Attn EG4 6500ex owners - Possible to read battery SoC from inverter display panel?

[Samsonite801]

Background:

2x EG4 6500ex inverters (split-phase, 2P1, 2P2), 6x EG4 Lifepower batteries (the ones without displays on them), comms all working, no more error 61 (since fixing the cable pinout), battery 4-bar indicator working great, matches the batteries 4-bar indications.

Scrolling through the screens on the inverter, not seeing anything in the display to show actual SoC percentage, just the non-granular 4-bar indicator.

What am I missing? Is this only available to see SoC percentage in Watchpower or something?

Helped neighbor set up his inverters, it just seems strange I can't figure out how to display SoC from inverter panel. Haven't connected WiFi yet, since there is no signal yet out in the container...

 

[Adam De Lay]

Background:

2x EG4 6500ex inverters (split-phase, 2P1, 2P2), 6x EG4 Lifepower batteries (the ones without displays on them), comms all working, no more error 61 (since fixing the cable pinout), battery 4-bar indicator working great, matches the batteries 4-bar indications.

Scrolling through the screens on the inverter, not seeing anything in the display to show actual SoC percentage, just the non-granular 4-bar indicator.

What am I missing? Is this only available to see SoC percentage in Watchpower or something?

Helped neighbor set up his inverters, it just seems strange I can't figure out how to display SoC from inverter panel. Haven't connected WiFi yet, since there is no signal yet out in the container...

I don’t have battery communication, but to my knowledge there’s no way to display the SOC. You can change some of the settings based on SOC, but I think the display is only based on voltage.

You can use WatchPower or upgrade to Solar Assistant for even more data and details.

 

[Gavin Stone]

I don’t have battery communication, but to my knowledge there’s no way to display the SOC. You can change some of the settings based on SOC, but I think the display is only based on voltage.

You can use WatchPower or upgrade to Solar Assistant for even more data and details.

Doesn’t the display change to SOC with eg4 protocol? I dunno, ive never used it. Either way it’s sort of an approximation. Since it doesn’t show exact numbers.

 

[Adam De Lay]

Doesn’t the display change to SOC with eg4 protocol? I dunno, ive never used it. Either way it’s sort of an approximation. Since it doesn’t show exact numbers.

The menu values do, but I don’t think the display does.

 

[Samsonite801]

Doesn’t the display change to SOC with eg4 protocol? I dunno, ive never used it. Either way it’s sort of an approximation. Since it doesn’t show exact numbers.

Yeah, it's definitely on EG4 protocol, but not seeing SoC anywhere in there when I scroll through all the screens.

 

[Gavin Stone]

Yeah, it's definitely on EG4 protocol, but not seeing SoC anywhere in there when I scroll through all the screens.

Well it wouldn’t show exact numbers %. I just thought the battery bars would reflect SOC instead of voltage. But, like I mentioned, that’s still not an exact figure either. I would recommend a shunt.

 

[Samsonite801]

You can use WatchPower or upgrade to Solar Assistant for even more data and details.

I did tell my neighbor about the Solar Assistant possibility, but he is still coming up to speed on what this all means at all, so I have to work with him slowly hehe..

His initial question was: 'How can I tell when the batteries are at 100% so I could shut off the generator to not waste gas?'

He says he charged for a long time and batteries came up to last bar blinking, and stayed there for a long time, so he shut off the generator and said it then had shown all 4 battery bars lit solid.

I then explained how on my Victron BMV-712, I have a hard display in the kitchen always showing SoC percentage, so I can shut off gen-power (when I don't have solar), right when it gets to 100% or whatever...

Just seems like an obvious metric to have always available on the inverter display once comms are going.

So for now, I told him to just look at the amps charging going into the battery to be able to tell the charge rate, when it tapers off.

 

[Gavin Stone]

The

I did tell my neighbor about the Solar Assistant possibility, but he is still coming up to speed on what this all means at all, so I have to work with him slowly hehe..

His initial question was: 'How can I tell when the batteries are at 100% so I could shut off the generator?'

He says he charged for a long time and batteries came up to last bar blinking, and stayed there for a long time, so he shut off the generator and said it then had shown all 4 battery bars lit solid.

I then explained how on my Victron BMV-712, I have a hard display always showing percentage, so I can shut off gen-power (when I don't have solar), right when it gets to 100% or whatever...

Just seems like an obvious metric to have always available on the inverter display once comms are going.

So for now, I told him to just look at the amps charging going into the battery to be able to tell the charge rate.

With coms cutoff will be dtermined by SOC. Whether the screens show exact % or not. Without come it’ll be voltage. Either way if the values are set your batteries won’t overcharge. The bms in the batteries would prevent that anyway. Although you don’t want to rely on that as a rule.

 

[Adam De Lay]

I did tell my neighbor about the Solar Assistant possibility, but he is still coming up to speed on what this all means at all, so I have to work with him slowly hehe..

You could show him this video:

 

[Gavin Stone]

.

 

[Samsonite801]

The

With coms cutoff will be dtermined by SOC. Whether the screens show exact % or not. Without come it’ll be voltage. Either way if the values are set your batteries won’t overcharge. The bms in the batteries would prevent that anyway. Although you don’t want to rely on that as a rule.

Yeah, he's not concerned about overcharging, he mainly doesn't want to burn un-needed fuel once charging is done. He doesn't have the solar PV inputs going yet until he gets his panels mounted, so it's all 100% on fossil fuel for the next several days until he reaches the next stage in his build hehe...

 

[Samsonite801]

You could show him this video:

That's a great video to use to help demo to a friend. I am going to pass the link along to my neighbor, it will help a lot. I already have an RPi setup with Solar Assistant for my system (even created the account and licensed my RPi install), but my permanent system with the LV6548s is not installed (still), so I have only tried poking around in my Solar Assistant, but no data for me to play around with yet on it.

This video is even helpful for ME hehe, since I will be setting my inverters up soon I hope. For now I am still on my Victron charging/ VRM monitoring w/ Magnum inverter infrastructure. I finally pulled my LV6548s out of the box to put on the bench so I could walk by and stare at them more, hoping I will get some time soon to start putting the system together.

 

[Adam De Lay]

I finally pulled my LV6548s out of the box to put on the bench so I could walk by and stare at them more, hoping I will get some time soon to start putting the system together.

Just need that extra little incentive…?

 

[Zapper77]

Short answer No.

If the inverter has internet connection batterytype is set to EG4, try out dessmonitor.com. it uses the same account credentials as SmartESS and Watchpower. Data is easier to access on dess. WatchPower is unreliable.