Got pics of what you did? Likely I will do the same on the next 3...
Future battery upgrades/replacements
- Thread starter ecwashere
- Start date
I think I will see about adding those 6 missing cells... but I don’t want mismatches, so, I may install all new cells...
I have a box of 3Ah cells...
I have a LOT of time before my ordered BMS boards arrive.
I have a box of 3Ah cells...
I have a LOT of time before my ordered BMS boards arrive.
Here is the Two XT-60's I put on the casing. Yes there is the "cutout" for an XT-60 connector in the middle there but looking inside the case, the mainboard rests on the clip at that location and so I mounted them where I did. On my other unit I did the same thing but to the right of the original charging jack but that was a bad idea due to all the wires going up to the mainboard at that location.
Reason why I put two is because since I have multiple units, I can stack one on top of another and daisy chain each unit off of one line going to the solar panels.
Inside view. The wires coming from the input jack will need to be at a right angle. This is due to clearance. If I put them straight then it will be pressing against the battery/BMS. (Another lesson learned from my first iteration.)
Other end of the wires are soldered to the other end of the original solar input. I figure if it blows anything due to too high a current, it will probably blow a trace on the board instead of sending all the current to the mainboard/battery.
BMS pictures....
Original BMS - Which didn't work.
Unsoldered at all the points....
Label where all the connection/voltages are on the battery and put the new BMS on....
Reused the four thick wires from the original BMS...
Trimmed off some insulation just so I can get the points attached from the battery. This is on the top right and the bottom left of the battery pack.
Lastly.... Kapton tape over the whole thing for an extra bit of security.
How did you hook up the ribbon cable?
Difference between the original BMS and the new BMS is the lack of spot to attach this ribbon cable. (White one in picture)
Looks like the only two important ones in the picture is the "second" and "third" wire which are labeled at "12V" and "Ground" according to where it is labeled on the spot where it is connecting to the display.
I took those two wires out, electrical tape and then heat shrinked for aesthetics and added spade terminals to the end.
Then reassemble...
Words of wisdom from experience taking this apart. Put electrical or kapton tape on the end of the red wire when disconnecting or else while you are having fun disassembling, you will get a loud pop and scare the crap out of you.
White ribbon cable will connect to the positive and negative on the mainboard. Just slip it to the bottom (Bottom middle and bottom right). You will get a light spark while connecting the red wire. Other end of the wire will go in the display (Top Right).
Attach the cover of the heat sink and press the power button for each of the lights on the front to cycle it. It will go from flashing "SOS" and then press again to be solid "on" and press again to turn off. Then plug in the two fans and put the top back on. Be careful not to squish any wires (the red and black wires) connecting to the main board. That's it!
Hope those pictures helped @Supervstech. I am in no way a electrical guru. If I did something that is "not safe" then please let me know. So far it has been running the past few months without issue. I have one unit with the AC inverter on 24 hours a day for the past ..... almost one year and no issues. I will call this unit version 1.0. The unit in the pictures is version 2.0. The other units I have are just copies of "2.0". I think my next experiment will be external battery connection. Either put a switch to switch from internal battery to external battery.... Or just get rid of the inside battery and do external battery only. After that maybe a cheap mppt solar charge controller and just be using the inverter on the Rockpals. Unless you are doing 80 watts or less on whatever you have plugged into the inverter, you will see the battery go down quickly. External SCC mounted on external battery and then a XT-60 bringing the power into the unit sounds like fun.
The only thing I’m worried about is the lack of temp check on the BMS.
How about something like this.....
I couldn't figure out what those other wires on the white ribbon cable did. Now that you mention it then maybe it is the fan control? I haven't noticed my units getting hot. Maybe can use a board like this and have it connected to the fans directly?
Ok, #2 is up and running, I found some 60A BMS boards on Amazon with temp and used one of the old sensors.
I don’t know if it does anything but satisfy my peace of mind...
I don’t know if it does anything but satisfy my peace of mind...
It is charging now.
So S1/S2 is for the temperature sensor? Wonder if it is cutting power to and from the battery if it gets too hot. I think I would still get a board that has the temperature sensor and has outputs for the fan. From my testing it is not the battery that is getting warm. It is the main board with the inverter that the temperature gets a little high.
I am brainstorming here.... there are two fans. How about wire one fan to the display wiring to turn on when any output is activated and also when it is charging. Second fan can wire it to the AC inverter switch to come on when it is turned on. So with this setup, on fan is on all the time and both when it is running the inverter. The fans are not loud anyways.
The fans come on when plugged in charging.
And when the inverter load is over 100W.
The fans wont do much for the battery the way they are setup in the case.
I have a dilemma...
How do you hook to solar?
My mppt requires battery power to function and the charging terminals dont go through the battery.
Load terminal on the controller?
My make sky blue load ports are only good for 5W...
I will have to think of something else.
Direct to a battery charged by solar?
Ok, I figured it out.
In your pics of the xt60 wiring, sometimes you have positive on the stern side, sometimes you have positive on the bow side...
The factory xt60 connections are stern positive... and my bulkheads copied that, but my cable from the SCC has positive on the bow side. I flipped them around, and voila! Dc charging.
Only about 4 amps at 24ish v, but it worked.
In your pics of the xt60 wiring, sometimes you have positive on the stern side, sometimes you have positive on the bow side...
The factory xt60 connections are stern positive... and my bulkheads copied that, but my cable from the SCC has positive on the bow side. I flipped them around, and voila! Dc charging.
Only about 4 amps at 24ish v, but it worked.
FYI the stock charging port is GX16-2 or GX16 2pin
I ordered a 10 pack of em off ebay.
I ordered a 10 pack of em off ebay.
So your unit was not charging because the positive and negative were flipped when you installed into the Rockpals? Are you attaching the XT-60 directly to the power input cables or did you go to the PCB board that the original 2-pin connector is on?
I don't see that connector used very often so I didn't even bother. I usually see that connector with four pins instead.
Yeah, my cable from the scc was reversed. I connected the same as you show on the pictures inside my units.
With my next bunch of them, I may add in the 6 missing batteries... I’m a little worried I won’t have an exact MAh match though... I don’t want to pull the batteries out and test them... idk... I think the extra 55Wh would be worth it...
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