AOLithium (48V) Buyer Feedback

[Detritalgeo]

To go beyond 55.99 (per the display) you need to be under .5A. any more will shut off charging and reset to 100%. I found a hard limit at 57.00V indicated.

Yup, my power supply set to 55.85V brought the 3 batteries to 55.98V each. It was down to 7W supply but the balancing as basically stopped with one cell per pack at 3.48V and all others at 3.50V. Next time I will tick up the supply voltage slowly to 56.8V.

 

[Detritalgeo]

So I just put my pair of year old V2 (blue DIP) packs on a 55.95V charge to top balance and they have a 140-160 mV delta to burn away now that they are in CV mode.

Not too bad since they have been in light use for a year (21 cycles), were never top balanced when new and rarely sat fully charged to let the passive balancing work (I was pushing all excess power to ev to make sure I could map out PV performance)

I have to say it's nice to see all the pack parameters on the monitoring utility.. Shows the balancing activity as well.

 

[Kremer]

So I just put my pair of year old V2 (blue DIP) packs on a 55.95V charge to top balance and they have a 140-160 mV delta to burn away now that they are in CV mode.

I have to say it's nice to see all the pack parameters on the monitoring utility.. Shows the balancing activity as well.

I'm going to have to get that setup.

 

[Detritalgeo]

I'm going to have to get that setup.

There is a KS utility that runs in the browser or there is a 'BMS Studio' app that CERRNSS has.. bother allow the monitoring data to be seen but only the KS utility seems to allow parsing and setting critical BMS deployment parameters.

did a quick short here: will do a rough longform soon but who has time to edit while working full time, lol

Also an update... the pack in the video had a runner to 3645 mV so I had to turn down the charge to 55.5V and 0.4A... the delta was growing past 200 mV now...

 

[Dmac432]

Has anyone been able to get the v3s to communicate with the v2s? Also on the voltronic setting, if you plug into the rs485b, it seems that you can see parallel batteries, at least in the ks_23 software

 

[Detritalgeo]

I cannot get V2 to feed slave data to V3.. Or vice versa. V3 have a whole different BMS design and I guess they didn't bother to make the slave data protocol compatible.. Yet

 

[Detritalgeo]

Charging up another 2 of the new units with the V3 'YTT' version of BMS.

Passive balancing will only start above 3500 mV but these BMS's go into alarm at 56V so it's a fine line. Charging at 55.85V which is just below 56V on the BMS.

Once the current declined to less than 0.5A per pack I just left it.. Still balancing and taking in 10W or so per pack.

Let's set how long it takes to get down to a 20mV delta. The delta at start of balancing was over 100 mV.

 

[Solar Moose]

Charging up another 2 of the new units with the V3 'YTT' version of BMS.

Passive balancing will only start above 3500 mV but these BMS's go into alarm at 56V so it's a fine line. Charging at 55.85V which is just below 56V on the BMS.

Once the current declined to less than 0.5A per pack I just left it.. Still balancing and taking in 10W or so per pack.

Let's set how long it takes to get down to a 20mV delta. The delta at start of balancing was over 100 mV.

View attachment 273885View attachment 273886

If your power supply doesn’t surge when going higher, bump it up so that highest cell is 3.620 if you want. But do keep a eye on it as they tend to tick up a few mV over time. I did this so that more of the batteries in that server rack end up over 3500mV and help out, if I’m understanding it correctly. I did eventually get to 56.7V

 

[Detritalgeo]

Does anyone know if the passive balancing stops when the delta reaches 20mV?

I know the Datasheet indicates that delta must be >20mV to start balancing.. But not sure if this is the lower threshold as well. I have a feeling it is.

 

[Solar Moose]

Yes it will stop there. I watched it in the menu page

 

[ctid]

I've been reading the DIY battery forum out of curiosity and I had a thought. Would it be possible to change the (futronic?) terminals so that the racks can take standard cables? I'm not currently at home at the minute so I can't open mine up to take a look.

I don't think our warranty is going to be worth anything TBH, as the company has gone dark, certainly in Europe. If it is possible, I would definitely look at this route.

 

[Detritalgeo]

Absolutely.. It's the standard bolts holding the plug onto the face plate. Replace the plug with a lug terminal... I would imagine the 4 bolts are a common spacing /configuration..

 

[ctid]

I've found terminals on aliexpress from a poster on the DIY battery forum, currently on sale for $5 a pair. I'm going to order these for each of my batteries and make up my own leads.

link

 

[airChris]

I've found terminals on aliexpress from a poster on the DIY battery forum, currently on sale for $5 a pair. I'm going to order these for each of my batteries and make up my own leads.

link

Just make sure you are getting the correct size. Futronics makes two sizes, they look identical, but are not interchangeable. The smaller size (rated about 120 amp) is used on the AOlithium battery.

Chris

 

[Detritalgeo]

Just make sure you are getting the correct size. Futronics makes two sizes, they look identical, but are not interchangeable. The smaller size (rated about 120 amp) is used on the AOlithium battery.

Chris

Yup, the futonics website has all the details.. The FSP 8.0 are beefier but you need the plug and receptacles... so you will have to switch out both pieces.. And if you are doing that then you can change to any terminal type you want.

 

[Naruto]

Hello, I also have a battery and tried to read the data for my home assistant but i get no answer when connected to the battery. on the left RS485/CAN no communication at all on the other 2 there comes all the time some data but I don't know what the values are. it looks like i got the 2nd version blue dip and less info on the display.
Did anybody have the protocol or an idea how i can read the bms data ?

>22058484E00205FD23<\r>
>22068484E00206FD21<\r>
>22078484E00207FD1F<\r>
>22088484E00208FD1D<\r>
>22098484E00209FD1B<\r>
>220A8484E0020AFD0B<\r>
>220B8484E0020BFD09<\r>
>220C8484E0020CFD07<\r>

 

[Detritalgeo]

Ok another complaint on the V3 BMS with red DIPs..

Seems it is set to charge to 54V then tells the inverter to shut off charge completely the second the voltage hits 54V.

This is crap, there is no chance of passive balancing to happen and there definitely no real absorption.

Can't even change any of the setting because they won't provide the monitoring software.. At least it was cheap but dang..

Also I am pretty sure AOlithium has abandoned the consumer energy storage game... customer support is MIA.

 

[Detritalgeo]

Ok further the comment above.. I am now pretty sure ot will also stop charging if the BMS hits 100%.. Which it is doing way too soon. I have been on light loads the last week and the batteries still say 99% even though the smart shunt is atabout 89%.. So I have to say the firmware on these units is far from optimized.

 

[Solar Moose]

I bought my units from Amazon.ca, today I sent the start of a claim in. For this company to go silent and not fix their issues, is unacceptable!

 

[edharveybc]

I bought my units from Amazon.ca, today I sent the start of a claim in. For this company to go silent and not fix their issues, is unacceptable!

Looks like you're in Canada (Alberta). If you are interested in returning them I'd be interested in buying them off you. I'm looking at replacing the BMS with a JK / Seplos / JBD unit that will fit the front panel.

DM me if this sounds appealing.

 

[Solar Moose]

Thanks for the offer, I’m over the time Amazon has for a return.
I did send the request to get some action from the seller.
I bought these at $949.00 cdn so figured that I couldn’t buy a diy box for that.
I have personally found out some operating tips for this bms.
Andy at DIY off grid garage only recommends charging to 55.2V with 1 hour of absorb time for a full charge.

I have my Magnum and Outback MPPT set to charge to 55.9 because of the high equalization cell setting of this bms.

The SOC’s wander quite a bit, so if I’m around, I wait until it’s floating after its absorb hour.
Then I set the Outback to EQ mode at 60.4V.
This will cause all packs to flash their red leds and quit charging, but it resets all SOC’s to 100%.
Then I stop the Outback EQ mode.

 

[edharveybc]

Thanks for the offer, I’m over the time Amazon has for a return.
I did send the request to get some action from the seller.
I bought these at $949.00 cdn so figured that I couldn’t buy a diy box for that.
I have personally found out some operating tips for this bms.
Andy at DIY off grid garage only recommends charging to 55.2V with 1 hour of absorb time for a full charge.

I have my Magnum and Outback MPPT set to charge to 55.9 because of the high equalization cell setting of this bms.

The SOC’s wander quite a bit, so if I’m around, I wait until it’s floating after its absorb hour.
Then I set the Outback to EQ mode at 60.4V.
This will cause all packs to flash their red leds and quite charging, but it resets all SOC’s to 100%.
Then I stop the Outback EQ mode.

Yeah even with the crappy BMS they are a good deal. I was actually hoping to be able to get more but it looks like that won’t be possible now. I still may look for a BMS that fits the chassis and replace all six so I can operate them as one linked bank. Right now I have 4x from 2023 and 2x from 2024 and they do not talk to each other.

If I find a suitable replacement BMS I’ll let the forum know.