DesertDude
New Member
Greetings Everyone!
This is basically my very first post, so let me introduce myself. My name is Patrick, aka the OGDIYDD... the Off-grid - Do-It-Yourself - DesertDude!
I've been completely off-grid for a little over 8 years now, living out in the middle of nowhere, in the southeast corner of the Arizona desert... in a tent.
Yeah, I live in a tent... without heating or cooling, not to mention running water. But it's a big tent, and furnished well enough, and I've done well enough having had solar power from the very beginning. I started with a 12V older technology system - having 8 125Ah AGM batteries, 8 100W solar panels, a Xantrex 60A solar controller, and most recently a 5000W inverter. It's all served well enough through the years, but I'm to the point now where things have just gone off the rails. My first set of 7 AGM batteries did quite well I thought, having lasted 4.5 years. My second set didn't fair nearly as well... thought I thought adding an eighth battery would make 'em last even longer. Sadly, they only made it a little over three years and I'm now forced to put into service my latest purchases.
At the beginning of this year, I started doing more research into the latest in solar technology... planning ahead knowing I only had about a year left or so with my current solar setup, only to discover the the AGM batteries I bought before had gone up about a hundred bucks. It was then that I discovered the newest technology - that being LiFePo4. After extensive research and scouring all that I could find out about it all, and mostly watching a lot of the videos from Will Prowse, I first purchased an EG4 LiFePower4 24V 200Ah from Sig Solar and soon to follow a Growatt SPF 3000TL 24V unit. I did this all thinking I'd have it all ready to go in a year or so when my current system began to fail.
Sadly however, much to my dismay, I've already spent 4 months of this year in the hospital having had multiple surgeries, but that's another story. When I was most recently discharged and upon arriving home, I quickly discovered that my solar system was failing... and badly. I knew I had to put my newest equipment into service... and right away. Yet, I hadn't even begun to build the new storage shack to house all of this new LiFePo equipment, much less the new mounting racks for the new solar panels I purchased just last week (4 360W panels). So for now it's all temporarily in my living room.
So, I said all of that just to say this...!!!
I consider myself a pretty technical sorta dude, having been an electronic and computer tech most of my life, a ham radio operator, so on and so forth. And I did quite well with my original solar setup, so I thought this latest addition was gonna be a piece of cake. Boy was I wrong! I won't begin to go into the nightmare I first faced in getting it all working, but for the past few weeks I've at least been able to get by with having power.
So my main question is this... to those in the know of the Growatt inverter stated previously.
How in the world do I set the thing to stop charging??? On several occasions, much to my horror, it's reached a SoC of 100% and still keeps going, to the point where the batteries become out of balance in 3 or 4 cells at least and that scares me... since I know that's not a good thing!
I'll admit freely I'm such a newbie with this LiFePo stuff, and I know I've got so much to learn, but I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong. Just when I think I've got it all figured out it all goes to hell, which has happened several times now.
From all that I've been able to garner from research and watching videos, the most important settings dealing with this are numbers 19, 20, and 21 in the setup menu, and #19 that sets the cut-off voltage to stop charging. Yet, sometimes that never happens and I'm baffled as to why. I'd like it cut off charging at about 95% SoC, which is where it's at right this very moment from today's charging. I just noticed the amperage is only half of what it was from an hour or so ago, with the sun at 2:00pm starting to move out of full charge range... but what do I know.
Anyway, I apologize for being so long winded, but just hoping all this info will be enough for someone to shed some light on my dilemma. In the beginning I thought the Growatt would be able to "talk" to the EG4 battery BMS, but now as I understand it the Growatt Lithium setting will only communicate with Growatt batteries. Henceforth, I have the Growatt #5 setting - Battery Type - set to US2 and #19 set to 25.6V and having played with the range from 25.5V to 25.7V, with any more than that overcharging the battery.
Any and all help would be most greatly appreciated, and I thank you in advance. I'll shut up now!!!
//patrick - The Desert Dude
This is basically my very first post, so let me introduce myself. My name is Patrick, aka the OGDIYDD... the Off-grid - Do-It-Yourself - DesertDude!
I've been completely off-grid for a little over 8 years now, living out in the middle of nowhere, in the southeast corner of the Arizona desert... in a tent.
Yeah, I live in a tent... without heating or cooling, not to mention running water. But it's a big tent, and furnished well enough, and I've done well enough having had solar power from the very beginning. I started with a 12V older technology system - having 8 125Ah AGM batteries, 8 100W solar panels, a Xantrex 60A solar controller, and most recently a 5000W inverter. It's all served well enough through the years, but I'm to the point now where things have just gone off the rails. My first set of 7 AGM batteries did quite well I thought, having lasted 4.5 years. My second set didn't fair nearly as well... thought I thought adding an eighth battery would make 'em last even longer. Sadly, they only made it a little over three years and I'm now forced to put into service my latest purchases.
At the beginning of this year, I started doing more research into the latest in solar technology... planning ahead knowing I only had about a year left or so with my current solar setup, only to discover the the AGM batteries I bought before had gone up about a hundred bucks. It was then that I discovered the newest technology - that being LiFePo4. After extensive research and scouring all that I could find out about it all, and mostly watching a lot of the videos from Will Prowse, I first purchased an EG4 LiFePower4 24V 200Ah from Sig Solar and soon to follow a Growatt SPF 3000TL 24V unit. I did this all thinking I'd have it all ready to go in a year or so when my current system began to fail.
Sadly however, much to my dismay, I've already spent 4 months of this year in the hospital having had multiple surgeries, but that's another story. When I was most recently discharged and upon arriving home, I quickly discovered that my solar system was failing... and badly. I knew I had to put my newest equipment into service... and right away. Yet, I hadn't even begun to build the new storage shack to house all of this new LiFePo equipment, much less the new mounting racks for the new solar panels I purchased just last week (4 360W panels). So for now it's all temporarily in my living room.
So, I said all of that just to say this...!!!
I consider myself a pretty technical sorta dude, having been an electronic and computer tech most of my life, a ham radio operator, so on and so forth. And I did quite well with my original solar setup, so I thought this latest addition was gonna be a piece of cake. Boy was I wrong! I won't begin to go into the nightmare I first faced in getting it all working, but for the past few weeks I've at least been able to get by with having power.
So my main question is this... to those in the know of the Growatt inverter stated previously.
How in the world do I set the thing to stop charging??? On several occasions, much to my horror, it's reached a SoC of 100% and still keeps going, to the point where the batteries become out of balance in 3 or 4 cells at least and that scares me... since I know that's not a good thing!
I'll admit freely I'm such a newbie with this LiFePo stuff, and I know I've got so much to learn, but I can't for the life of me figure out what I'm doing wrong. Just when I think I've got it all figured out it all goes to hell, which has happened several times now.
From all that I've been able to garner from research and watching videos, the most important settings dealing with this are numbers 19, 20, and 21 in the setup menu, and #19 that sets the cut-off voltage to stop charging. Yet, sometimes that never happens and I'm baffled as to why. I'd like it cut off charging at about 95% SoC, which is where it's at right this very moment from today's charging. I just noticed the amperage is only half of what it was from an hour or so ago, with the sun at 2:00pm starting to move out of full charge range... but what do I know.
Anyway, I apologize for being so long winded, but just hoping all this info will be enough for someone to shed some light on my dilemma. In the beginning I thought the Growatt would be able to "talk" to the EG4 battery BMS, but now as I understand it the Growatt Lithium setting will only communicate with Growatt batteries. Henceforth, I have the Growatt #5 setting - Battery Type - set to US2 and #19 set to 25.6V and having played with the range from 25.5V to 25.7V, with any more than that overcharging the battery.
Any and all help would be most greatly appreciated, and I thank you in advance. I'll shut up now!!!
//patrick - The Desert Dude