Ant BMS software help

Is it just me?...what am I missing?

Just three months ago I was quite happy with my lead acid batteries, especially considering they've been good to me since 2005 (cottage system for weekends and some vaca’s). But I had to move on, I had become sooo tired of the maintenance!

Lifepo4 was on the radar, but wait, bms...WTF is a bms! So needless to say, this newbie has had a steep and rapid learning curve. I wasn't planning on getting a bms but decided it's for the best...but is it?...the more I read the more informed I become and the more questions and complications arise. So I picked up an Ant 16s 320A bms for my 24V BYD pack...but instructions, what instructions, just a bunch of diagrams online...but I got it going Bluetooth and all (Ant app on iPad) connected instantly!!...Soooooo surprised! I've come to know my newly acquired battery pack quite well, well enough to know it's limitations by way of many charge/discharge cycles and notes. Basically, anything below 3.0V/cell and above 3.4V/cell and things can get really wonky without a bms, 27.2V overall pack voltage and you’re looking for trouble!...but incredibly predictable and stable between 24V and 27.2V...for now.

So I'm trying to set all of the peramaters, and being so new to all of this, I was finding it very confusing...
still finding it confusing...I had no idea you needed sooooo many parameters. Some are no brainer’s, or so I thought. For example, “Balance start volt” which I interpret as the set point at which balancing begins...Not true, “Balance limit volt” is where it all starts...hmmmm! Ok, moving on to protecting cells, high and low. I would have thought that Cell Low Protect meant the voltage at which discharging would stop...Not so! That's Cell Low Recovery...hmmmmmm!! How's about Cell High Protect...to protect certain cells from going to the moon...Not so!,,,that would be Cell High Recovery...again hmmmmm!!! Now Total Volt High Protect and Total Volt Low Protect, they actually work as stated, shuts down charging at a specified pack voltage and shuts down discharge at specified pack voltage...all good. There are sooo many other examples of this messed up terminology throughout. So I ask U...all of U, any of U...what am I missing? I have pretty much sorted out 80% of the ProtectParameter(s) as well as the TemperatureParameter(s)...really messed up and potentially catastrophic in my case (November to April). Listen to this: “Chg Temp Low Protect” I would have assumed that this set point would stop the charging to protect from the hazards of freezing...No, that would be “ChgTemp Low Recover”. So I set Low Recover to 1 degree C and Low Protect to 2C...works beautifully. But it’s backasswards! The BatteryType Parameter...easy I think. The BMS Hardware Parameter...who knows! and the rest is all Chinese to me.

So for the time being, and until I understand more I’ll keep the bms in play, perhaps only on the load side, when installed in the actual system. But for now, if anyone has ALL of the parameters worked out, please help, otherwise I'll be here for a long long time!??

It does not cover everything, but this document might help some:
https://diysolarforum.com/resources/lifepo4-voltage-settings-guide-for-bms-chargers-and-loads.126/

The Overkill BMS is a similar architecture to the ANT BMS. If you read the Overkill manual you might be able to translate some of it to the ANT BMS. https://diysolarforum.com/resources/overkill-solar-bms-official-manual.87/

If you have a battery up and running you have come a long way and I would not call you a beginner anymore. However, there is a fair amount of good beginner material in the 'beginner' category of the resource section. You still might find some of it usefull.

https://diysolarforum.com/resources/categories/beginners-resources.10/

FilterGuy said:

If you have a battery up and running you have come a long way and I would not call you a beginner anymore. However, there is a fair amount of good beginner material in the 'beginner' category of the resource section. You still might find some of it usefull.

https://diysolarforum.com/resources/categories/beginners-resources.10/

Click to expand...

Looks like I have a lot more to learn...3 months ago it was all about those AH's now it's Wh and KWh's lol...thanks so much!

I don't think some of the stuff you listed is correct, at least it does not match my experience. Low cell protect, for example, DOES shut the mosfet when that voltage is reached (any single cell), and recover is the voltage when it enables the mosfet again after going into protect. Did you actually observe it behave differently than this?

pjones said:

I don't think some of the stuff you listed is correct, at least it does not match my experience. Low cell protect, for example, DOES shut the mosfet when that voltage is reached (any single cell), and recover is the voltage when it enables the mosfet again after going into protect. Did you actually observe it behave differently than this?

Click to expand...

Absolutely, I was dumbfounded, EVERY parameter that I spoke of is as I described and have been observed within the last few hours. Like I said, backasswards! I'd rather NOT have it this way, it plays with ur mind. As an example (2 hours ago) during the tail end of a discharge. I had set the Low Cell Recovery at 2.990V and discharged stopped at 2.989V. The Low Cell Protect was set at 3.010V, at 3.011V load came back on...tooooo strange! Not to beat things to death, but I took it a step further, I then reset the Low Cell Recovery to 2.800V and Low Cell Protect to 2.850V...same outcome. Tried many more times with many different values...same thing over and over until I got to as low as I was comfortable...2.600V. I can give U many examples of the same crazy, but the one that troubled me most was the Low temperature settings which are sooo critical and heart stopping for me. So I have no explanation for what's going on...I just don't know ?‍?‍

You should do a factory reset or send it back for a new one, what you've described doesn't sound like the unit is working properly.

Really, U don't think it's an app thing?

BTY I've done multiple factory resets (app calls that Factory Setting) over the last couple of days,...no change.

Under "Control" the charge and discharge mosfet status are shown and can be manually toggled, and On is actually On...Off is Off!...wow something works. But there are 5 other buttons: Reset...reset what?...tried it anyway, system told me "reset success" but nothing changed anywhere. Same with the Shutdown button, LcdSwitch and ManualBal buttons. Now the last button...ClearAMP, I pressed it and the bms made some gurgling sounds, maybe something like chattering contacts...but not the usual beeps...so I took a few steps back, just in case it went Chernobyl on me.

Yeah, the app just changes the values of the functions, not change the functions themselves. Chinese software (the app) is typically pretty poor, they sort of work, but they won't go back to update or fix bugs. That's why people would spend a few more bucks for slightly better software, VBMS (Vortecks) might be worthy checking out if you don't like the standard BMS app. I just use the standard app, it's janky, but good enough for what I need. I don't use it to monitor the BMS, for that, I am using a Raspberry PI and sending the data to my home automation system.

In case you haven't seen this, this is what the manufacturer says the values are intended to do...

pjones said:

Yeah, the app just changes the values of the functions, not change the functions themselves. Chinese software (the app) is typically pretty poor, they sort of work, but they won't go back to update or fix bugs. That's why people would spend a few more bucks for slightly better software, VBMS (Vortecks) might be worthy checking out if you don't like the standard BMS app. I just use the standard app, it's janky, but good enough for what I need. I don't use it to monitor the BMS, for that, I am using a Raspberry PI and sending the data to my home automation system.

Click to expand...

How do you connect to RPi? VBS is Android only. There is a new ANT version, for newer bms, Android only, requiring additional.app files from supplier. It also links to a mini WeChat App, to scan a circular QR Code on the bms, to initialise it. It’s Chinese only at the moment, maybe English version in a month or so. (I cancelled an order for that). Bought ‘DYKB metered’ 10S to 24S for my 8S 310Ah. After connecting to ANT bms, and setting 8S the voltage at C- was same as battery. Working ok. The high voltage spec FETs should be robust! 50A charge, 200A discharge for my max 110A load, through 125A dual breaker.

LittleDaB said:

BTY I've done multiple factory resets (app calls that Factory Setting) over the last couple of days,...no change.

Under "Control" the charge and discharge mosfet status are shown and can be manually toggled, and On is actually On...Off is Off!...wow something works. But there are 5 other buttons: Reset...reset what?...tried it anyway, system told me "reset success" but nothing changed anywhere. Same with the Shutdown button, LcdSwitch and ManualBal buttons. Now the last button...ClearAMP, I pressed it and the bms made some gurgling sounds, maybe something like chattering contacts...but not the usual beeps...so I took a few steps back, just in case it went Chernobyl on me.

Click to expand...

The Factory reset does change some values, particularly the 3 volt reference value, which if changed can throw your cell voltages out.

LittleDaB said:

??

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holy smokes thank you for posting this. I knew the low voltage was inverted because the default values were inverted, but I couldn't figure out why high-voltage condition just kept pumping the charge mos open/closed letting the cells get way over charged!
I'll update my settings and see how things do with that tomorrow.

MikeBou said:

The Factory reset does change some values, particularly the 3 volt reference value, which if changed can throw your cell voltages out.

Click to expand...

There is a function called "FactorySetting" which returns values to the defaults.
There is also a button on the Control tab called "Reset"... this one seems to restart the bms. This is how I get it to recover when min/max voltage get exceeded and it can't seem to recover on its own.

pjones said:

In case you haven't seen this, this is what the manufacturer says the values are intended to do...

Click to expand...

Do you know which manufacturer that document came from? The labels aren't quite identical to the labels used on my ant bms app.

LittleDaB said:

BTY I've done multiple factory resets (app calls that Factory Setting) over the last couple of days,...no change.

Under "Control" the charge and discharge mosfet status are shown and can be manually toggled, and On is actually On...Off is Off!...wow something works. But there are 5 other buttons: Reset...reset what?...tried it anyway, system told me "reset success" but nothing changed anywhere. Same with the Shutdown button, LcdSwitch and ManualBal buttons. Now the last button...ClearAMP, I pressed it and the bms made some gurgling sounds, maybe something like chattering contacts...but not the usual beeps...so I took a few steps back, just in case it went Chernobyl on me.

Click to expand...

reset seems like it restarts the BMS. So when I have had min voltage shutoff, I had to "reset" to get it to start running again (thank you for pointing out the field inversions! That will likely get this operating much closer to proper!)
A note on the reset: there is some pre-charge process. I have to switch my battery disconnect OFF so that when the bms restarts, it sees no load, finishes the pre-charge, then enables the charge&discharge mos. Then I can switch my disconnect breaker back ON, and let the other devices start interacting with the battery. My guess is that gurgling sound it makes is trying the pre-charge.

Crazy Crazy Crazy. First, the software I'm using is the OLD ios app v1.2.7 (the new app does not communicate with the firmware on this unit). Additionally, the old app does not have any options for firmware update.
So based on OP post, and my very confusing cell voltage behavior, I tried treating the CellHighProtect and CellHighRecover fields as though they were mislabeled (swapped) and hey! It worked the way it should! Because I had such un-expected behavior with the old values, I slowly walked the max voltage values up, and let it trip the protection logic each time. But then they SWITCHED BACK. So now, the high labels work as expected... The low labels still appear to be swapped: "recover" means the value that causes a disconnect, "protect" is the value that allows it to reconnect.

Additionally, the pre-charge usually does not allow the MOS to reconnect after the protect condition has been remedied. I have an Inverter, 2x solar charge controllers and the batteries connected together. When the BMS protects, then tries to recover, the pre-charge consistently fails unless I disconnect the charge controllers, let the pre-charge happen, then reconnect.

I had to replace my DYKB Ant BMS, running 8S. It blew 3 FETs, on the charge side; burned through to the board, so when i cut the 2 pins on one FET, it just fell off, others just hinged. Somewhere i had read the could handle more charge current, and there is a customisable parameter in the Ant App. Total of 21 FETs, more on the discharge side. My new 4-8S JK BMS has 40 FETs. The DYKB got hot via the balancing resistor 113C. After that it was worse performance. I would recommend adding an active balancer, when at high SOC. i had one cell playing up, highest when charging, lowest when discharging; it was the cell -ive terminal. Catl 310Ah with studs, which are actually captive bolts, with just a thin circle of aluminium around them. had been over-tightened, and sheared off. Went to 7S for a while; then drilled a small hole and put a screw in it, but still poor connection, and high and low; daytime often discharging it with lightbulb, and supporting it at night, with a bench PSU, to get more capacity out of the battery, running aircon. i had drilled through a layer of copper too. i thought the cells may have the stud hole like Eve cells. i drilled it out to 5mm, and used a thread tapper for 6mm stud. Same day the cell failed, venting the toxic white smoke for about 15 minutes, and crumpling (maybe some ally and copper dropped into the cell chemistry); vented through the stud terminal. Back to 7S, all other cells are ok, and were well balanced at 3.2v. 7S is more suitable for SNADI 3Kw inverter, which cuts out above 27.1v, its not Lifepo4 specific. Both BMS' sometimes stopped the charging; i have a Victron Battery Protect 65A on the load, HVD is fixed 32v. Using 1.3Kw solar split into 2x Epever Tracer 6415AN delivering more than 50A; when the BMS cut charge, (was usually because of the bad cell over voltage) they put over 32v to the BMS, and VBP cuts out, which switches off solar input, by SSR's. A few devices have failed from the 32v. Another Smart VBP 100A between the SCC's and BMS would be good! Also have a Victron 100-50 connected (previously delivered max 45.5A. Now it has a burned battery +) just for monitoring, connected to Raspberry Pi VenusOS. Trying to get the RS485 working from BMS to Raspberry Pi. ps also have a small 12v system, with Victron 100-20, which provides back up power to DC loads; thats mainly at night, if the LVD is triggered on the BMS (that keeps the Raspberry Pi & router online, each on a small 12 v UPS, to enable switching the supply) I have programmable LVD from SCC to turn off the inverter, which also has a (lower) LVD. The aircon is on a automatic transfer switch, priority to solar power.