Schneider firmware really has issues

srcorrecto said:

Those are my actual status pages. I did full factory reset, then connect LAN cable from router for initial setup, configured AP Ip and password, and lastly configured wi-fi ssid and password.

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That's a surprise, not what I was expecting. Looks like you have local access, so like sancsam said, this looks like a remote monitoring issue. Do you use that? Do you have a country disabled filter on your router/modem?

I was so infuriated that i put 1.17 back and everything worked good, buuuut now i cannot write the Region Code. I dont know if it is related or not but when i try it says: stored successfully mut in status says: State: Mismatch, and Current Region: Custom!! I am goig to a short vacation with the wife a few days but my next step is a full factory reset, rewrite all fw's and start from zero.... again !!

Yeah, I'm leaving soon for a vacation, I've learned in the past to not mess with this right before I leave. These updates will wait until I return.

400bird said:

That's a surprise, not what I was expecting. Looks like you have local access, so like sancsam said, this looks like a remote monitoring issue. Do you use that? Do you have a country disabled filter on your router/modem?

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as sancsam said it coul be a cloud problem and not mine, anyways i will not try it again as I cannot get my Fortress Evault Classic to use closed Loop !

Yesterday I installed Insight 1.18 and had some strange results. I was a computer programmer and owned a software company for 25 years, so I normally work carefully and systematically when making changes.

After installing 1.18, the first thing I noticed was the clock was weird. I checked and the Time/Date settings were correct, but the time had advanced by 6 hours. So, it appears they take the system time, and assume it is in the UK, then add the time zone offset. This would create the 6-hour difference (Central America).

Second, I had to take the primary (new term for master) inverter offline. When I did that, the WiFi connection from Insight Facility dropped. It was still transmitting, but would not accept any connections (from various devices). I had to power off the Insight Facility and restart it before the WiFi would allow connections.

I see that EG4-LL batteries are now supported, but I am not prepared to select that option until I see an update for the MPPT firmware, which I read somewhere else may be released soon. The MPPT still does not recognize Li-ion batteries, which is really poor.

Eh, maybe I will wait for the next upgrade...This one looks like more fun than I want.

Darcy Costa Rica said:

I see that EG4-LL batteries are now supported, but I am not prepared to select that option until I see an update for the MPPT firmware, which I read somewhere else may be released soon. The MPPT still does not recognize Li-ion batteries, which is really poor.

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I set up mine like this:



And all I can see it did was pass the charging parameters from the BMS to all MPPTs. Now most of the charging parameters in the MPPT are greyed out. If i disable Match MPPT Voltage to BMS I can individually set up the charging parameters as before.

From playing around with the MPPT Voltage Offset it is using 56VDC as setpoint for Bulk/Absorption/float and subtract the offset value. So, in this case 56VDC - 0.5 VDC Offset = 55.5VDC for all the parameters.

@sancsam, are you grid tied? If so, what would you suggest for a GSV (grid sell voltage)? I have the older XW6048, with 3 - 150-60 SCC's. I very seldom lose the grid, and don't want to over charge the batteries day in and day out. I have been 'experimenting' with different battery charging and GSV values. I have 2 Trophy 220ah lithiums, and have used the mfr's charging values, but I think they are too high for my grid tied set up.

Ideas, suggestions anyone...?

Thanks

Philip53 said:

Ideas, suggestions anyone...?

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I think that's personal preference, how much battery to you want to retain if the power goes out?

Edit: that's and awkward sentence. How about: How much power do you want to hold in reserve, in case the power goes out?

Are you ok with 80%? 30%

I've got mine set to about 30% SOC, the setting is in voltage, but my setting is just over 30%
Meaning that anything over 30% could be sold to the grid. I've got some timers and other stuff going on, so it doesn't just dump everything down to that point, but my point is that some will want to hold the entire battery bank in reserve and set the grid support voltage very high.

sancsam said:

I set up mine like this:

View attachment 157836

And all I can see it did was pass the charging parameters from the BMS to all MPPTs. Now most of the charging parameters in the MPPT are greyed out. If i disable Match MPPT Voltage to BMS I can individually set up the charging parameters as before. View attachment 157837

From playing around with the MPPT Voltage Offset it is using 56VDC as setpoint for Bulk/Absorption/float and subtract the offset value. So, in this case 56VDC - 0.5 VDC Offset = 55.5VDC for all the parameters.

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Please clarify some points: are you using equalization for LiFePo batteries? and second: where exactly is your 56 volts setpoint? Thanks

srcorrecto said:

Please clarify some points: are you using equalization for LiFePo batteries? and second: where exactly is your 56 volts setpoint? Thanks

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All of that was pulled from the EG4-LL BMS with this option Enabled. If you can see on the screen all of those values are greyed out and cannot be changed including the Equalization. The equalization is allowed but the equalize now button is disabled and greyed out.


The EG4-LL manual state 56.2 for bulk/absorption and 54 for float.

400bird said:

I think that's personal preference, how much battery to you want to retain if the power goes out?

Edit: that's and awkward sentence. How about: How much power do you want to hold in reserve, in case the power goes out?

Are you ok with 80%? 30%

I've got mine set to about 30% SOC, the setting is in voltage, but my setting is just over 30%
Meaning that anything over 30% could be sold to the grid. I've got some timers and other stuff going on, so it doesn't just dump everything down to that point, but my point is that some will want to hold the entire battery bank in reserve and set the grid support voltage very high.

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Well, that is the conundrum for sure. I would like to have the batteries to have about 80% in 'reserve' for unexpected outages. So, if the GSV really sets this SOC percentage, what do you think I need to set the bulk, absorbtion and float at? Right now I have my SCC's set at 55 volts for bulk and absorb, with float at 54 volts. GSV is set at 53.6 volts. After a good days sun, my Trophy's are showing SOC @ 99%, 229 ah at 53.36 volts. I tried to monitor the SCC's during the day, and they always showed bulk charging @ approx. the GSV set point of 53.6 volts.

I am conflicted with the interaction of all of these settings. It seems, of course that the GSV controls everything. I would think that the batteries would go through their charging at those voltage parameters, then drop to float (or GSV) setting. The manual does not explain these interactions very well - at least to me.

Edit: I also question the SOC readings I am getting from the battery displays. They both show 99% , but from what I have read, the displayed 53.36 volts don't equal a 99% SOC.

Anybody have a good handle on this?
And please remember, I am having to run an open loop with my 12 year old XW6048, and am using the SCP to make any changes to the inverter/SCC's.

Thanks for any responses.

Philip53 said:

Well, that is the conundrum for sure. I would like to have the batteries to have about 80% in 'reserve' for unexpected outages. So, if the GSV really sets this SOC percentage,

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It does not, the settings is in volts or SOC, my battery bank is not Lifepo4, so I didn't give voltage, just to avoid confusion.

Philip53 said:

what do you think I need to set the bulk, absorbtion and float at? Right now I have my SCC's set at 55 volts for bulk and absorb, with float at 54 volts. GSV is set at 53.6 volts. After a good days sun, my Trophy's are showing SOC @ 99%, 229 ah at 53.36 volts. I tried to monitor the SCC's during the day, and they always showed bulk charging @ approx. the GSV set point of 53.6 volts.

I am conflicted with the interaction of all of these settings. It seems, of course that the GSV controls everything.

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Yeah, it can be a bit much. The Grid support/sell voltage can be king of the hill depending on the start/stop timers you might have set. If you don't have the start/stop timers set on the grid support voltage, that's it. The SCC will keep trying to get to their bulk/float/absorb/whatever, but the inverter is going to convert any energy that pushes battery voltage up above GSV.

Philip53 said:

Edit: I also question the SOC readings I am getting from the battery displays. They both show 99% , but from what I have read, the displayed 53.36 volts don't equal a 99% SOC.

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A couple possibilities come to mind:
1. Some BMS's don't register low current, if you're drawing 1.5 amps, the SOC will never change
2. If it's been a while since the cells have been higher in the voltage range, the SOC may be inaccurate and need to reset. When was the last time cell voltage was above 3.5 or 3.6 volts?

Philip53 said:

Anybody have a good handle on this?
And please remember, I am having to run an open loop with my 12 year old XW6048, and am using the SCP to make any changes to the inverter/SCC's.

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Umm, all of my answers are assuming Schneider hasn't changed how the settings interact in 10 years. I've got an XW pro

Philip53 said:

Thanks for any responses.

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Thanks @400bird, my timers are off, as is my inverter charger - only using solar, unless of course I need to fire up the generator & charge via inverter.

After a few months of use, last week I bumped up the charge settings and got the cells to probably a bit over 3.5v, but I got a high voltage alarm on one of the batteries. I believe I was trying a 57 volt charge rate when that happened. I had read here of other Trophy owners saying their BMS was set to very 'protective' settings, and I am thinking that is what caused the alarm. I don't know if it disconnected that battery, as the other battery did not indicate a high voltage warning, and for sure did not trip.

So, if you are selling to the grid, unless your GSV is set higher than your SCC charge settings, the GSV setting will not allow any of those SCC charger settings to come into play. In that case, the only time those SCC settings will pertain is when you have lost grid power, and the GSV would not activate. Is that correct? And if so, I can use the GSV to completely control the SOC of the batteries. By setting the GSV at 53v I should be able to keep the SOC at about 80%, and then maybe once a month, increase the GSV to 56.5 for a couple days to ensure good balancing and to restore displayed SOC accuracy?

I had installed a Victron system in my Sprinter van a couple years ago, using 2 200ah 12v Victron lithium batteries, and found that the indicated SOC can be off significantly if the van has been sitting a while with no charger attached, and with a very small 7 watt drain on the batteries. Every month or so of non use, I'll go & turn on the inverter to get a good charge on the batteries, and then synchronize them via the BMV 712.

Philip53 said:

So, if you are selling to the grid, unless your GSV is set higher than your SCC charge settings, the GSV setting will not allow any of those SCC charger settings to come into play. In that case, the only time those SCC settings will pertain is when you have lost grid power, and the GSV would not activate. Is that correct? And if so, I can use the GSV to completely control the SOC of the batteries. By setting the GSV at 53v I should be able to keep the SOC at about 80%, and then maybe once a month, increase the GSV to 56.5 for a couple days to ensure good balancing and to restore displayed SOC accuracy?

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@Philip53 Im in the same process of figuring out the best way to keep 80% SOC while exporting/selling excess solar and I reached to that same conclusion on using the GSV to control SOC.

On my batteries (EG4-LL) so far, I have been able to stay at 80% SOC with 53.2VDC for GSV.

I am right there with you too @sancsam . Thinking between 53 and 53.3 for GSV. Brought it down to 53v last night and am watching the system today. So far, one of my batteries has dropped to 79%, and the other one to 86%. This is from 99% last night. I imagine they will even out later today or tonight at closer to 80%.

romangeek said:

In reply to 400bird...

• Schneider needs to update the MPPT to actually be smart in the system and communicate properly.
• Nowhere in the documentation is there an explanation that with LIPO4 batteries the sensor should not be used! And their tech support people say it should be used!
• I had tried 0 for the temp. compensation and then the MPPT stopped producing output entirely! I found this strange but figured that 0 must be considered an illegal value, so I tried low values like -5 instead of the default -108... that too did not work as it fed only about .5 Kw to the DC bus.

Like I said, it is incredible that on top of poor software and documentation, Schneider does not train their support techs. One would think that they would have a section in their training that would include those "fancy new batteries called LIPO4"!

The following is from their release notes:
Release 120-240V Firmware 02.04.00 Build 0029
Released: 06 Feb 2023
Summary of Changes
Added IEEE1547-2018 and HECO SRD 2.0 2020 grid codes
Added SoC Based Enhanced Grid Support
Added Low SoC Hysteresis
Increased the LBCO setting range to 50Vdc
Improved frequency shift response time for AC Coupling
Improved BMS comms lost operation
Improved transitions to backup power for multi-unit systems to optimize load sharing
Known Issues:
Enhanced Grid Support in voltage control mode (SOC Control Disabled) has the following limitation:

• When MPPT in float and DC coupled PV production is less than the sell Amps, the battery voltage may dip and XW pro result in sell cycling. The workaround for this would be to set Absorption time to 8 hours, so that absorption timer doesn’t expire before end of the solar day.

Enhanced Grid Support with External BMS, SOC Control Enabled was added in this release but has the following limitation:

• The XW Pro output to AC is limited by the Max Discharge current of the BMS, even if available solar from the MPPT exceeds the BMS limit. Ensure the battery maximum discharge current is greater than the maximum MPPT output if using this feature.

My comments: First, the main feature of this inverter is that it is "Hybrid" ... yet the main feature that makes it hybrid does not work properly. Second, their workaround solutions listed above do not work.
In their manual, they claim that to enable enhanced grid support one should set the "Grid support Voltage" to 64 as though that is a magic switch to turn it on - that does not work either (it deep cycles the battery continuously)! My son was on their tech support call for 2 hours and in "guiding" him to set up the system for EGS. Their "guidance" did not work at all! It was only by my experimentation that I figured out what values for the many parameters would actually make the system work. So I wonder how much testing they actually do??

So in the end I have a system that works but at an incredible cost of time!

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Hi.I was reading your problem and how did you solve it, very well done..Could you give me a guide on how you solved the problem so that the system does not deep cycle the battery? I have tried with Schneider technical services but they do not have the answer... thanks

sancsam said:

View attachment 157846
All of that was pulled from the EG4-LL BMS with this option Enabled. If you can see on the screen all of those values are greyed out and cannot be changed including the Equalization. The equalization is allowed but the equalize now button is disabled and greyed out.


The EG4-LL manual state 56.2 for bulk/absorption and 54 for float.
View attachment 157847

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@sancsam Would the setting Match BMS MPPT Voltage to BMS work if you has a DYI battery with a BMS like JK BMS with integrated active Balancer
Because I am considering DYI battery packs
Thanks
Scat

Scat said:

@sancsam Would the setting Match BMS MPPT Voltage to BMS work if you has a DYI battery with a BMS like JK BMS with integrated active Balancer
Because I am considering DYI battery packs
Thanks
Scat

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It's not really required to use. The Match BMS MPPT Voltage just conveniently copy the charging parameters from the BMS to the MPPTs. It only does this when you hit apply. So it only saves u the time to setup the MPPTs with the max charging voltage in the BMS.

You can do that manually and achieve the same.

I you want to do closed loop with a JK BMS and Schneider you can explore and setup the JK BMS CAN protocol to Pylontech Low voltage.

https://diysolarforum.com/threads/j...support-goodwe-and-pylontech-batteries.48963/

sancsam said:

It's not really required to use. The Match BMS MPPT Voltage just conveniently copy the charging parameters from the BMS to the MPPTs. It only does this when you hit apply. So it only saves u the time to setup the MPPTs with the max charging voltage in the BMS.

You can do that manually and achieve the same.

I you want to do closed loop with a JK BMS and Schneider you can explore and setup the JK BMS CAN protocol to Pylontech Low voltage.

https://diysolarforum.com/threads/j...support-goodwe-and-pylontech-batteries.48963/

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Thanks for you answer, and for the information.

The InsightFacility Gateway Firmware v1.18 is available to download again. Has anyone tried this again to see if the "bugs" have been worked out?

NewGuyNoob said:

The InsightFacility Gateway Firmware v1.18 is available to download again. Has anyone tried this again to see if the "bugs" have been worked out?

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NewGuyNoob said:

The InsightFacility Gateway Firmware v1.18 is available to download again. Has anyone tried this again to see if the "bugs" have been worked out?

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I understand Schneider does not recommend it for the XW plus... but they were able to solve the problem that the previous version had, it works very well in the XW Pro...

Roman59 said:

I understand Schneider does not recommend it for the XW plus... but they were able to solve the problem that the previous version had, it works very well in the XW Pro...

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Are you running this version? Notice anything either improved or better? I do have eg4 batteries as well…

NewGuyNoob said:

Are you running this version? Notice anything either improved or better? I do have eg4 batteries as well…

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I have not installed it yet but I have met friends who have done it and their comments have been that the new version corrected the problem of the previous one.