Batteries drained!!!

[MisterSandals]

Just made these changes from 55.2 to 56.0

I think your float should be back where it was. Its important for now to see that your charging completes, which is noted easily by it dropping into float mode. This might happen after you 120 minute boost (whether that is total boost or extended absorb an additional 120 minutes).

 

[Greasyrick]

I think your float should be back where it was. Its important for now to see that your charging completes, which is noted easily by it dropping into float mode. This might happen after you 120 minute boost (whether that is total boost or extended absorb an additional 120 minutes).

Got the float back where it was.
Doing a fridge audit with a few plug in wh meters I have.
How do I know is going into boost charge and from boost into float mode? I assume boost is when it’s just charging and it hasn’t reached near a full charge, and float means trickle charge once the batteries are near 100% (which I don’t think it has happened here), but, is there any indication or feature I should look for to see if it is on boost or float charge mode? I’m currently leaving the inverter turned off since last night, and wait perhaps another day, (hopefully it’ll be fully sunny tomorrow), to see how high I can get these batteries to charge and how long it takes.
Here in central florida is almost dark and the batteries are only at 86% capacity according to the Epever Bluetooth app.

I completely forgot to pay attention to the app to see what the charge percentage display was when I connected everything with all four batteries fully charged with a Lifepo4 14.6 volt 20watt charger at the beginning. Sorry for all these questions, I’m new to this, I really appreciate all your help

 

[MisterSandals]

Sorry for all these questions, I’m new to this, I really appreciate all your help

You're doing just fine. Everybody's systems are a little different and require observation and sometimes some tweaking to get them figured out.

Waiting to see you energy audit numbers.

 

[blammo585]

I am not sure what the 53.4V represents. It does not make sense to display the charge voltage so i'd think it is the battery voltage (with charge being applied so a mix between charge voltage and resting battery voltage).

That big inverter stands out as a possible energy hog. Any idea how much it consumes?

Can you determine you daily fridge usage watt hours? Actually all daily usage numbers for a sanity check on battery size.

Everything else looks good to me.

I think I can answer your first sentence as I'm just now figuring out my own Epever's readings. His panels are producing 84.5v/5.4a, so his batteries are receiving 53.4v/8.6a.

 

[MisterSandals]

I think I can answer your first sentence as I'm just now figuring out my own Epever's readings. His panels are producing 84.5v/5.4a, so his batteries are receiving 53.4v/8.6a.

I'm not believing his panels are producing 456W and the batteries are receiving 459W. And if the SCC is outputting 53.4V, they are never going to get to 56V (maybe this is a clue to this problem?).

 

[pollenface]

Ignore Epevers SOC readout, it's bogus.

 

[50ShadesOfDirt]

Was an initial design done, and can you show your work?

It seems to me that without understanding how the system was "designed" (audit, calcs, etc.) and then components chosen to fit the design, we don't know if the design is right from the start. Or, design was good, but component choice impacted things.

So, if a design wasn't done, and components were chosen "not to design", then perhaps it's time to redo the design work. Or, decide a design isn't really necessary, and as others mentioned, "throw more parts at it" until it works.

I'm all for winging it, and you may now have what I'd call a "test system" ... it works, it just may not work in production for you. I have many test systems, where I try to figure out how the individual component really works, and later on, how a bunch of components work.
Sooner or later, something moves into production ...

In the meantime, consider recharge of the battery-bank at night, from your grid ... should prevent "outages" during the day due to unknown loads, sizing, etc. Could buy you time to figure out the other issues ...

Never too late to do the planning stage ...

 

[Greasyrick]

Was an initial design done, and can you show your work?

It seems to me that without understanding how the system was "designed" (audit, calcs, etc.) and then components chosen to fit the design, we don't know if the design is right from the start. Or, design was good, but component choice impacted things.

So, if a design wasn't done, and components were chosen "not to design", then perhaps it's time to redo the design work. Or, decide a design isn't really necessary, and as others mentioned, "throw more parts at it" until it works.

I'm all for winging it, and you may now have what I'd call a "test system" ... it works, it just may not work in production for you. I have many test systems, where I try to figure out how the individual component really works, and later on, how a bunch of components work.
Sooner or later, something moves into production ...

In the meantime, consider recharge of the battery-bank at night, from your grid ... should prevent "outages" during the day due to unknown loads, sizing, etc. Could buy you time to figure out the other issues ...

Never too late to do the planning stage ...

Im waiting a couple days for the kWh meters I installed on all fridges, I haven’t done much math about the rest but I have been using around 13 amps every once in a while, I have the feeling I need more solar panels, I’m going to reduce some of the loads, didn’t realize I had an inverter mini split A/C connected to one of the circuits I’m feeding with the inverter, even though that mini split only uses around 5 initial amps. I’m going to recalculate everything, I think I’m feeding too many circuits with it.

 

[Greasyrick]

I'm not believing his panels are producing 456W and the batteries are receiving 459W. And if the SCC is outputting 53.4V, they are never going to get to 56V (maybe this is a clue to this problem?).

Ok, got the Victron Shuntt installed last night, and after setting the battery settings (see the first picture, hope I did it right), it showed 100% right after It came on, 2nd picture, the Epever showed 99% see 3rd picture.
Had the inverter off for 2 days, after seeing I had a full charge, decided to turn just the inverter on without loads to see if the inventer itself was sucking a lot of power, this morning the Victron shows 99% with 7 watts of power used, 4th pict and the Epever shows 83% 5th pic, that’s a huge difference.
Only explanation I have is I input some wrong numbers on the battery settings of the Victron.
Still scratching my head.

 

[blammo585]

Ok, got the Victron Shuntt installed last night, and after setting the battery settings (see the first picture, hope I did it right), it showed 100% right after It came on, 2nd picture, the Epever showed 99% see 3rd picture.
Had the inverter off for 2 days, after seeing I had a full charge, decided to turn just the inverter on without loads to see if the inventer itself was sucking a lot of power, this morning the Victron shows 99% with 7 watts of power used, 4th pict and the Epever shows 83% 5th pic, that’s a huge difference.
Only explanation I have is I input some wrong numbers on the battery settings of the Victron.
Still scratching my head.

How do you know which is reporting correctly? Maybe the Victron is correct and the Epever is off.

 

[sollap]

The SOC calculation is more than just a measure of current draw. I think you'll need to run the batteries down a bit, and then fully charge them. You might even need to do that a couple of times. Then the Victron can see where the top is repeatedly and what has transpired to get there. Hopefully someone with Victron shunt experience will jump in, but I think that's how it works.

 

[Greasyrick]

How do you know which is reporting correctly? Maybe the Victron is correct and the Epever is off.

I hope so, but according to my particular situation, (the draining of the batteries), it suggests the Epever looks more realistic, but then again, it’s too soon to tell.

 

[blammo585]

I hope so, but according to my particular situation, (the draining of the batteries), it suggests the Epever looks more realistic, but then again, it’s too soon to tell.

Well it's funny that you said your Epever was at 83%. When I got home today my Epever was showing 85% and 13.4v with nothing else happening...no charging was going on even though there was full sun and the battery indicator light was solid green which means "normal", not full. But I seem to stay at 85% a lot, almost as if the Epever treats that as a full charge, or at least some kind of "normal" voltage. That's why it makes me curious with what you're reporting; Epever at 83 and Victron at 99. If I had your Victron, I'm thinking I might see 85 on Epever and 100 on Victron. I'm grasping at straws, but it makes me wonder.

 

[Greasyrick]

Ok, it’s been a few interesting days, did an audit to the 2 fridges and the freezer chest for about 90 hours, all 3 came down to a combine use of 124 watt hours, also had a brand new mini split a/c that when is on and cooling it draws 6 amps, but when it has cooled the room down it goes down to a 1.5 amp draw, I see this on the amp meter I have on the dedicated load center just for the solar fed breakers, I also had my bedroom with closet, and bathroom lights, a couple night stand lamps, the internet modem and wifi router, smoke detectors, flat screen tv with Apple TV, electronic Hornady handgun table top safe, ( just a one or two handgun size) fed with a small wall transformer, and alarm clock, keep in mind that all those lights will not come on at the same time and when they do, they will not be on for more than a couple hours at night, haven’t done a audit on the TV, the Apple TV night stand lights and rest of the plug in stuff.
First night after solar panels charged the batteries up to 100% all was fine, next morning I was just down to 84% on the Epever but the Victron shunt was at 98%, (makes no sense to me), by 9:00am the Victron showed 100% and the Epever was at 95%.
Last night I ran all the same things just like the night before with the mini split on all night, and at 6:45 this morning I noticed the ceiling lightbulbs (which are all LED by the way, where showing a very dim amount of light, I mean, so dim that you could only see it in the dark, the mini split display also had a really really dim amount of light coming from the display, I figured all these led’s were running low on power, so I got up and checked the meter I have on the load center and it was showing 123 volts and using 2.69 amps, see first picture, (no reason to me for the led bulbs to be acting up like that, then I changed to grid power, all went back to normal, but at that moment the Victron was showing 53% Stage of charge, see 2nd pic, and the Epever was at 75%, pic. 3, I’m sooooooooo confused., you have all seen the settings on the Epever and Victron Shunt, I don’t seem to find an explanation for such discrepancies. Also attached is a pic, #4 on the battery settings of the Victron Shunt. And on the Epever, on therest of the pics, on another reply, since I can’t post so may on one reply.
I decided to start from scratch and individually charge each battery with the 14.6 volt 20 amp charger, equalize them and go at it again.
If anyone have advices on the Epever and Victron Shunt combined settings, I’ll apréciate any inputs.

Thanks all.

 

[Greasyrick]

Ok, it’s been a few interesting days, did an audit to the 2 fridges and the freezer chest for about 90 hours, all 3 came down to a combine use of 124 watt hours, also had a brand new mini split a/c that when is on and cooling it draws 6 amps, but when it has cooled the room down it goes down to a 1.5 amp draw, I see this on the amp meter I have on the dedicated load center just for the solar fed breakers, I also had my bedroom with closet, and bathroom lights, a couple night stand lamps, the internet modem and wifi router, smoke detectors, flat screen tv with Apple TV, electronic Hornady handgun table top safe, ( just a one or two handgun size) fed with a small wall transformer, and alarm clock, keep in mind that all those lights will not come on at the same time and when they do, they will not be on for more than a couple hours at night, haven’t done a audit on the TV, the Apple TV night stand lights and rest of the plug in stuff.
First night after solar panels charged the batteries up to 100% all was fine, next morning I was just down to 84% on the Epever but the Victron shunt was at 98%, (makes no sense to me), by 9:00am the Victron showed 100% and the Epever was at 95%.
Last night I ran all the same things just like the night before with the mini split on all night, and at 6:45 this morning I noticed the ceiling lightbulbs (which are all LED by the way, where showing a very dim amount of light, I mean, so dim that you could only see it in the dark, the mini split display also had a really really dim amount of light coming from the display, I figured all these led’s were running low on power, so I got up and checked the meter I have on the load center and it was showing 123 volts and using 2.69 amps, see first picture, (no reason to me for the led bulbs to be acting up like that, then I changed to grid power, all went back to normal, but at that moment the Victron was showing 53% Stage of charge, see 2nd pic, and the Epever was at 75%, pic. 3, I’m sooooooooo confused., you have all seen the settings on the Epever and Victron Shunt, I don’t seem to find an explanation for such discrepancies. Also attached is a pic, #4 on the battery settings of the Victron Shunt. And on the Epever, on therest of the pics, on another reply, since I can’t post so may on one reply.
I decided to start from scratch and individually charge each battery with the 14.6 volt 20 amp charger, equalize them and go at it again.
If anyone have advices on the Epever and Victron Shunt combined settings, I’ll apréciate any inputs.

Thanks all.

 

[Greasyrick]

Only thing I can think about the dimmed LED’s with all lamp switches off is that these inverters are known for sending half voltage through all a/c legs, and since the lamps are grounded through their original circuit, they were getting some voltage through the neutral wire. Bad thing is I do not recall seeing this particular scenario with the battery bank at “100%” SOC, supposedly.

Remember that I do not have the ground connected to the inverter for that same reason of having half voltage through all legs, and frying the inverter like it has happened to some people out there.

 

[MisterSandals]

Why is the shunt charged voltage set to 52.8V. I would suspect this to be more like 56V.

I would expect the shunt to learn after a few cycles but maybe the 52.8V is confusing things? I dunno.

Are there more screens of info and pics of your wiring to share?

 

[rodrick]

Just to be sure all negative cables/connections pass threw the shunt and you have nothing bypassed around the shunt

 

[Greasyrick]

Just to be sure all negative cables/connections pass threw the shunt and you have nothing bypassed around the shunt

Nothing is bypassed, all is after the Shunt.

 

[Greasyrick]

Why is the shunt charged voltage set to 52.8V. I would suspect this to be more like 56V.

I would expect the shunt to learn after a few cycles but maybe the 52.8V is confusing things? I dunno.

Are there more screens of info and pics of your wiring to share?

Only reason I did it that way is because the Shunt manual states to set the 48 volt charged voltage parameter to 52.8. See pic 1
The Epever I did it multiplying the battery manual specified float and boost charge multiplied x 4 as is supposed to be done, see pic 2, what you say makes perfect sense, but I thought each equipment needed it’s own data to compare to its factory calculated preset values or way of calculations in its software, using the same load regardless of equipment in order to give an accurate SOC, (at least I think it should be that way), but perhaps I’m overthinking it and I should be more flexible to find a happy medium between both equipments.