I chose this inverter. Here’s what I discovered today when running them each on their own:
Inverter 1: doesn’t appear to have any electrical connection to the batteries. It won’t even cold start with the batteries connected. Turning on PV gets it to start but it shows 0v for the battery. Setting 31 bAE, it attempts to activate the battery sending out 1A charge. But after a few seconds it clicks and I receive W15 - Battery Open - battery is unconnected or too low.
With the exact same settings, inverters 2, 4, and 6 work perfectly.
Inverters 3 and 5: these two are at least able to read the battery voltage and work when doing a cold start. However, a few seconds after turning them on, I receive fault code 32 – DC/DC overcurrent, battery, voltage fluctuates. 1) restart the inverter. 2) if error message still remains, please contact your installer.
I estimate that worst case the three batteries discharged around 20,000w ~417A / 139A each. More likely closer to 13,000w. It could’ve been more but the way I designed the system was to just run during the day. Originally, when I was designing the system, I was not going to include batteries, but decided that they may be helpful if a cloud rolls in. I never imagine them being the sole provider for the loads. So I figured that 3 Lifepo4 batteries would be sufficient to fill in the gaps. I have 224 250w solar panels that I bought used from Santan Solar. Everything would shut off in the evening and come back on in the morning. Perhaps in the morning or evening is when this occurred. I was able to adjust the load using a different raspberry pi from 10,000 W to 30,000 W as needed.
I initially installed solar assistant, but the communication cables were not reading properly. The original plan was for the raspberry pi controlling the loads to use MQTT from solar assistant and reduce the loads if too much power was being drawn from the batteries. With the coms cables being inconsistent, I based everything on hours of the day instead of the actual battery readings. This could have also been the issue. My temporary work around was in the morning it would start around 10,000 W gradually increasing to 25,000 W at solar noon and then back down to 10,000 W. There were times where the whole system would just shut off (mid-morning/early afternoon) and would stay off until the next day. I never understood why it wouldn’t restart.
Having the wrong solar assistant cables made it a guessing game. But I thought I was being conservative with the ramping up and ramping down it wouldn’t pull too much from the batteries. The lowest load setting was 10,000 W. I did not have the ability to turn off the equipment completely. In the evening that was definitely being pulled from the batteries once the sun went down. I had not experimented with the AC on/off time settings for the lvx6048wp. I would factor in weather, and if it was going to be a cloudy day, I’d just leave it on the lowest load setting around 10,000 watts.
It took me about a month to physically build everything. A friend was able to help me for two weeks. Hard labor, and a total of +20,000 pounds of wood, concrete, solar panels, and everything else.
I wish I had more time to be present during the testing, but that amount of time began to cause strain in my personal life. I even missed Thanksgiving.
Hopefully I can work with Watts247 to get the inverters fixed. And I’m not sure if Dan should be responsible or anything. May be hard given they’re in China and other people have not had issues with the box.
If anything needs, clarification, please let me know. Please understand that I’m just looking to find out where I messed up or if it was in fact, the actual battery failure. Spending a month in the desert is difficult, but I’ve been passionate about this project for the last year and a half. I may sound like I lost my marbles, but this has been something that I’ve enjoyed every second of planning and building. It’s disappointing now after all the work, it’s having issues. If I had to do it over again, I would go with overkill Solar BMS.
I’m going to get everything fixed. I just don’t want to repeat any mistakes that I could have unknowingly made along the way. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
I’ve taught myself by watching videos from Will and others on YouTube. This forum has been a tremendous help. I consider myself a cautious intermediate though. Therefore I meticulously spent hundreds of hours planning and to be at this point is disappointing.
Here’s how the battery system was laid out when it failed. Docan’s engineer stated that the batteries were okay on their side in case someone’s wondering.
I’m not sure exactly what I did wrong or if this was an issue related to following the Apex assembly manual. It seems like many others are having fine experiences with these batteries. The SOC was at 140Ah I discovered. When building the system, Docan had told me that I couldn’t modify the BMS. Perhaps it was a misunderstanding. This time I have the app. I’ve been out in the desert for the last 10 days trying to fix this and I’m going home tomorrow defeated.
I discovered today that when the damage occurred in the battery, it must have also damaged three of the six inverters in parallel. 1,3, and 5 (all odd) are not working when I attempt to run them on their own. Or they were damaged trying to get the system back on during the last couple days. There was a strange, clicking noise once or twice when attempting to run the inverters without battery. Battery-less was one of the reasons why I chose this inverter. Here’s what I discovered today when running them each on their own:
Inverter 1: doesn’t appear to have any electrical connection to the batteries. It won’t even cold start with the batteries connected. Turning on PV gets it to start but it shows 0v for the battery. Setting 31 bAE, it attempts to activate the battery sending out 1A charge. But after a few seconds it clicks and I receive W15 - Battery Open - battery is unconnected or too low.
With the exact same settings, inverters 2, 4, and 6 work perfectly.
Inverters 3 and 5: these two are at least able to read the battery voltage and work when doing a cold start. However, a few seconds after turning them on, I receive fault code 32 – DC/DC overcurrent, battery, voltage fluctuates. 1) restart the inverter. 2) if error message still remains, please contact your installer.
I estimate that worst case the three batteries discharged around 20,000w ~417A / 139A each. More likely closer to 13,000w. It could’ve been more but the way I designed the system was to just run during the day. Originally, when I was designing the system, I was not going to include batteries, but decided that they may be helpful if a cloud rolls in. I never imagine them being the sole provider for the loads. So I figured that 3 Lifepo4 batteries would be sufficient to fill in the gaps. I have 224 250w solar panels that I bought used from Santan Solar. Everything would shut off in the evening and come back on in the morning. Perhaps in the morning or evening is when this occurred. I was able to adjust the load using a different raspberry pi from 10,000 W to 30,000 W as needed.
I initially installed solar assistant, but the communication cables were not reading properly. The original plan was for the raspberry pi controlling the loads to use MQTT from solar assistant and reduce the loads if too much power was being drawn from the batteries. With the coms cables being inconsistent, I based everything on hours of the day instead of the actual battery readings. This could have also been the issue. My temporary work around was in the morning it would start around 10,000 W gradually increasing to 25,000 W at solar noon and then back down to 10,000 W. There were times where the whole system would just shut off (mid-morning/early afternoon) and would stay off until the next day. I never understood why it wouldn’t restart.
Having the wrong solar assistant cables made it a guessing game. But I thought I was being conservative with the ramping up and ramping down it wouldn’t pull too much from the batteries. The lowest load setting was 10,000 W. I did not have the ability to turn off the equipment completely. In the evening that was definitely being pulled from the batteries once the sun went down. I had not experimented with the AC on/off time settings for the lvx6048wp. I would factor in weather, and if it was going to be a cloudy day, I’d just leave it on the lowest load setting around 10,000 watts.
It took me about a month to physically build everything. A friend was able to help me for two weeks. Hard labor, and a total of +20,000 pounds of wood, concrete, solar panels, and everything else.
I wish I had more time to be present during the testing, but that amount of time began to cause strain in my personal life. I even missed Thanksgiving.
Hopefully I can work with Watts247 to get the inverters fixed. And I’m not sure if Dan should be responsible or anything. May be hard given they’re in China and other people have not had issues with the box.
If anything needs, clarification, please let me know. Please understand that I’m just looking to find out where I messed up or if it was in fact, the actual battery failure. Spending a month in the desert is difficult, but I’ve been passionate about this project for the last year and a half. I may sound like I lost my marbles, but this has been something that I’ve enjoyed every second of planning and building. It’s disappointing now after all the work, it’s having issues. If I had to do it over again, I would go with overkill Solar BMS.
I’m going to get everything fixed. I just don’t want to repeat any mistakes that I could have unknowingly made along the way. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Never mind you covered it
You are mixing up the Ah with A...
It depends on the manufacturer, my own cells here are 400Ah, but their maximum continuous current on output is 1200A continuous, with a 4000A 'peak surge' current ie 3CA and 10CA (CA being the capacity of the cell in question in Ah, so 3CA is 3x 400Ah ie 1200A)
The other issue is what exactly is the maximum charge current for those batteries- you said you were getting 30kw shared between the three batteries, thats 10kw each, thats a LOT for a 280Ah battery pack- a nominal 48v thats close to 200A flowing in for hours at a time- at those current levels- EVERYTHING has to be perfect (the other thing is that according to the EVE cell manufacturer, their charge rate for those cells should be kept at 0.5CA (They use P)- which for a 3.2v LFP cell rated at 280Ah, is only 140A- you will be shortening the service life of those batteries... Their absolute maximum is 1P ie 280A...
(from page 8 of their PDF found here)
(from page 22 at the same link)
Note that that is at a battery temperature of 25C/77F- that decreases with increasing temperature... (their charging cutoff point is only 60C/140F, with throttling starting about 40C, so in high air temps you could see issues (I hope the BMS/charge controllers have a overtemp control...)- thats one of the reasons i went the LYP rather than LFP route here because of the summer heat, with air temps regularly over 40C for weeks on end, LFP struggles, the 85C upper limit and throttling starting about 60C on the LYP is better suited for extremely hot, or extremely cold climates
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
Dude sorry you got sucked in. Go with tier one parts and stop having problems
Eve CELLS are ok- they have a decent enough reputation (personally I'm not a fan of any of these enclosures, and would rather run cells as a single bank rather than spread out over multiple enclosures with multiple BMS's)
Quattrohead
Solar Wizard
This has nothing to do with the type of cells or amps versus amp hours, it's just piss poor assembly instructions and a bit of a lack of understanding of high current DC power. You guys are going off on all kinds of weird tangents.
The wall of text and calculations have nothing to do with anything in this thread
The wall of text and calculations have nothing to do with anything in this thread
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
Agreed and the enclosure has the typical made in China problems. Garbage for instructions. Granted a full blown EE would probably know what to avoid while assembling it, but this is a DIY thing and as such deserves a little better destruction manual
on the contrary- it is KNOWING the limitations of a system that is where you START- then you can plan for them in the first place...
Without planning for and knowing them, you are just 'slapping stuff together' and hoping it works- usually- it doesn't...
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
I bet their English is better than your Chinese...
I have actual experience with having stuff made in China, and translation issues were always a hassle (so much so we had a local who had a Chinese grandmother who did all our translations for us- she knew nothing about electronics, and it made little sense to her what she was translating, but we worked around that with questions and talking in person lol)
Things like google translate (which I suspect many of these manuals are made using) is practically useless imho- its the equivalent of a 'Good morning can you tell me where the train station is' travelers phrasebook imho...
Practically a must where I am, LFP cells struggle in Australian heat and tend to suffer charging issues in the heat... that extra 45C headroom that LYP have in hot weather makes a huge difference...
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
I wonder If their English is better than my Japanese…. Not every American you meet speaks only one language. English, Japanese and a reasonable amount of two other languages in this region…. Lately I have been doing business with the Chinese more and more but at my age learning a fifth language is not on the menu.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
Yes I was just tired of trying to sort through who the liars and crooks were Winston gave me contact data to prove who their legitimate sales POC’s were. Costs more but expectations are high. I just got 32 cells two weeks ago, sourcing 14mm studs and ring terminals has been interesting to say the least. Got some
uestions if you have time will take it to PM if you are willling
I have found that many (especially in the tech side of things) speak English quite well- but then they are rarely the ones writing the manuals lolI wonder If their English is better than my Japanese…. Not every American you meet speaks only one language. English, Japanese and a reasonable amount of two other languages in this region…. Lately I have been doing business with the Chinese more and more but at my age learning a fifth language is not on the menu.
Thank god for Skype and other online video conferencing apps, they have been a godsend when it comes to dealing with overseas manufacturers lol (and thats practically all of them these days sadly, the days of an Aussie electronics industry has long passed...) :-(
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
I didnt read this entire post, so forgive me if you covered it... those breakers you have in there are trash, and not rated for near the voltage you are running.
Get rated breakers, disconnects, or just some ClassT fuses.
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