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Schneider XW Pro Firmware

r2d4

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Dec 9, 2020
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Hi, I recently updated my Schneider XW Pro 6848 to version v1.09 and it constantly disconnects from the grid. I was coming from version 1.03 and did not ad any issues. I want to downgrade to version 1.03, but it's not on their website. Can anyone send me v1.03 or earlier?

Thanks in advance!
 
You might also try contacting Schneider, they might already have a patch or a link to a safe download.
 
I'm on 1.09bn9, no issues here. This is a warranty replacement XW Pro though - the original one was too slow switching from grid to inverting. Supposed to be 8ms, but all computers here would reboot, some not too well. Schneider was good about it - a few questions etc, then boom, replacement sent out.
1612277024086.png
Oddly though, on the insightcloud.se.com site, it shows a new 2.44 firmware available. Yet the main Schneider page for the XW Pro only has 1.09 for download. I'm not willing to try this magic 2.44 just yet ...
1612277289824.png
 
The only reference to Version 2.44 I can find is under the XW+ and it is labeled "For Australia Only". That must be a grid profile issue.

They did just drop version v1.11_BN0028 for the XW-Pro. I am downloading the release notes to see if I want to upgrade mine.
 
The only reference to Version 2.44 I can find is under the XW+ and it is labeled "For Australia Only". That must be a grid profile issue.

They did just drop version v1.11_BN0028 for the XW-Pro. I am downloading the release notes to see if I want to upgrade mine.
Here's hoping it has that software fix you were wanting (fingers crossed). Best.
 
The only reference to Version 2.44 I can find is under the XW+ and it is labeled "For Australia Only". That must be a grid profile issue.

They did just drop version v1.11_BN0028 for the XW-Pro. I am downloading the release notes to see if I want to upgrade mine.
Did you ever upgrade? I'm noticing some weirdness after playing with too many settings on my equipment trying to get my generator working properly - I should have doc'd each change.

I went all-in w/Schneider. I have the XW Pro, 2x MPPT 150-60, SCP, BatMon, and Conext Gateway. All are at the latest firmware as of today. You already know about my troubles with the generator and now I'm noticing that the CC's don't seem to switch from Bulk to Absorb/Float - even when the BatMon says they are at 100%. I used to notice that they would go into Absorb before the battery reached 100% (~85%) and sometimes (afternoon clouds) the batteries might not reach 100% according to the BatMon.

I've only noticed this twice as I haven't had enough sun (funny being in So AZ) to get my batteries to 100% every day. We've had record heat for us that last week and a half and I have multiple A/C units going to keep humans comfortable and equipment happy. I used to think the BatMon would tell the CC's to flip to Absorb as they never seemed to reach my settings for Absorb/Float before switching. But now that I've seen the CC's NOT switch, I'm wondering what else is going on. I'm hoping my generator issues haven't caused other problems. I don't see any "Events" on the SCP nor the Gateway. So the equipment isn't giving me any clues.
 
Did you ever upgrade? I'm noticing some weirdness after playing with too many settings on my equipment trying to get my generator working properly - I should have doc'd each change.

I went all-in w/Schneider. I have the XW Pro, 2x MPPT 150-60, SCP, BatMon, and Conext Gateway. All are at the latest firmware as of today. You already know about my troubles with the generator and now I'm noticing that the CC's don't seem to switch from Bulk to Absorb/Float - even when the BatMon says they are at 100%. I used to notice that they would go into Absorb before the battery reached 100% (~85%) and sometimes (afternoon clouds) the batteries might not reach 100% according to the BatMon.

I've only noticed this twice as I haven't had enough sun (funny being in So AZ) to get my batteries to 100% every day. We've had record heat for us that last week and a half and I have multiple A/C units going to keep humans comfortable and equipment happy. I used to think the BatMon would tell the CC's to flip to Absorb as they never seemed to reach my settings for Absorb/Float before switching. But now that I've seen the CC's NOT switch, I'm wondering what else is going on. I'm hoping my generator issues haven't caused other problems. I don't see any "Events" on the SCP nor the Gateway. So the equipment isn't giving me any clues.
That's wacky. Battmon integration is a mystery. You could drop the battmon out of the system and see if behavior changes. Are the absorb voltages all the same across all devices? I always wondered what happens when the battmon, XW, and the cc all read different battery voltages.

I went looking for new firmware the other day. The weird thing is the gateway has a newer firmware available for support of XW pro 1.2. However, the XW pro web site only has the 1.11 firmware.
 
now I'm noticing that the CC's don't seem to switch from Bulk to Absorb/Float - even when the BatMon says they are at 100%. I used to notice that they would go into Absorb before the battery reached 100% (~85%) and sometimes (afternoon clouds) the batteries might not reach 100% according to the BatMon.
I think I know what is going on here.

The charge controllers are doing their mode selection based on battery voltage as they should for the proper top of charge. But when you do not get enough solar to top up the batteries, it falls short of a full charge. Maybe you did get to only 85% charge, so the voltage never reached the point where it would go to absorb mode. The charge controllers did all they could with the available solar energy.

The problem here is that the Batt Mon does not know that it didn't reach full charge. It saw the charge current fall off, so it assumes you did reach a full charge, so it reset the capacity meter back to 100%. There are settings for how sensitive the auto reset is in the Batt Mon. The voltage has to be above a certain setting, and the current has to fall below a certain setting. If it sees both happen, it thinks the battery is full, and resets to 100%. The good news is this should have no effect on the charge controllers, as they should still be looking for the correct full charge voltage to switch into absorb mode. But since it did reset to 100% at a lower state of charge, you now see it it this lower 100% before the batteries are really full.

The bad news is, with not enough sun, each day, you are pulling your battery bank lower and lower. At some point, the battery monitor will stop resetting as the voltage is just too low. Check your voltage and see where you are. With LFP cells, it is not as obvious, but if you are getting down to the lower knee, you know you have an issue. You may very well need to run the generator to get back to a true full charge state if you don't start getting some good sun soon. If you have grid power available, you could just force a bulk charge on the XW-Pro and get topped up. A bit on the electric bill is better than depleting your batteries. But if you are fully off grid, you need to either get the generator happy, or reduce you loads so the sun can keep up for a few days. During my grid failure, I resorted to my generator powering a basic 600 watt charger to pump a little power into my battery bank. That eliminated the XW having to qualify the power. I ran that for about 2.5 hours, pushing about 1.5 KWHs back into the batteries. That was not a huge help, but it was better than nothing, and my refrigerator also ran off the generator during that 2.5 hours, taking that load off of the battery bank.

I just pulled up the Battery Summary graph in Insight for the day my grid was down. My battery bank was at just 51 volts from running my house the night before, so when the grid went down at 3:19 am, I was already at about 60% SoC. It started pulling 5 to 6 amps from the battery to run the few items I had on the backup panel. I had not moved all the circuits yet. I had to run an extension cord to plug in the fridge. From 7:30 am to noon, you can see the load increasing as I added a few more things to the backup panel. From noon to 1:30 you can see the 3 times I tried to get my generator to connect. It would only hit 7 amps of charge current, and shut down again. So that works out to about 500 watts to loads, plus 350 watts of charging = less than 1,000 watts from the generator and it cut out. That stinks for a 5,000 watt rated gen.

Due to a glitch in the Enphase CA Rule 21 profile, the solar refused to come online as well. Finally at 4:27 pm, Enphase was able to remotely reset my inverters and the solar started charging my system, running all my loads and pushing 400 watts into the battery bank, but this did not last long, as the clouds came back, and then the sun set. But at least it showed the AC coupling was working and I was getting charge power and running on solar during the grid failure. I plugged in the generator with the charger, from a bit after 8 pm, to almost 11 pm, when I figured the neighbors had enough of hearing my generator. That held the battery voltage steady, so it was enough power to run the loads in the house without taking any out of the battery. I stayed running on battery all the way to just before midnight when they grid came back up. I put the XW-Pro into a bulk charge mode, but at just 13 amps to bring the battery bank up a bit over night. The next morning also had decent sun, so it all recovered without a problem. So now, I just need to get motivated and work on the governor on my generator and hopefully make it actually work on the AC2 input. I should be able to charge at over 3,000 watts, not just 600.
 
I think I know what is going on here.

The charge controllers are doing their mode selection based on battery voltage as they should for the proper top of charge. But when you do not get enough solar to top up the batteries, it falls short of a full charge. Maybe you did get to only 85% charge, so the voltage never reached the point where it would go to absorb mode. The charge controllers did all they could with the available solar energy.

The problem here is that the Batt Mon does not know that it didn't reach full charge. It saw the charge current fall off, so it assumes you did reach a full charge, so it reset the capacity meter back to 100%. There are settings for how sensitive the auto reset is in the Batt Mon. The voltage has to be above a certain setting, and the current has to fall below a certain setting. If it sees both happen, it thinks the battery is full, and resets to 100%. The good news is this should have no effect on the charge controllers, as they should still be looking for the correct full charge voltage to switch into absorb mode. But since it did reset to 100% at a lower state of charge, you now see it it this lower 100% before the batteries are really full.

The bad news is, with not enough sun, each day, you are pulling your battery bank lower and lower. At some point, the battery monitor will stop resetting as the voltage is just too low. Check your voltage and see where you are. With LFP cells, it is not as obvious, but if you are getting down to the lower knee, you know you have an issue. You may very well need to run the generator to get back to a true full charge state if you don't start getting some good sun soon. If you have grid power available, you could just force a bulk charge on the XW-Pro and get topped up. A bit on the electric bill is better than depleting your batteries. But if you are fully off grid, you need to either get the generator happy, or reduce you loads so the sun can keep up for a few days. During my grid failure, I resorted to my generator powering a basic 600 watt charger to pump a little power into my battery bank. That eliminated the XW having to qualify the power. I ran that for about 2.5 hours, pushing about 1.5 KWHs back into the batteries. That was not a huge help, but it was better than nothing, and my refrigerator also ran off the generator during that 2.5 hours, taking that load off of the battery bank.

I just pulled up the Battery Summary graph in Insight for the day my grid was down. My battery bank was at just 51 volts from running my house the night before, so when the grid went down at 3:19 am, I was already at about 60% SoC. It started pulling 5 to 6 amps from the battery to run the few items I had on the backup panel. I had not moved all the circuits yet. I had to run an extension cord to plug in the fridge. From 7:30 am to noon, you can see the load increasing as I added a few more things to the backup panel. From noon to 1:30 you can see the 3 times I tried to get my generator to connect. It would only hit 7 amps of charge current, and shut down again. So that works out to about 500 watts to loads, plus 350 watts of charging = less than 1,000 watts from the generator and it cut out. That stinks for a 5,000 watt rated gen.

Due to a glitch in the Enphase CA Rule 21 profile, the solar refused to come online as well. Finally at 4:27 pm, Enphase was able to remotely reset my inverters and the solar started charging my system, running all my loads and pushing 400 watts into the battery bank, but this did not last long, as the clouds came back, and then the sun set. But at least it showed the AC coupling was working and I was getting charge power and running on solar during the grid failure. I plugged in the generator with the charger, from a bit after 8 pm, to almost 11 pm, when I figured the neighbors had enough of hearing my generator. That held the battery voltage steady, so it was enough power to run the loads in the house without taking any out of the battery. I stayed running on battery all the way to just before midnight when they grid came back up. I put the XW-Pro into a bulk charge mode, but at just 13 amps to bring the battery bank up a bit over night. The next morning also had decent sun, so it all recovered without a problem. So now, I just need to get motivated and work on the governor on my generator and hopefully make it actually work on the AC2 input. I should be able to charge at over 3,000 watts, not just 600.
OK. That's a lot to digest.

So I'm not sure about your 1st paragraph analysis. I was first seeing the behavior of not reaching 100% (on BatMon) before switching to Absorb/Float while AZ Sun was prevalent. I figure the BatMon is pretty accurate as it is connected to the shunt and it still has the 980Ah setting. I have 1088Ah of batteries, but I de-rated them in all configurations to 980Ah (~90%) for piece of mind, safety, longer life blah, blah, blah.

Here's my CC settings and observations:
Bulk: 56V
Absorb: 56V - 120 min
Float: 54.4

When I was seeing the 85% behavior, the CC's never make it to 56V. They are somewhere in the ~55V range. I think though it might have to do with the Charger settings on the BatMon for it to read FULL. There is a "Charger Float Voltage" setting and it didn't match my current CC setting. Also, the "Auto Sync Time" is currently set to 240 secs. That is supposed to be a timer for when the battery measures the "Charger Float Voltage" and the current hits a % of of "Float Current". I think I'll need more analysis on this when I finally get my batteries back to 100% - but for that to happen, I need some sunny cool days (not likely) or my generator back online.

I did see a "Synchronize Enable/Disable" setting and I have that disabled. Maybe that does what you're talking about for resetting capacity.

I guess in the meantime I'll focus on getting the batteries back to 100%. I really need that damn generator to work.
 
The behavior sounds like your battmon hits 100% soc based on an AH calculation, it then tells the CC to stop charging even though the cc hasn't hit it's absorb voltage.

The manual says:

"A charge cycle will be considered complete when all discharged energy is restored in the battery and Auto-sync parameters F1.0, F1.1 and F1.2 are met (see System Property Settings on page 3-4). This typically occurs when the battery charger switches to float mode. By meeting these conditions, the battery is considered full, which will be indicated by a flashing Full message on the display. The State-of-charge readout will also be set to 100% and the Amp-hour readout reset to 0 Ah."

f1.0, etc are charger float voltage, current, and sync time.

Any chance your cc's hit absorb, then flash float, and drop back into bulk/absorb on a big load (Like a rebulk).

If you think the cc's would charge the batttery to it's real 100%, you could try dropping the battmon out of xanbus for a charge cycle. Then add it back when the cc hits float and resynchronize it.

You could also lower the float voltage on the battmon so it's lower than the cc float voltage and see if that makes a difference.
 
I thought that too and I think that's the point GXMnow was getting to. But it always showed a value <100% and the Ah reading never made it.

At any rate. I went into my settings reconfigured all AC2 settings to factory defaults. I have the generator running now (but now I'm low on gas. It's always something.) It's been going OK for a while ~2Kw of load. We'll see how long the gas holds out and the sun. See if I can get those batteries up to 100%.
 
Does anyone charge their batteries via AC2? I'm noticing that my current loads are still ~2Kw and the there should be excess power to divert to DC is possible.
 
I'm off grid so I don't have anything on ac1.

You should be charging from ac2 unless you have some setting that prevents it. Charger off? Generator support settings?
 
Here is some related info. on batteries and charging settings.
The batteries in my system are FLA, I have no idea if any FLA settings correspond to the advanced battery technologies most people use.
( I don’t know anything about lithium batteries or how to make one, but hope to learn by the time the FLA’s need replacement)
Thought there was trouble with the batteries not charging.
The hydrometer said they were charged, but the bat mon did not.
Turned out that I had sense leads backwards on the bat mon shunt.
(Thanks to the folks here helping me spot that.)
Now the bat mon display is normal.

I had inquired of the battery manufacturer while trying to determine the issue.
Here are the settings they wanted me to use.
inverter
low battery cut out = 46v
LBCO delay = 10S
high batt cut out = 70V
search watts = 50w (I do not use the search utilities)

charge controller
batt type = custom—> custom settings: equalize support[enable], eq voltage[61], bulk voltage[59.6],
absorb voltage[60], battery temp comp[120]
batt capacity = 325Ah (mine are 445Ah, not sure why they wanted a lower value)
max charge rate = 80-90%
charge cycle = 3 stage
recharge volts = 50v
absorb time = 150min


Here is what Schneider tech support told me about the bat mon / charge controller / inverter charging:

“- The battery monitor has 2 different functions:
• Use a complex algorithm to calculate the real status of Charge (SoC). This value is much more precise than the value taken from the inverter (which is based only on the Voltage)
• The BM can communicate the SoC to the inverter in order to perform all the actions based on the SoC level instead of the Voltage level.
- Both the MPPTs (using DC power) and the Inverter (using AC sources) can charge the batteries, then each unit has its own configuration.

All settings have to match in the 3 devices (Inverter, MPPT and BM) except for these 2:

• Recharge Volts.
• Defines the level when each device starts charging the batteries.
• You can set this value higher on the MPPT in order to prioritize the use of solar power to charge the batteries.
• Charge Cycle.
• Defines the charge phases each device should complete when starting to charge the batteries. You can set the MPPTs to 3-phase and the inverter to 2-phases in order to prioritize the use of solar power again.”

Schneider also had me upgrade the firmware in all the devices.
The XW Pro old firmware could not communicate with the new MPPT 100/600 charge controller, as it was a new product, and not backwards compatible with the older inverter firmware.

All is working well, the batteries charge from both the PV array and grid, depending on cloud conditions.
I have not tried to charge from the generator yet, but it is on the list of things to test on this new system.
Mine is set up to charge from AC1, as the switchgear is configured to connect either the grid or the generator through AC1
 
The XW-Pro does not charge automatically from input power unless the battery voltage falls below the "Recharge Volts" setting, and that won't happen unless you have some other loads as the inverter will shut down 0.5 volts above the recharge volts. This is the issue I have been having.

So when you have the generator running, and it is easily handling all of your loads, set the charge rate you want for bulk charging, and then go to the controls tab and select "Force Charger State = Bulk" and it will begin a charge cycle from the generator. Start at a fairly low current and make sure the generator is still running fine. You can then go to the charge settings and up it a little at a time. Max charge rate is a percentage. On the US version, 100% = 140 amps. It is based on current, not watts. So if you want about 1,000 watts of charge power, and your battery bank is at 50 volts, you would set it like this. 1,000 / 50 = 20 amps of charge current. 20 / 140 = 14.29%, just enter 14% and see what you get, and see if the generator is still able to supply all of the load, and this charge current.

If you are still getting any power from the solar charge controllers, this current will add to their current. So if the solar was already pushing 20 amps, now you will have 40 amps going into the batteries. IF the generator is running low on fuel, or you just want to stop and go back to batteries, you should go back to the control tab, and select "Force Charger State = No Float" and this will turn off the charging current. Then when you shut down the generator, the XW-Pro will go into invert mode to power the loads. It may be best if you can switch off a disconnect, because the coasting down generator may cause a problem before it can disconnect. Pulling a disconnect should result in a very fast switch to battery power. Try to reduce loads on the system as you do it though. If it is pulling 2,000+ watts, it may arc the disconnect contacts a bit, we don't want that.
 
The XW-Pro does not charge automatically from input power unless the battery voltage falls below the "Recharge Volts" setting, and that won't happen unless you have some other loads as the inverter will shut down 0.5 volts above the recharge volts. This is the issue I have been having.

So when you have the generator running, and it is easily handling all of your loads, set the charge rate you want for bulk charging, and then go to the controls tab and select "Force Charger State = Bulk" and it will begin a charge cycle from the generator. Start at a fairly low current and make sure the generator is still running fine. You can then go to the charge settings and up it a little at a time. Max charge rate is a percentage. On the US version, 100% = 140 amps. It is based on current, not watts. So if you want about 1,000 watts of charge power, and your battery bank is at 50 volts, you would set it like this. 1,000 / 50 = 20 amps of charge current. 20 / 140 = 14.29%, just enter 14% and see what you get, and see if the generator is still able to supply all of the load, and this charge current.

If you are still getting any power from the solar charge controllers, this current will add to their current. So if the solar was already pushing 20 amps, now you will have 40 amps going into the batteries. IF the generator is running low on fuel, or you just want to stop and go back to batteries, you should go back to the control tab, and select "Force Charger State = No Float" and this will turn off the charging current. Then when you shut down the generator, the XW-Pro will go into invert mode to power the loads. It may be best if you can switch off a disconnect, because the coasting down generator may cause a problem before it can disconnect. Pulling a disconnect should result in a very fast switch to battery power. Try to reduce loads on the system as you do it though. If it is pulling 2,000+ watts, it may arc the disconnect contacts a bit, we don't want that.
Strange, that is not how mine works or how my old xw4024s worked. If the generator is started either automatically via the ags or manually, the XW qualifies power and starts charging in bulk. If the battery is full, it will quickly move to absorb. Mine is set for no float two stage charging. If the generator was automatically started via the ags, it will be shutoff by the ags when the xw hits float. If the generator was started manually, the xw will stop charging, but the generator will continue to power the loads until you manually shut it off. The recharge volts setting doesn't matter. This must be something that the grid tie settings change.
 
This sort of makes sense, and I can see how it would work off grid. When there is no AC1 or AC2 power, it will run below the "Recharge Volts" setting and then the generator, or return of grid power would start a charge cycle, but if the battery volts are still above the recharge volts, it won't automatically charge. Since I am on grid, this causes a problem, as it will not supply inverter power down to the recharge volts setting, and will not charge unless the battery goes below recharge volts. It is a catch 22. But when the grid is not there, you can set the recharge volts higher, and it will run below it and work. The quick test is telling it to force a bulk charge. With the MPPT SCC in the system, they are usually set with a higher "Recharge Volts" and they should handle all of the charging, and the XW would have the recharge volts set low to allow it to use the solar power and not charge from AC inputs. But when the sun falls short, then the XW recharge volts may need to be raised up to get it to charge.

Sorry if I am double talking, I am trying to think through the logic flow of the Schneider software, which has been bugging me for nearly a year. When I was off grid for a day, it actually worked better than it does on grid. I even looked into having a timer kick it off grid for a few hours each night to make it cycle properly.
 

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