Batrium SMA Sunny Island Integration issue?

[callmeburton]

from that document "AXITEC AXIstorage Li 8S QTY 3 or more for offgrid with splitphase" That is ~22kW of storage. 3 of my 280 batteries is ~32kW of storage.

 

[Hedges]

SI manual recommends battery size as a function of AC coupled PV (with AGM I have 1/3 what they recommend.)
The lithium compatibility list, they go by number of SI, looks like less than the per kW PV recommendation.

More Ah would mean voltage doesn't run as far. Maybe compatible batteries are configured to keep voltage low enough for some headroom, but I don't know.

If BMS max current is set low, it would disconnect or maybe tell SI to shut down.
If BMS current set higher, maybe it accepts the current while asking for less, unless cell voltage shoots too high.

Can you tell BMS to request lower charge (bulk/absorb) voltage? Then SI ought to taper off, except for brief load dump.

 

[callmeburton]

This is what I can adjust. The 20 setting at Current is what I have been changing, at the old place when this was setup as a battery backup system I had the Current set to 112 but it rarely got triggered as we kept above 85% most of the time. This BMS is not "great" for eve cells but it has a pretty setup so I am rolling with it right now.

 

[ICPete]

Hi Burton, it's been a few weeks since your last post, and I'm wondering whether you've resolved the communications issue from Batrium BMS to Sunny Island master inverter. Do I understand correctly this may have gotten resolved by the re-installation, and that that involved substituting a different SI master inverter? Is your current thinking that the "load dump" overshoot of certain cells is because your battery is simply too small? Or do you think some of your cells are actually too high internal resistance, i.e., they may be "marginal" or "bad" cells?
The reason I ask is because I'm considering Batrium as the BMS for my under-construction LTO battery system, which will be ~1000 AHr @ 48V, feeding four Sunny Islands in "2Phase4" configuration.
I'm comparing the REC master-slave system (three boxes required for my system) vs the Batrium (WatchMon CORE plus 2 K9 LTO CellMate boxes).
So both system would require a total of 3 modules (1 + 2), but the REC prices out considerably higher. Just looking for other folks' experiences with either Batrium or REC BMS and SMA Sunny Island (I've already read all relevant threads on this forum, as far as I can find).

 

[callmeburton]

I have not resolved the issues :/

I can't use any of the logic on the SI's to trip events right now because of the untrustworthy coms.

The coms has dropped in the last month about 4 times causing a complete restart of the systems while I was there, it is at the point I am considering getting a different bms ... I did however post on a thread on batrium's forum where someone had a similar issue with victron but had no reply yet. https://community.batrium.com/t/com...-and-victron-cerbo-gx-drops-in-and-out/408/12

The spiky cells are less frequent with setting the amps down a bit and I am still able to charge the batter up to say 85 from 25 on a very sunny day after a couple cloudy days.

I have a second battery I am going to building this next month which should allow me to bump the amps up but it to will be connected to a K9 which is going to the batrium ...

Right now I cannot recommend the batrium to a SMA user using LFP cells, it isn't made for them and likely don't balance them as well as a victron unit would for example. It is frustrating for sure as I don't want to have to get more equipment.

 

[callmeburton]

UPDATE:
NOT HAPPY .... NOT HAPPY AT ALL.

Power went out at the property we are building out while I was at our other home and when I went in later that evening it took me a good 2 hours to get it back online. The cause, the Batrium BMS reverted to a factory state ... no clue why ... and the only reason I know is when I went to recommission the system, as it had somehow lost all its settings, my password provided with the unit did not work but the factory default password did work.

I am seriously now looking at dropping my batrium and installing something else ... I cannot have this product fail when I am not around and have my family be at risk because I can't walk them through the process to restore the BMS.

It is bad enough that I can't use the SI relays because the BMS can't seem to communicate properly with the SMA SI's without occasionally timing out or reporting a sell is over or under the right SOC but to completely reset itself is unacceptable :/

I have not opened a ticket with batrium yet, but given it has been a while since I posted I was having issues with my unit and SMA similar to the issue with the previously "fixed" victron units I am not expecting much.

@ChrisFullPower how has your build working out?

 

[Zwy]

I've had that happen with software/firmware updates and there was a software/firmware update in the last few weeks. I don't know if there is a setting for automatically updating, I choose when I do mine. There is a backup file on your laptop used for the toolkit, it will revert your settings to what you had. I updated 2 laptops as I run Toolkit on both and one had trouble with the install when reopening the Toolkit such as the password problem you had. I can't recall how I did get it to work, the laptop with the problem was the one in the shop and I did take it to the house system and plugged in the RJ cable, then installing the backup file if memory serves me correctly.

If you have internet access you can now use web integration and that might help in your situation. I assume the settings and data will be stored in the cloud and you can access it anywhere with internet access. Unless you are already using it?

 

[callmeburton]

I've had that happen with software/firmware updates and there was a software/firmware update in the last few weeks. I don't know if there is a setting for automatically updating, I choose when I do mine.

I have not had this device hooked up to any computer or the web for months ... it was "working," with previously mentioned issues, for that long in my new offgrid setup :/

 

[callmeburton]

There is a backup file on your laptop used for the toolkit, it will revert your settings to what you had.

Just tried this .... I suspect i did some settings by my charging was defaulted ... and when I select ramped all options are zeroed out >__<

 

[Zwy]

I have not had this device hooked up to any computer or the web for months ... it was "working," with previously mentioned issues, for that long in my new offgrid setup :/

Then it wouldn't be the update that caused it. I do recall one time I did the update and did not know how to use the backup file (still have a hard time with using the backup file and remembering how to do it) and it reverted to factory default settings. That caused the breaker to trip as I run custom settings. That sucked big time, I feel for you. It took some time to get settings back to where I thought it should be set.

A wonderful product if the documentation was better, support wasn't a paid service for simple questions, and interaction/integration with other components doesn't work well. I love the toolkit and cell graphing.

I went JK on the shop system, didn't need inverter comm so have the older proven model. I'll still run the Batrium in the house for that bank, if the CORE died tomorrow I'd have to think long and hard about replacing it. If a K9 dies, I'll probably just install a JK instead.

 

[callmeburton]

Yeah the comm's is a must for SMA with any LFP batteries :/ ... it is pretty though.

 

[1201]

Yeah the comm's is a must for SMA with any LFP batteries :/ ... it is pretty though.

How so?

 

[callmeburton]

How so?

without comms going to the SMA from a BMS hooked up to the LFP the SMA SI will not run :/ let alone charge when asked to. The whole unit will turn itself off right now and restart when the comms drops for a second (one of the current issues with the batrium I have)

 

[SilverbackMP]

without comms going to the SMA from a BMS hooked up to the LFP the SMA SI will not run :/ let alone charge when asked to. The whole unit will turn itself off right now and restart when the comms drops for a second (one of the current issues with the batrium I have)

My REC setup does that too. Not that often though. Maybe once every two weeks on average. Although that’s an average. Might happen twice a week or go a month without doing it.

 

[1201]

without comms going to the SMA from a BMS hooked up to the LFP the SMA SI will not run :/ let alone charge when asked to. The whole unit will turn itself off right now and restart when the comms drops for a second (one of the current issues with the batrium I have)

You can use vrla settings with lfp. I've been doing that since December and haven't had a single issue.

Now. I do know that the soc will drift from what a smart shunt says and it often reads higher than what the smart shunt says since I rarely go below 35% soc I've never had any issues

My REC setup does that too. Not that often though. Maybe once every two weeks on average. Although that’s an average. Might happen twice a week or go a month without doing it.

That's not good enough. I recommended it before and I'll do it again- consider just using voltage. You have a generator. Set it up so the generator comes on a at say 30% soc and you should not have any issues

 

[callmeburton]

You can use vrla settings with lfp. I've been doing that since December and haven't had a single issue.

Do you have a link to a thread with your current settings? I assume your doing LiFePo4 in 16s and some number of those in parallel ...

And I assume the SI would have no clue, open loop, that a individual battery is beyond its limits and not know when to stop charging?

 

[1201]

Do you have a link to a thread with your current settings? I assume your doing LiFePo4 in 16s and some number of those in parallel ...

And I assume the SI would have no clue, open loop, that a individual battery is beyond its limits and not know when to stop charging?

I use 2.36 (56.6v)for full, equalization and boost, 2.30 (55.2v)for float. You can adjust to your settings

My bms (jk) does not require communication to do it's job. Does yours?

 

[callmeburton]

I use 2.36 (56.6v)for full, equalization and boost, 2.30 (55.2v)for float. You can adjust to your settings

My bms (jk) does not require communication to do it's job. Does yours?

My BMS just monitors the cells and makes calls for charging or takes action when certain conditions are met. Shouldn't need coms to do that.

But I know if I throw more than 30 amps into my battery my cells will spike and the BMS normally would call to halt charging to protect against over voltage of an individual cell. With COMMS it is able to do this but I suspect the SI wouldn't be listening to the BMS COMMS if it is set to VRLA?

I will break out the book and flip through the settings for VRLA and maybe run a test ... the BMS will simply disconnect the SI's if things get really bad but I prefer that not be the case.

EDIT: I should add ... the batrium doesn't bleed excess voltage off cells as easily as the REC does ... it really is not designed for LFP :/

 

[1201]

My BMS just monitors the cells and makes calls for charging or takes action when certain conditions are met. Shouldn't need coms to do that.

But I know if I throw more than 30 amps into my battery my cells will spike and the BMS normally would call to halt charging to protect against over voltage of an individual cell. With COMMS it is able to do this but I suspect the SI wouldn't be listening to the BMS COMMS if it is set to VRLA?

I will break out the book and flip through the settings for VRLA and maybe run a test ... the BMS will simply disconnect the SI's if things get really bad but I prefer that not be the case.

EDIT: I should add ... the batrium doesn't bleed excess voltage off cells as easily as the REC does ... it really is not designed for LFP :/

What size is your battery? 30a is very little.

 

[callmeburton]

What size is your battery? 30a is very little.

280ah, all eve cells, when one spikes above 2.65 if I recall correctly the BMS disables charging. 30amps is the setting, the SI will spike it up to like 50 for a moment or two before ramping down to 30. If I had it set to 50 it would ramp to 70ish ... the ramping when it first starts charging causes cells to spike as well ... I have a thread about it somewhere if not in this thread.

 

[1201]

280ah, all eve cells, when one spikes above 2.65 if I recall correctly the BMS disables charging. 30amps is the setting, the SI will spike it up to like 50 for a moment or two before ramping down to 30. If I had it set to 50 it would ramp to 70ish ... the ramping when it first starts charging causes cells to spike as well ... I have a thread about it somewhere if not in this thread.

I won't pretend I know how your bms works but 30 amps at 50v is about what-.1c ? There shouldn't be spiking going on. The closed loop comms is causing trouble. Try Switching to open loop, set the sunny island to 3.45v or somewhere differently below your 3.65v threshold on your bms then you wouldn't have issues

 

[callmeburton]

AGAIN! ... 0430 today it looks like the power shut off ... I came in and the BMS again had reset itself to a default state, the battery voltage was about 30% SOC this time.

I reset it all, and reset the SOC the configured the SI for VRLA and started things up to find the SI dumping 6000w into the battery though I set it to only do 50 amps 0__0 ... I turned it all off and figured it out ... I had bypassed the shunt the SI was reading its current from and I guess it just thought "give it all I got" ... I am sure total I was peaking the output of my SB lol

Will let this go a bit and see what happens.

 

[1201]

AGAIN! ... 0430 today it looks like the power shut off ... I came in and the BMS again had reset itself to a default state, the battery voltage was about 30% SOC this time.

I reset it all, and reset the SOC the configured the SI for VRLA and started things up to find the SI dumping 6000w into the battery though I set it to only do 50 amps 0__0 ... I turned it all off and figured it out ... I had bypassed the shunt the SI was reading its current from and I guess it just thought "give it all I got" ... I am sure total I was peaking the output of my SB lol

Will let this go a bit and see what happens.

If you set a new battery in sunny island it tries to charge it to full immediately .

If the 50a number is from the grid that would be at 120v nominal and would explain the 6000w

 

[callmeburton]

The 50 amp is the limit for the shunt reading not the grid so far as I can tell from experimenting this morning. After I got the shunt reading I could change the settings live and it would adjust. That said it is only reading half of the load going into / out of the battery.

The reason it was dumping the full load of the SB into the battery is it didn't see the shunt reading ... which is odd ... you think the default would be to NOT do anything if it can't see the shunt properly when ramping up / down in power. I had previously wired this to bypass that shunt and just used it as a big terminal block to bridge two wires on one post of the shunt.

So I need to rewire these units as the shunt is currently setup to only read off one of the SI's. This will likely mean finding another scrap shunt to use in place of the current one in the master load center so I can use it as a terminal block and migrating the one which came with the MN load center to be in series right at the BMS terminal block, and then shifting the two negative wires over as they currently split at the BMS shunt to each unit.

 

[kommando]

My master SI5048 EU is connected to a shunt on a final common line to the battery so it sees its own charging, the slave SI and the supplementary charger and any outflows back the the SI's. I can see the flows in real time as reported by the SI and they match what I expect.