Valence XP Super Thread

[mitchk1303]

You're the man Travis. I feel significantly better about diving into the solar system. My last question is regarding communicating with all three batteries at the same time. I was under the impression that since I was running the 3 modules in parallel I could not just connect the communication cables together in a daisy chain and then connect to the computer. Am I wrong about this? Or are you simply saying build 3 connection cables and plug them all in at the same time?

I don't think I'm going to try and get a U-BMS at this point and will try to monitor everything manually for now. I might try to get a some sort of disconnect for my 12V bus bar loads and then get an inverter that will automatically disconnect the AC loads.

 

[mannytheseacow]

I got my XPs hooked up yesterday and monitored closely throughout the day. My U-BMS has not arrived yet but so far so good. I'm using an Outback Flexmax 80 charge controller and wired up my XPs in the following format:

Except, all of the 24v (-) are equal length cables going directly from (-) post to a common bus bar terminal, and all 24v (+) are equal length cables going directly to a (+) bus bar terminal.

A couple of question/comments I wanted to address:

1). Regarding the battery terminal posts- when I received the batteries a week or two ago I cleaned the terminal bolts with WD-40. Travis had previously mentioned the loc-tite on the threads and needed spacers. Once the threads were cleaned both positive and negative terminal bolts will seat all the way to the head. No spacers are needed.

2). I wired up my battery bank in the manner showed in the photograph above 24 hours before installing and allowed the batteries to sit connected for 24 hours with no load and no charging.

3). I found this in a YouTube video comment:


Regarding the way to connect the battery communication wires, can anyone verify if this comment is true or not? I have been under the impression that it didn't matter how the communication wires were connected? Can anyone offer a schematic of how to configure my cabling once my U-BMS arrives?

Aloha,

 

[Travis]

I got my XPs hooked up yesterday and monitored closely throughout the day. My U-BMS has not arrived yet but so far so good. I'm using an Outback Flexmax 80 charge controller and wired up my XPs in the following format:
View attachment 10216
Except, all of the 24v (-) are equal length cables going directly from (-) post to a common bus bar terminal, and all 24v (+) are equal length cables going directly to a (+) bus bar terminal.

A couple of question/comments I wanted to address:

1). Regarding the battery terminal posts- when I received the batteries a week or two ago I cleaned the terminal bolts with WD-40. Travis had previously mentioned the loc-tite on the threads and needed spacers. Once the threads were cleaned both positive and negative terminal bolts will seat all the way to the head. No spacers are needed.

2). I wired up my battery bank in the manner showed in the photograph above 24 hours before installing and allowed the batteries to sit connected for 24 hours with no load and no charging.

3). I found this in a YouTube video comment:
View attachment 10217

Regarding the way to connect the battery communication wires, can anyone verify if this comment is true or not? I have been under the impression that it didn't matter how the communication wires were connected? Can anyone offer a schematic of how to configure my cabling once my U-BMS arrives?

Aloha,

The quote you posted here is for the RT series. They are different and if you're going to understand that RT communication cables you need to read the manual for the RT battery because they have series-parallel limitationsand their communication cables may need to be hooked up in the correct configuration. But this thread is about the XP version and yes you connect all of the communication cables to each other battery in any order. Connect one end to the computer or BMS. The other end will NOT need a Terminating resistor unless you have certain rare circumstances. I found that if I have over 30 batteries hooked in a bank sometimes the communication is slow without the Terminator.

 

[Travis]

I've tried WD-40 and so far out of over a hundred batteries I've never been able to get the negative bolt to seat all the way in. you can even look down the hole and visually see there different depths between the positive and negative.

 

[Travis]

You're the man Travis. I feel significantly better about diving into the solar system. My last question is regarding communicating with all three batteries at the same time. I was under the impression that since I was running the 3 modules in parallel I could not just connect the communication cables together in a daisy chain and then connect to the computer. Am I wrong about this? Or are you simply saying build 3 connection cables and plug them all in at the same time?

I don't think I'm going to try and get a U-BMS at this point and will try to monitor everything manually for now. I might try to get a some sort of disconnect for my 12V bus bar loads and then get an inverter that will automatically disconnect the AC loads.

With your setup I don't think you'll need a u-bms. He don't really have enough batteries to warrant the cost. Hook the communication cables between all the batteries to each others neighboring battery in any random order. You'll only make one connection to the laptop and that will communicate with all three batteries. once you have successfully started the communication you will have activated the batteries internal balancing board and it will it do its job as needed to keep it's cellblocks balanced. Since your batteries are in parallel they will stay balanced to each other and you won't need the u-Bms to keep the 12-volt battery modules in balance with each other.

 

[Travis]

I just realized in my original triple post I failed to put the link to the 24-volt balancer.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07L8XKZ71/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awdb_t1_yuLJEb2VZRW2T

 

[mannytheseacow]

I got my communication cable configured and connected my batteries to the valence software. No matter what I set my logging path to when I hit "Start Read" I get the message "Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Valence Technology Inc\Valence U-Charge CP Module Diagnostics Software\Module DiagG2.Config' is denied.
Anyone else experience this?
Also, my software has 5 tabs at the bottom, and I downloaded it from the Google Drive link above.
If I click "locate battery" I get a message saying "Module with a number 1 not accessible" [sic] regardless of what module ID I have set.

 

[CROF2B]

I got my communication cable configured and connected my batteries to the valence software. No matter what I set my logging path to when I hit "Start Read" I get the message "Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Valence Technology Inc\Valence U-Charge CP Module Diagnostics Software\Module DiagG2.Config' is denied.
Anyone else experience this?
Also, my software has 5 tabs at the bottom, and I downloaded it from the Google Drive link above.
If I click "locate battery" I get a message saying "Module with a number 1 not accessible" [sic] regardless of what module ID I have set.

Right click and run as Admin. create a folder on the Desktop and put in the path to that. Windows wont usually let you write to the program folder from the program itself.

 

[Travis]

I got my communication cable configured and connected my batteries to the valence software. No matter what I set my logging path to when I hit "Start Read" I get the message "Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Valence Technology Inc\Valence U-Charge CP Module Diagnostics Software\Module DiagG2.Config' is denied.
Anyone else experience this?
Also, my software has 5 tabs at the bottom, and I downloaded it from the Google Drive link above.
If I click "locate battery" I get a message saying "Module with a number 1 not accessible" [sic] regardless of what module ID I have set.

5 Tabs? I only have three tabs I'm the one that uploaded the files. I'll try and figure out which one has the extra tabs and install on my computer as well. Did you get it working yet?

 

[Travis]

I got my communication cable configured and connected my batteries to the valence software. No matter what I set my logging path to when I hit "Start Read" I get the message "Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Valence Technology Inc\Valence U-Charge CP Module Diagnostics Software\Module DiagG2.Config' is denied.
Anyone else experience this?
Also, my software has 5 tabs at the bottom, and I downloaded it from the Google Drive link above.
If I click "locate battery" I get a message saying "Module with a number 1 not accessible" [sic] regardless of what module ID I have set.

are your green lights blinking every 5 seconds indicating some form of communication or every 20 seconds indicating there in storage mode?

 

[mannytheseacow]

Right click and run as Admin. create a folder on the Desktop and put in the path to that. Windows wont usually let you write to the program folder from the program itself.

Right. I'm not trying to use the program folder as a path, that's just the error the program is throwing. I've got the program loaded to my documents folder.

 

[morth]

I got my communication cable configured and connected my batteries to the valence software. No matter what I set my logging path to when I hit "Start Read" I get the message "Access to the path 'C:\Program Files (x86)\Valence Technology Inc\Valence U-Charge CP Module Diagnostics Software\Module DiagG2.Config' is denied.
Anyone else experience this?
Also, my software has 5 tabs at the bottom, and I downloaded it from the Google Drive link above.
If I click "locate battery" I get a message saying "Module with a number 1 not accessible" [sic] regardless of what module ID I have set.

It doesn't matter where you installed it, there's some part under Program files and you have to run the app as administrator for it to work. I tried installing under a user folder I think I hit the same thing. The security model changed quite a bit from Windows 7 where users could run things under program files. That's not really the case any more and much depends on how the app was written in the first place. Also, when running as non administrator, you see 5 tabs but can't connect to the batteries. Running as administrator, you only see 3 tabs, but can connect to the batteries. At least that is how my setup is working...

 

[CROF2B]

Right. I'm not trying to use the program folder as a path, that's just the error the program is throwing. I've got the program loaded to my documents folder.

You have to program it to some folder other than the default install folder. (which is the error you showed) Put something in there. I used a folder on the desktop, and it worked fine. I did get that exact same error until I "Ran as admin" and also created a folder on the desktop and pointed to it. You could probably still use the folder in your Documents in that field, but you have to put in the full path in the Valence screen.

 

[CROF2B]

I've tried WD-40 and so far out of over a hundred batteries I've never been able to get the negative bolt to seat all the way in. you can even look down the hole and visually see there different depths between the positive and negative.

Travis, you can stick a straw down in it and measure it if you want. I put a depth mic in it. Negative is .58 (little over 1/2 inch) and Positive is .98ish (Just under 1") Probably 14mm and 24mm since it is metric.

 

[mannytheseacow]

You have to program it to some folder other than the default install folder. (which is the error you showed) Put something in there. I used a folder on the desktop, and it worked fine. I did get that exact same error until I "Ran as admin" and also created a folder on the desktop and pointed to it. You could probably still use the folder in your Documents in that field, but you have to put in the full path in the Valence screen.

So that gets me a step further. Running as an administrator definitely gets me the three tabs and no path error. However, it still won’t communicate. It just says check the com port and battery ID, which I know are both correct. I’m wondering if it’s not my cable. I ordered a different usb connector and will try that when it arrives.
Re: Travis, lights are blinking green @ 20 sec.

 

[CROF2B]

So that gets me a step further. Running as an administrator definitely gets me the three tabs and no path error. However, it still won’t communicate. It just says check the com port and battery ID, which I know are both correct. I’m wondering if it’s not my cable. I ordered a different usb connector and will try that when it arrives.
Re: Travis, lights are blinking green @ 20 sec.

Did you try "locate battery"? That gave me the correct ID. Then I could go to that ID and i the reassigned them to 1 and 2
It could be the cable as well. There was a person on Facebook That had one strand of wire touching another terminal. He kept getting your current message. Good luck

 

[Travis]

So that gets me a step further. Running as an administrator definitely gets me the three tabs and no path error. However, it still won’t communicate. It just says check the com port and battery ID, which I know are both correct. I’m wondering if it’s not my cable. I ordered a different usb connector and will try that when it arrives.
Re: Travis, lights are blinking green @ 20 sec.

Did you make note of what I said earlier about having to type in the comport yourself with no space?

 

[Kamhuss]

Did you try "locate battery"? That gave me the correct ID. Then I could go to that ID and i the reassigned them to 1 and 2
It could be the cable as well. There was a person on Facebook That had one strand of wire touching another terminal. He kept getting your current message. Good luck

Just make sure the pins are all the in the connector

 

[Kamhuss]

Just make sure the pins are all the in the connector View attachment 11031

 

[Kamhuss]

View attachment 11032

Take a fine flat screwdriver and try to push it in all the way