Darfon Gro Watt GBLI 5001 Battery Pack- worth a punt?
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That is exactly what needs to be done! Then it would be possible to fool the SP2/3 into thinking it has an original BMS. I'd do it but I've not much spare time at the moment
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Check that pack over. I've had 2 cell packs go bad, and there was obvious battery leakage
You can buy the batteries off ebay
New Original 5300mAh 13A 3.7V Boston Power Swing 5300 Battery | eBay
Capacity: 5300mAh 13A. Battery Model No: Swing 5300. Quality Lithium battery with longer service life.
www.ebay.co.uk
I've not attempted to re-weld my ones yet
paulca
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Hi Guys, been doing some more experiments today with @Geoffito 's SP 3000. I was hoping the SP 2000 had a rather primitive charge algorithm, and the SP 3000 would have a much sharper response time, but alas no , it's exactly the same. The algorithm appears to be... if grid < -100W then increase battery charge by 5.8W per second until 0W > grid > -100W ; HOWEVER if Grid > 0 : reset charge power to 0.
Which is really poor when a cloud passes for a couple of seconds because it wimps out and goes back to square one....e.g.
Yellow = power SP 3000 is sending to the inverter
Green = Grid power
(unfortunately I've got no sensor on the battery power...but it's easy to work out )
So in this example at
14:00:00 : the skies cleared, sun came out , and I'm exporting nearly 1kw to the grid. ZERO watts going into the battery.
SP3000 gradually increases power to battery , and reduces power to inverter.
14:03:00 A 700W load disappears from the house usage....probably the wife switching off the hoover
14:07:00 7 mins after the Sun appeared, it's finally ramped the battery charge up until we're only exporting 40W or so
14:11:00 Tiny cloud passes, SP3000 shits its pants , resets charge power to 0.
14:12:30 Suns back out, The sloth like ramp-up cycle begins again.
If you look at the amount of energy pumped out to the grid here , in this 30 minute snapshot it really shows how inefficient these units are.
I've had a reasonably sunny day here, yet the GBLI5001 is only 49% full.
Which is really poor when a cloud passes for a couple of seconds because it wimps out and goes back to square one....e.g.
Yellow = power SP 3000 is sending to the inverter
Green = Grid power
(unfortunately I've got no sensor on the battery power...but it's easy to work out )
So in this example at
14:00:00 : the skies cleared, sun came out , and I'm exporting nearly 1kw to the grid. ZERO watts going into the battery.
SP3000 gradually increases power to battery , and reduces power to inverter.
14:03:00 A 700W load disappears from the house usage....probably the wife switching off the hoover
14:07:00 7 mins after the Sun appeared, it's finally ramped the battery charge up until we're only exporting 40W or so
14:11:00 Tiny cloud passes, SP3000 shits its pants , resets charge power to 0.
14:12:30 Suns back out, The sloth like ramp-up cycle begins again.
If you look at the amount of energy pumped out to the grid here , in this 30 minute snapshot it really shows how inefficient these units are.
I've had a reasonably sunny day here, yet the GBLI5001 is only 49% full.
I think the Solis Inverter is much better at controlling the charging of the battery it's quick to respond to change in weather conditions.
paulca
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Good spot , that'll explain that then.
paulca
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Interesting morning of solar experiments, just gonna drop the findings in here so I don't forget.
First fully sunny morning since I got the GBLI5001 , SP2000, and SP3000 , and everybody was out of the house, so I could see how everything functioned with no variation in solar power or house load.
So been running @Geoffito 's SP3000 for a week or so now, with two 1500W PV Strings connected. (3000W total). Here's how it faired this morning;
Green=grid power Yellow=inverter power.
It was a bit noisy on the grid until 11:22 as the Mrs had put the washing machine on.
So I was quite chuffed it was managing to keep charging the battery and keep the grid pretty close to zero.
Then after 11:22 the washing machine stopped and I had some pretty clear data.
I could see at 11:37 there was 400W going through the inverter, and grid was zero , So I presumed we must be pumping about 1600W into the battery. However when I looked at the sp3000 display it said PCharge = 800W PPV = 2100W..... so I was confused .... 800battery+400inverter = 1200W .... so where was the other 900W going ???
I went back in time on PVOutput.org to find a sunny October day from last year , to my delight Oct 15th 2021 was a glorious day , and at 11:45 My PV was producing 2134W
So next I disconnected the SP3000 and plugged the PV directly into the inverter:-
Sure enough , Solar power was just over 2kw , curious , So then I thought I'd try out the SP2000 .... which meant having 1 PV string into the inverter, and one going through the SP2000
The SP2000 is unable to stop all the export with only one string , so we're still exporting about 750W here, but at least the SP2000 was saying PCharge = 990W and the Inverter power is over 1.2kW so at least I knew everything added up again Total PVPower = Pinverter + PBattery.
So I'm a bit flummoxed at to where that 900W had vanished to when running the SP3000 ??? All I can think is either it's misreporting the battery charge power, and was really sending 1700W into the battery, OR , there's some charge limit setting that I can't find that caps it at 800W , OR there's something broken on the charging circuit.
First fully sunny morning since I got the GBLI5001 , SP2000, and SP3000 , and everybody was out of the house, so I could see how everything functioned with no variation in solar power or house load.
So been running @Geoffito 's SP3000 for a week or so now, with two 1500W PV Strings connected. (3000W total). Here's how it faired this morning;
Green=grid power Yellow=inverter power.
It was a bit noisy on the grid until 11:22 as the Mrs had put the washing machine on.
So I was quite chuffed it was managing to keep charging the battery and keep the grid pretty close to zero.
Then after 11:22 the washing machine stopped and I had some pretty clear data.
I could see at 11:37 there was 400W going through the inverter, and grid was zero , So I presumed we must be pumping about 1600W into the battery. However when I looked at the sp3000 display it said PCharge = 800W PPV = 2100W..... so I was confused .... 800battery+400inverter = 1200W .... so where was the other 900W going ???
I went back in time on PVOutput.org to find a sunny October day from last year , to my delight Oct 15th 2021 was a glorious day , and at 11:45 My PV was producing 2134W
So next I disconnected the SP3000 and plugged the PV directly into the inverter:-
Sure enough , Solar power was just over 2kw , curious , So then I thought I'd try out the SP2000 .... which meant having 1 PV string into the inverter, and one going through the SP2000
The SP2000 is unable to stop all the export with only one string , so we're still exporting about 750W here, but at least the SP2000 was saying PCharge = 990W and the Inverter power is over 1.2kW so at least I knew everything added up again Total PVPower = Pinverter + PBattery.
So I'm a bit flummoxed at to where that 900W had vanished to when running the SP3000 ??? All I can think is either it's misreporting the battery charge power, and was really sending 1700W into the battery, OR , there's some charge limit setting that I can't find that caps it at 800W , OR there's something broken on the charging circuit.
paulca
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Dunno Trev , proper headscratcher, I'll plug the RS232 in tonight and have another look at the SP3000 settings. I'm gonna leave the SP2000 in overnight and see how that does on a discharge cycle. Good news is the battery is at 99% now so can get a full discharge and see what that looks like.
EDIT: another thought just occured, if it is a charge limit setting , what did it do with the spare 900W ? It certainly wasn't sending it over to the inverter.
EDIT 2 : Also I set it to AC charge from 03:30 -> 05:30 as an experiment and it tripped an MCB at 03:30:20 , so I think surgery might be in order.
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paulca
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Sorry Ismaiel , forgot to reply about this, I did briefly see your REC BMS stats , but they vanished now. I've no idea on your REC BMS or Inverter model , but I do remember the balance image you had up before was WAY out , I think some packs were 3.6V while some were 4.2V. They're meant to be within a few mV of each other, 3.6 is almost flat , 4.2 is full, so I'd get the meter out, Charge it to full, check each pack, take a snapshot of the voltages, leave it an hour , check again ..... some of the packs must be faulty / losing charge.
paulca
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To sum up todays experiments, at the end of the day, comparing back to the sunniest day last October...
Last October : Energy generated 12.5 kwh, Energy used = 15.8kw
This October (with battery) Energy Generated =11.1kwh Energy Used=9.8kwh :-
And I had it AC charging from 4:24 (MCB reste) to 5:30 today,
so that accounts for 1 extra kwh.
Last October : Energy generated 12.5 kwh, Energy used = 15.8kw
This October (with battery) Energy Generated =11.1kwh Energy Used=9.8kwh :-
And I had it AC charging from 4:24 (MCB reste) to 5:30 today,
so that accounts for 1 extra kwh.
paulca
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So batteries are worthwhile in the long run.
paulca
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you can get a 14S 300W charger for about £30..... it'll probably take about a week to charge though given the size of your pack.
