EG4 6500EX 2P1 Blinking

[FurryAlpaca]

I walked by my inverters tonight and noticed that on my 2p1 inverter, the "2p1" was blinking on the display. No other obvious errors or problems I can tell. Has anyone seen this before? I'm on grid connection and batteries are fully charged. I don't see any reference to this in the manual?

 

[FurryAlpaca]

Link to video here:

 

[Adam De Lay]

I’ve never seen that before.

 

[Adam De Lay]

Isn’t the icon that’s blinking the battery icon? It looks to be blinking on both inverters.

 

[ChillnGrill]

Mine is doing the same thing but all is working.

 

[Adam De Lay]

I can’t read it but is there text under the battery icon on inverter 1?

 

[FurryAlpaca]

Yes, just double checked, it has the text Charging

 

[Adam De Lay]

Mine is doing the same thing but all is working.

Has yours always done it?

 

[FurryAlpaca]

Nope, I thought I saw it for a sec the other day then was solid. Haven't noticed it before I updated firmware, running 79.61 and 61.10

 

[ChillnGrill]

Has yours always done it?

no, only sometimes like when the batteries are charge

 

[ChillnGrill]

 

[FurryAlpaca]

Update, was still blinking when I got home. I just switched output source from USB to SBU and it stopped blinking. ?‍

 

[ChillnGrill]

Im off grid. I have no grid power SB only

 

[Zwy]

Link to video here:

I haven't figured out what the buttons on the left side are for. Can anyone explain? Adam could do a whole video on it maybe?

 

[Adam De Lay]

Your screen was flashing F69 which is a fault stating that "the battery is unable to charge even with functional inverter to BMS communication. Likely cause is a cell or pack being in an over-voltage state".

@FurryAlpaca When this happens to you, do you know what the state of your battery pack is? In comparing the two videos, it looks like the 2P1 and the battery icon blink in parallel, but your 2p1 goes blank for 2 flashes of the battery symbol (hope that makes sense). I'm almost wondering if you're unit is just not displaying the actual error code for some reason, even though it's in the same F69 state?

 

[Adam De Lay]

I haven't figured out what the buttons on the left side are for. Can anyone explain? Adam could do a whole video on it maybe?

Those buttons are for some "USB On the go" features, which I don't believe work on the 6500s and also timer based controls for output source priority and charger source priority. I can add them to my list to look at making something about them.

 

[Tom Funchess]

Mine did that over the weekend. I changed from EG4 to USE on 2P1 and it stopped. I switched back to EG4 and it didn't flash.

Today, while in EG4 mode, with batteries being drawn down to 10% SOC, 2P1 started flashing the 04 error code for low battery. At 9% SOC, the chargers kicked on and charged the batteries to 30%. Everything working as expected per Settings 12 and 13.

2P1 continued to flash after the batteries reached the level of charge at which the 04 code stopped flashing, and by the time the batteries reached 28% I saw that 2P1 had also stopped flashing (I stepped away for a while and didn't see the exact SOC when it stopped - I'm guessing it was 25 or 26%).

I think it resolves itself - I'll report back if I see anything that suggests it doesn't.

 

[Adam De Lay]

Mine did that over the weekend. I changed from EG4 to USE on 2P1 and it stopped. I switched back to EG4 and it didn't flash.

Today, while in EG4 mode, with batteries being drawn down to 10% SOC, 2P1 started flashing the 04 error code for low battery. At 9% SOC, the chargers kicked on and charged the batteries to 30%. Everything working as expected per Settings 12 and 13.

2P1 continued to flash after the batteries reached the level of charge at which the 04 code stopped flashing, and by the time the batteries reached 28% I saw that 2P1 had also stopped flashing (I stepped away for a while and didn't see the exact SOC when it stopped - I'm guessing it was 25 or 26%).

I think it resolves itself - I'll report back if I see anything that suggests it doesn't.

It has to be something with the battery coms. I wonder if it flashes when the battery throws a warning/error but only displays a code if it knows how to handle the warning?

That would explain why it was only seen on 2p1 because that’s the inverter set to EG4, while the other is USE (or at least it should be).

 

[Tom Funchess]

Isn’t the icon that’s blinking the battery icon? It looks to be blinking on both inverters.

The battery icon blinks when set to EG4 Battery Type. It is the indication that the inverters are in communication with the batteries (in my case, LifePower4's).

This issue is when the inverter name itself blinks or flashes. In my case, 2P1 flashed but 2P2 did not. I think it was flashing at the same frequency as the battery icon, but I didn't look at it very closely.

As I said in a previous reply, I think it is related to reaching a low SOC on the batteries (less than 10%, or possibly whatever is set in Setting 12) where code 04 flashes, alternating with 2P1 (it flashes "04" then flashes "2P1", alternating and beeping until the battery charge level gets back up above the low level setting).

 

[Tom Funchess]

It has to be something with the battery coms. I wonder if it flashes when the battery throws a warning/error but only displays a code if it knows how to handle the warning?

That would explain why it was only seen on 2p1 because that’s the inverter set to EG4, while the other is USE (or at least it should be).

I think that since the 04 code is displayed where "2P1" appears on the display, it just continues to flash and it doesn't reset immediately. It may be that other codes or faults could do the same thing...

In my case, even with 2P2 in USE, Settings 12 and 13 show as the %SOC as set on 2P1. I'm not sure if 2P2 could reach the point it would flash an 04 low battery code...

I'll keep an eye on it and update here if I see something else.