Valence XP Super Thread

Jlowney said:

Do you sell the LV versions? I’m definitely in the market.

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As someone who owns a thunderstruck bms I can tell you Travis's solution is a ways better and I would recommend it over the Thunderstruck VC1 easily. What he has going is at least somewhat closer to what the manufacturer intended. Intra module balancing is huge if you ever want to expand outside of 12v. I can't recommend the thunderstruck if anyone wants to run batteries in series... where as travis system can handle everything.

And also the putty communication with the Thunderstruck is pretty ancient and the company doesn't seem to have any real plans for anything to be added. It is nice how tiny the unit is and reliable it's been.

I enjoyed this video a lot. He talks about the negligible difference when charging from 3.4 volts to 3.5 volts per cell but highlights the absorb time differences between the two of 3hrs. He didn't mention the C rate but I think if you look back on his videos you can learn what size cell he's using for his test. I also learned that if you have a generator set to come on and charge to a certain voltage 3.3 volts might be a good high voltage cut off for the generator. A lot of variables here depending on the c rate you are charging at but in my situations I think that'll get me to about 20%.

Just for a teaser I'll tell you about what's coming. My next version of the BMS all in one box will include a raspberry pi inside communicating with and controlling the valence BMS. This will give an unlimited amount of flexibility with whatever you're doing including home automation and dump loads. Of course you can connect to the raspberry with your phone wirelessly on your local network, wireless directly or through the internet. You'll be able to see all graphs charts voltages data, everything. I'm thinking of putting an LCD on the box for a quick reference to basic numbers. You'll be able to control the charge relay versus discharge relay separately automatically or manually using a switch on the box or your phone.
We'll also have solved the inaccurate state of charge reporting from the valence batteries because the raspberry can hone in on one of your accurate batteries and disregard the others. This may not be necessary though because I think we'll be able to add the ability to zero out and or recalibrate the shunt inside the battery through the software using your phone.
It'll even have a backup power source inside so that in the case it needs to disconnect your battery Bank it'll still be self-powered long enough for you to check on the error and give you the power to remotely re-enable the battery Bank after the danger of further error has passed.

Set up a crap ton of valence batteries at my uncle's house last week.

I am sorry if this is not in the correct thread, but I have a question. I am buying 4 Valence u27-12xp batteries to use in my Club Car golf cart. I have built a Lithium battery pack for my wife's Club Car using Leaf batteries, a generic BMS and charger...it works okay. I want to use the Valence batteries because I think they will work even better. My question is what BMS should I use to balance the 4 batteries? I have seen a U-BMS-HV on ebay but I have also read that these may be too much for just 4 batteries. Any thoughts? How about other BMS options? Thanks in advance!

gwm1471 said:

I am sorry if this is not in the correct thread, but I have a question. I am buying 4 Valence u27-12xp batteries to use in my Club Car golf cart. I have built a Lithium battery pack for my wife's Club Car using Leaf batteries, a generic BMS and charger...it works okay. I want to use the Valence batteries because I think they will work even better. My question is what BMS should I use to balance the 4 batteries? I have seen a U-BMS-HV on ebay but I have also read that these may be too much for just 4 batteries. Any thoughts? How about other BMS options? Thanks in advance!

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A BMS that looks at individual cell voltage levels is the best. I assume you need them in Series also. Thunderstruck will balance the internal cells. if they are in parallel, they will balance at 12 Volts (or whatever the charge voltage is). if you have to have them in series, you need a 2nd device that balances across the batteries. that might be a Victron device (or others) mentioned in the thread a few times. only single device that does both is the factory BMS (or the Muller but they are out of business for the XP BMS)

As another BMS option -- I am offering these pre-built BMS enclosures. I've had great success with these offerings thus far.

These are fully-featured Valence BMS units with all components enclosed in an UL-rated enclosure -- all you need to do is bring in 12V to power the unit, connect your battery/charge/discharge paths and you are done.

They are fully featured and include the following:
- separate charge and discharge paths
- programmable low-voltage disconnect
- high-temp, low-temp and heater enable circuit
- 0-5V reference signal for state-of-charge (great with an analog meter)
- cell balancing, low voltage/high voltage/over-current protection and more... everything Valence wanted you to have with these batteries

These units offer two types of protection:
- non-latching contactor shut-offs for both under-voltage (programmable), over-voltage and low-temp...
- latching contactor shut-offs for anything Valence deems an "ALARM" (like a severely under- or over-voltage cell, communication errors, etc.).
- Under ALARMS the BMS unit shuts itself down to avoid any further draw on the batteries to power the contactors/BMS unit/etc.

I built this to be a truly set-it-and-forget-it item. You can manually turn the BMS on/off with a single rocker switch.

Email me at ForbinBMS@gmail.com if you are interested in pricing/availability/lead-time.

ForbinBMS said:

As another BMS option -- I am offering these pre-built BMS enclosures. I've had great success with these offerings thus far.

These are fully-featured Valence BMS units with all components enclosed in an UL-rated enclosure -- all you need to do is bring in 12V to power the unit, connect your battery/charge/discharge paths and you are done.

They are fully featured and include the following:
- separate charge and discharge paths
- programmable low-voltage disconnect
- high-temp, low-temp and heater enable circuit
- 0-5V reference signal for state-of-charge (great with an analog meter)
- cell balancing, low voltage/high voltage/over-current protection and more... everything Valence wanted you to have with these batteries

These units offer two types of protection:
- non-latching contactor shut-offs for both under-voltage (programmable), over-voltage and low-temp...
- latching contactor shut-offs for anything Valence deems an "ALARM" (like a severely under- or over-voltage cell, communication errors, etc.).
- Under ALARMS the BMS unit shuts itself down to avoid any further draw on the batteries to power the contactors/BMS unit/etc.

I built this to be a truly set-it-and-forget-it item. You can manually turn the BMS on/off with a single rocker switch.

Email me at ForbinBMS@gmail.com if you are interested in pricing/availability/lead-time.

View attachment 49790View attachment 49791View attachment 49792

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Is this applicable for a 48 V system with 40 Valence U27-12XP

Hi to the group! I would like a confirmation of the wiring required to copy the configuration of an XP BMS with the Valence configuration software.
This BMS is issued from one of my 2 cars and I would like to copy the configuration for the future.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to initiate RS485 com (time-out).
THe interface and wiring used is fully working with the battery module, so I bleive it should be ok.
I have ordered spare 26 pins plug to prepare a wiring and I have wired the following pins on connector B:
-23/24/25/26 for the RS 485 plug, with 23 connected to ground and 26 connected to a +5V
-15 Should I connect a +12V?
-3 +12V (ignition, but no change with or without)

I have also powered the plug on top of the BMS with +12V (it is a LV BMS).

I have a current of around 30 mA but no luck in establishin a dialog on the RS 485.
Is there any other pin to be powered or shorted to initiate communication? It seems the starte kit from Valence is limited to connector B, so I suspect nothing should be connected on connector A...But maybe I'm wrong!

Thanks in advance for your support!

I also wrote a .net core application that can talk to these batteries and put it on github.. I use it to monitor my batteries in my airstream.

You can make a muuuuch nicer UI to monitor your batteries.. :D

ericgrand said:

Hi to the group! I would like a confirmation of the wiring required to copy the configuration of an XP BMS with the Valence configuration software.
This BMS is issued from one of my 2 cars and I would like to copy the configuration for the future.
Unfortunately, I'm not able to initiate RS485 com (time-out).
THe interface and wiring used is fully working with the battery module, so I bleive it should be ok.
I have ordered spare 26 pins plug to prepare a wiring and I have wired the following pins on connector B:
-23/24/25/26 for the RS 485 plug, with 23 connected to ground and 26 connected to a +5V
-15 Should I connect a +12V?
-3 +12V (ignition, but no change with or without)

I have also powered the plug on top of the BMS with +12V (it is a LV BMS).

I have a current of around 30 mA but no luck in establishin a dialog on the RS 485.
Is there any other pin to be powered or shorted to initiate communication? It seems the starte kit from Valence is limited to connector B, so I suspect nothing should be connected on connector A...But maybe I'm wrong!

Thanks in advance for your support!

Click to expand...

Well it was an issue with the RS 485 dongle...After replacing it, I have been able to read and save current configuration.

Sycamore said:

Is this applicable for a 48 V system with 40 Valence U27-12XP

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Sure is -- email me if you are interested!! ForbinBMS@gmail.com

AirStreamJoe said:

I also wrote a .net core application that can talk to these batteries and put it on github.. I use it to monitor my batteries in my airstream.

GitHub - Crelex/Valance-Battery-Reader: .net core 3.0 application to read Valence XP Series Batteries

.net core 3.0 application to read Valence XP Series Batteries - Crelex/Valance-Battery-Reader

github.com

You can make a muuuuch nicer UI to monitor your batteries.. :D
View attachment 61306

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This is rad! Thank you!

Does this run off the RS485 feed or CAN?

seb303 said:

To be fair, my device isn't just a keep alive tweak for the internal BMS. It's a functioning external BMS which can monitor multiple batteries and signal an external load disconnect relay and charger.

Personally I prefer the idea of using theses batteries with the intended internal balance hardware, rather than having loads of extra external wires to tap between the cells.

Admittedly my BMS doesn't implement inter-battery balancing for serial set-ups, but this would just be a software update if someone could sniff the RS485 traffic from the Valence U-BMS and figure out the message to do this.

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Hi Seb I’d like to thank you first for your bms project I am building it now

can anyone help on this script from seb? i have added under temp warning and shutdown

shutdown works fine but warning wont show on i think its the #status

Update I have the warning and shutdown working also added a Bluetooth module to output to a phone terminal

Posting here as well https://diysolarforum.com/threads/free-but-pick-up-only-nyc.31027/

Thanks to seb I have learnt Arduino programming used bits of his code to make my own



Added a SOC cutoff
Added Low temp cut off
Added Bluetooth to monitor and change settings from your phone
Added a visual SOC bar

And a big thanks to AKL For the help you know who you are

Ok, so I ordered what I thought was a Valence U27-12XP like my others, and instead I got a rev 2 battery. Black instead of green, which I don't think that I care about. But the RS485 connector is small and round, like a DIN connector, instead of the big rectangular Philips connector. Does anyone know a) can these batteries talk to each other, b) are they similar enough that I can mix in the black one with my green ones (series and parallel), and c) where I can find an adapter from the small round connector to the big rectangular one?

Thanks!

Garrik said:

Ok, so I ordered what I thought was a Valence U27-12XP like my others, and instead I got a rev 2 battery. Black instead of green, which I don't think that I care about. But the RS485 connector is small and round, like a DIN connector, instead of the big rectangular Philips connector. Does anyone know a) can these batteries talk to each other, b) are they similar enough that I can mix in the black one with my green ones (series and parallel), and c) where I can find an adapter from the small round connector to the big rectangular one?

Thanks!

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I think they're slightly different capacity so it will be harder to stay away from a severely undervoltage cell in a series setup if you mix the black and green. Parallel will be fine.

If you paid for green ones and you got black ones I'd be getting your money back if I were you. Especially if you bought a lot of them. The XP battery line is especially simple and awesome to set up in large battery Banks because of the simplicity with having one single BMS cover the entire battery Bank in any configuration.

I don't know if the black ones work with the thunderstruck BMS but hopefully they do because then you'll have a cheap way to use them safely. I know they don't work with the external BMS I sell that works with the green batteries.

Does anyone know if the battery history and cell voltages can be read with the RS 485 cable and a laptop computer? What I'm getting at is is there any way to wake up and keep awake the internal cell balancing computer? Maybe they could be kept awake by connecting to the old style BMS that matches the black batteries. And they'll be awake and maintaining cell balance even though the series parallel count is completely wrong in the configuration inside the BMS.

The black batteries really haven't been thoroughly figured out by the aftermarket community. Maybe best to delete its internal computer and replace it with an aftermarket BMS designed for however many cells you're using in your system.