Apexium 15kwh And EG4 Lifepower4 v2 closed comms issue

[EZPZ]

Hi all
Maybe you guys have some insights.
I have a single 18kpv. And 2 EG4 LP4 v2 100ah batteries. All was well and showing up properly on the eg4 website.
Got a 300ah Apexium ready built to add to the system.

Removed both the lp4 v2 batteries and connected the Apexium. Didn’t have to change anything on the inverter and set the battery to lux power over CAN. All good and the monitoring website sees the bms and values.

But,
1. The website doesn’t update fully. Green circles are good, red circles are bad.


And if I look at the app, it shows correctly


So my deduction is that it is reading the info from the bms correctly, but somehow the website is wonky but not the app. The website eventually removes the detailed battery display, that info is from the LP4 v2 btw, and changes the other red circle to 0 values. @EG4TechSolutionsTeam

2. I cannot get battery to battery comms working with the Apexium and the LP4 v2
I have tried the following
A) LP4 v2 as host battery with Apexium as slave along with all the dip switches for bat ids. Apexium was set for battery comms on pylon 9600 baud
B) Apexium as host with LP4 as slave along with the dip switches for bat ids.

So initially the LP4 v2 would trip its breaker and that is due to the pin 3 and 6 that needs to be cut. So I did that and then its breaker would no longer trip.

Yet in either A and B, the inverter/website/app didn’t see the slave battery.

Any ideas? It seems from the documentation that the Apexium and the LP4 v2 use different layouts for battery to battery comms…


EG4 doc


Apexium doc


RS485A and RS485B seem to be on different pins on the different batteries….


Ideas?

 

[fnnwizard]

I'm assuming this is on an 18kpv?
Which BMS from Apexium? Model? Can you take picture of it? If its a Seplos, I might be able to help.
And, can you find CAN communication info for the EG4 battery? Is it std pin 4+5 on std rj45?

I recently was able to get a Seplos bms working simultaneously for both RS and CAN ports which it seems no one knows about. This may be a key to maybe get EG4 and at least this bms to work together since they do basically speak the same language, but at different baud rates for different ports.

The wiring was a bit funky tho, so you can't just use a std ethernet termintation.

 

[EZPZ]

Yes an 18kpv. I don’t think it’s a Seplos bms. It came with the completed unit so there wasn’t an option to choose a bms.
It works fine talking to the 18kpv, it’s just doesn’t want to do comms with the lifepower4 v2 batteries I also have.

I believe it’s a Daren 200A bms

 

[EZPZ]

These pics are from the manual. There is no way I am pulling that monster 300lb and taking it apart.

 

[fnnwizard]

These pics are from the manual. There is no way I am pulling that monster 300lb and taking it apart.

View attachment 291853

View attachment 291854


View attachment 291855

Lol, I hear you. Looks very similar to a modified trophy battery bms, which is related to Seplos. Which isn't new... these BMS are probably made by a few companies and sold under many names... thats why we can't get good data from the sellers... They don;t know it as well as the true designer/maker...

The good news is if it communicates with the inverter there's a good chance it can be passed through the EG4.
Let me do some search...

 

[fnnwizard]

Lol, I hear you. Looks very similar to a modified trophy battery bms, which is related to Seplos. Which isn't new... these BMS are probably made by a few companies and sold under many names... thats why we can't get good data from the sellers... They don;t know it as well as the true designer/maker...

The good news is if it communicates with the inverter there's a good chance it can be passed through the EG4.
Let me do some search...

Do one of these ports say CAN on it?

Actually the center 1 since it looks like 3 letters?

 

[EZPZ]

RS232 then RS485 then CAN. CAN is plugged into the inverter when it’s the host battery. Battery is set for CAN LUXPower. 18pkv is set for lithium and battery type 1.

 

[fnnwizard]

So initially the LP4 v2 would trip its breaker and that is due to the pin 3 and 6 that needs to be cut. So I did that and then its breaker would no longer trip.

Where did you get this info?

I thought only 6 needed to be clipped since for 18kPv to communicate with this bms, you'll need 3 to communicate in CAN. The bms you have should communicate to 18 via 4 and 3.

When you connected just Apex, how was the connection made?
using default rj45? or clipped?
and can you detail the dip switches?

 

[EZPZ]

The clipping is on the battery to battery comms, not from host battery to inverter. In the eg4 documentation pin 3 and 6 in the battery to battery rs485 comms is used for the Rsd function. I use the supplied 18kpv inverter to battery cable to connect to the battery.
The inverter sees the Apexium just fine but not the lp4 v2 hanging off it on the battery to battery side.
And likewise it sees the lp4 v2 just fine if it’s connected to the 18kpv first but then not the Apexium bms hanging off the lp4 v2.
Its sees both lp4 v2 batteries if thats the only batteries.

So somewhere in the battery to battery comms the lp4 v2 and Apexium bms are not talking. Either protocol or pin settings.
I just read earlier that someone had to change the pins in the Ethernet cable but now for the life of me cannot find that post.

 

[jhar1945]

Hi EZPZ
Got a few questions... How does the Apexium look quality wise? And did you pick it up in Houston? Care to give a little closer location of where you live. Texas is a big state. I was thinking about the Apexium to add to my wall mount EG4 system and have a relative that could pick it up in Houston and transport it to Lubbock. The price of the Apexium is a whold lot less the the EG4.
Thanks

 

[fnnwizard]

The clipping is on the battery to battery comms, not from host battery to inverter. In the eg4 documentation pin 3 and 6 in the battery to battery rs485 comms is used for the Rsd function. I use the supplied 18kpv inverter to battery cable to connect to the battery.
The inverter sees the Apexium just fine but not the lp4 v2 hanging off it on the battery to battery side.
And likewise it sees the lp4 v2 just fine if it’s connected to the 18kpv first but then not the Apexium bms hanging off the lp4 v2.
Its sees both lp4 v2 batteries if thats the only batteries.

So somewhere in the battery to battery comms the lp4 v2 and Apexium bms are not talking. Either protocol or pin settings.
I just read earlier that someone had to change the pins in the Ethernet cable but now for the life of me cannot find that post.

Got that.
I'm stuck on this part below:

You wrote that the red circled part don't show either. I need to know the dip settings you used for the Apex. Was it battery address 0? and switch 6 in on or off position?

Removed both the lp4 v2 batteries and connected the Apexium. Didn’t have to change anything on the inverter and set the battery to lux power over CAN. All good and the monitoring website sees the bms and values.

But,
1. The website doesn’t update fully. Green circles are good, red circles are bad.

View attachment 291807

 

[EZPZ]

Hi EZPZ
Got a few questions... How does the Apexium look quality wise? And did you pick it up in Houston? Care to give a little closer location of where you live. Texas is a big state. I was thinking about the Apexium to add to my wall mount EG4 system and have a relative that could pick it up in Houston and transport it to Lubbock. The price of the Apexium is a whold lot less the the EG4.
Thanks

It was very nicely packaged and no bumps or scratches on it. Very happy with how it looks. Nice and smooth. Didn’t open it up so cannot say how it looks inside. Too heavy for me to have to move it around so it just went into its final resting place. Wheels look very solid. I am about 2hrs north of Houston. The warehouse is about 15 minutes west of downtown Houston. So aesthetically it looks nice for me at least and was happy with the process, time can only tell if it behaves and lasts. And of course this battery to battery comms issue is a little irritating. Support from vendor might also be an issue.

 

[EZPZ]

Got that.
I'm stuck on this part below:

You wrote that the red circled part don't show either. I need to know the dip settings you used for the Apex. Was it battery address 0? and switch 6 in on or off position?

Yes that’s so weird because the website red circles didn’t update but in the eg4 app it updates perfectly. So I assume it’s a website issue for that part. The eg4 app shows immediate changes when the apex bms changes etc.

 

[EZPZ]

So when I have it as the host battery dip switches are as follows.
Battery 0. All dip switches (1 thru 6) in off position

 

[Brucey]

And of course this battery to battery comms issue is a little irritating.

I don't know of anyone that has got eg4 batteries and other brands working via comms directly with daisy chaining without the eg4 conversion box etc.

 

[EZPZ]

Ok so what I have decided to do I the interim is have the inverter talk to the 2 lp4 v2’s. They show up on the website so I can see both of them and see what they are doing. The apexium I will just view via there Bluetooth app to see what it’s doing and it can ride along in ‘dumb’ mode. This way I can see all the batteries.

On another note I also tried splicing a cable so only pins 7 and 8 were live but that also didn’t work for comms from lp4 v2 to apexium.

The only other thing I can think of is the baud rate… @EG4TechSolutionsTeam - what is the baud rate of the lifepower4 v2 battery to battery comms and what protocol is it using? I had the apex set at 9600 and pylon.

 

[EZPZ]

Also noticed the lp4 v2 will not communicate with each other if dip 5 and 6 are off on the host v2. Interesting.

 

[EZPZ]

Will try using the Luxpower only code protocol on the host v2 battery tomorrow as opposed to the EG4/Lux protocol.

 

[fnnwizard]

The web app and mobile app polls from the same data. The web app shows more but not all. The mobile app shows barely anything. Polling the inverter I get it all together.

I am using Seplos. If I use just pylon, 2, I do not get all the bms data, just some of it, like what shows in the green circles for you.


Here is something easy to try for now. Use Pylon, 0 (EG4 as brand)

If I use the pylon, 0, (EG4 as brand) I get a lot more data, like min/max V info.
So if your bms has the LuxP protocol, switch to that and use EG4 (zero) as brand. If just try pylon with 0.

Also, I used the RS485 ports ( your 2 far right ports) to connect from battery to battery.

For me, the wiring was, can port for bat 0 (master) would have 4 wires out of there... 4+5 to the inverter, 1+2 goes to 7+8 of Bat 1 (slave) CAN, which would have 1+2 going to Bat 2 7+8 CAN and so on.

But you have an extra RS port to the left of your CAN, so it might be they separated that from the CAN... so for you, it might be better to use just regular ethernet to Inverter port from CAN, then the single RS ports for the 1+2 from master to 7+8 of slave of EG4 RS port.

It would help me to try to narrow down possible combos if you can describe ( or draw) how you wired.

If you want, I can do a hand drawing to show also as it can be confusing to write/read.

I have 4 total packs, 1 master 3 slaves.

When you had Apex with EG4 did it show 3 total?

 

[EZPZ]

Yeah I think will do some drawings/spreadsheet. As there are two scenarios.

1. Battery 1 - Apex
Battery 2 - LP4 V2
Battery 3 - LP4 V2

2. Battery 1 - LP4 V2
Battery 2 - LP4 V2
Battery 3 - Apex

Never had it show 3 as a total. Was only trying it with one LP4 v2 and the Apex.

 

[EZPZ]

Here is something easy to try for now. Use Pylon, 0 (EG4 as brand)

If I use the pylon, 0, (EG4 as brand) I get a lot more data, like min/max V info.
So if your bms has the LuxP protocol, switch to that and use EG4 (zero) as brand. If just try pylon with 0.

Also, I used the RS485 ports ( your 2 far right ports) to connect from battery to battery.

Ok, when I use pylon and battery brand as 0 or as brand 1 it shows the total AH as 20048aH that’s on the inverter and the app.
This is with only the apex attached to the 18kpv via CAN. Tried with both eg4 inverter cable and normal cat5.



The website removes the detailed battery information completely and has 0 as the values on the right

 

[EZPZ]

Switched apex to luxpower via CAN and inverter shows correct AH and all the other details as well. App also now shows correctly.



Waiting a few minutes to see what the website does

 

[EZPZ]

But that’s basically what I have with the very first picture in the op. So it will talk luxp over CAN just fine to the inverter with either brand 0 or brand 1 set on the inverter side.

 

[fnnwizard]

Did Apexium provide an app to view/modify BMS parameters? That reading in the mobile app looks to just be the model, lol.

I think you need to be able to change the protocol on the BMS to Luxpower Pylon. It's very specific.

Can you go into the EG4 monitor app, data history, and screen shot the battery section like I posted? If we can see it in there, then there's a good chance you can pass that info through the EG4 BMS. I believe the baud rates are different right now since I think the EG4 when connected is at 19200.

You would have to make your own cables to isolate the data baud rate between rs and can/rs.

 

[EZPZ]

The app has the ability. But it’s password protected. I will get the code from the vendor tomorrow hopefully.
I cannot change the protocol from the app but there are quite a few options for CAN and RS485. The one 8 selected was “500K Luxpower”. I didn’t see any for Luxpower Pylon.

The yellow is with it set with pylon it gets basic info. The green is with Luxpower more detail.