Eg4 lifepower4 alarm light flashing

[Cardude]

I have two of these batteries connected to an EG4 inverter, and they have been working well for about a year.

I added a Victron SmartShunt about 6 months ago, and have been monitoring the SOC using that instead of the inverter values. I thought everything was working fine, but the last few days I noticed the SOC only got up to 67%, which has never happened before. I was away from the vehicle and decided to switch back to inverter values and that showed a SOC at 25%!

When I got to the vehicle yesterday the SOC lights on the one battery only showed one light and the alarm light was blinking. The other battery had two LEDs showing and no alarm. The low battery didn’t seem to want to take a charge, so I shut everything down and restarted both batteries. The alarm went away and it started taking a charge.

Any idea how the shunt got so far off compared to the inverter values?

Why would that one battery get so much lower than the other battery?

I’ve never hooked directly into the batteries using the BMS tool, and I currently monitor the inverter using SA hooked into the inverter.

Should I be doing something differently?

 

[EG4TechSolutionsTeam]

What firmware are the Lifepower4 batteries on and what voltages were they when the alarm light occurred?

 

[Cardude]

What firmware are the Lifepower4 batteries on and what voltages were they when the alarm light occurred?

How do I find out what firmware they are running?

I don’t know what the voltage was when the alarm occurred.

 

[EG4TechSolutionsTeam]

I believe Solar Assistant may display this information; if not, you would need to use the BMS Test software. However, if the SOC is uncalibrated and these are the 48v Lifepower4 on firmware version v3.26 or newer, the following guide would be helpful:


Checklist for Troubleshooting:

1. Check Firmware Version:
   • Verify that the Lifepower4 V1 is on firmware version 3.26 or newer.

Solution: If the firmware is outdated, update to version 3.26 or later to enable automatic SOC balancing.

1. Charge Battery to Correct SOC Imbalance:
   • Charge the battery to either:
     • The module voltage protection threshold of 57.6V, or
     • Until one cell reaches 3.6V.

Solution: This will activate the Lifepower4 BMS’s auto-correction feature, which balances SOC.

1. Confirm SOC Balance Completion:
   • Verify that the SOC levels across modules have equalized and remain within acceptable limits once charging is complete.

 

[Cardude]

Does this mean anything? The run light on the top battery in this pic is flashing green, where on the bottom battery it’s solid green. The bottom battery is the one that got discharged much more than the top one.

The cables for both batteries are exactly the same length going to the busbar.

 

[EG4TechSolutionsTeam]

Battery two appears to be on standby and the master battery may be top balancing the cells or discharging slightly from the description of the run light.

 

[Cardude]

Thanks.

Do I have it set up incorrectly? Should I change something? Sorry for the dumb questions, but I’m not really up to speed on these batteries obviously.

 

[EG4TechSolutionsTeam]

The dip switch configuration looks correct. What inverter is this connected to and is BMS communication being used?

 

[Cardude]

The dip switch configuration looks correct. What inverter is this connected to and is BMS communication being used?

It’s connected to an EG4 3000. BMS communication is not being used, I’m using inverter values for battery info.

 

[EG4TechSolutionsTeam]

What are settings 26, 27, and 29? I generally recommend setting 26 to be set to 56.2v, setting 27 to be set to 54.0v, setting 29 to 44.5-47v.

 

[Cardude]

26 is 55v
27 is 54v
29 is 42v

I will change them to your values now.

 

[marionw]

You need to download the "BMS_Test" software for your LifePower4 batteries from the EG4 website. This diagnostic software tool is required for firmware updates as well as to view all cell voltages and alarm conditions.