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Is this a problem with a faulty circuit breaker?

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khisanthax

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I'm in contact with sungoldpower as I have their AIO (TP6048) but while I wait for a reply I thought I would ask here as well. I purchased the dihool 160A single pole circuit breaker. I have the breaker on the positive wire from the battery to the inverter. With the circuit breaker off, if I test at the positive terminal on the battery it's 48.60v, if I test on the battery side of the circuit breaker it's 48.60v, if I test at the inverter it's 16.50v, if I test at the inverter side of the breaker it's 16.50v. When I turn on the circuit breaker, when I test the battery it's 12v, when I test the battery side of the circuit breaker it's 12v, when I test the inverter it's 12v, and the inverter side of the battery is 12v.

All of this is with the panel circuit breaker off and also I did not connect the AC input or output as I wanted to make sure the panels, aio and battery were working before I started connecting it to important equipment.. The AIO TP6048 was reading that the battery was not connected and then threw an 09 fault code which is part of why I emailed Sungoldpower.

Is this just a faulty circuit breaker?
 
BentleyJ said:
What kind of battery? 48.6V would suggest the battery is completely discharged and the BMS, if it has one, may be disconnecting.
Click to expand...
It's a lifepo 50v/48v 50AH, it hadn't been connected to anything in about a month and I neglected to measure it before connecting it to the AIO. It's supposed to have a BMS to protect from overcharge and over discharge. But the AIO reads the voltage at 10v, and climbing but never higher than 35.6v. Last night it was 35.6, this afternoon 35.7. My concern at this point is that if it's not reading the voltage right then it's over charging or worse?
 
LFP cells operate between 3.0V to 3.4V, 3.2 Nominal is how they are referred to. A typical 48V LFP battery would have 15 or 16 cells, 16 being most common. Thus the operating range for a 15 cell battery is 45V to 51V. For a 16 cell battery its 48V to 54.4V.
The min and max allowable range for a LFP cell is 2.5V to 3.7V but there is very little usable power available outside the Operating range listed above.
I would suggest getting the instruction manual or datasheet for the battery and determine the charging parameters.
Lastly, A 50Ah battery is severely undersized for a 6000W inverter. You may be able to run a computer and a couple of lights for a while.
 
BentleyJ said:
LFP cells operate between 3.0V to 3.4V, 3.2 Nominal is how they are referred to. A typical 48V LFP battery would have 15 or 16 cells, 16 being most common. Thus the operating range for a 15 cell battery is 45V to 51V. For a 16 cell battery its 48V to 54.4V.
The min and max allowable range for a LFP cell is 2.5V to 3.7V but there is very little usable power available outside the Operating range listed above.
I would suggest getting the instruction manual or datasheet for the battery and determine the charging parameters.
Lastly, A 50Ah battery is severely undersized for a 6000W inverter. You may be able to run a computer and a couple of lights for a while.
Click to expand...
It's been a tough life lesson about measure twice and cut once. I should have done more planning but now I'm trying to play catchup with myself as I go. The battery is just to hold over the equipment over night when the panels can't be used but the grid will be used when the battery is discharged. And I will get more.

It's a 16 cell battery. So that matched the 48v to 54.4v range, I just don't understand why I'm getting those reading with the circuit breaker on and off from the battery side and inverter side. When I initially contacted sungoldpower we went through what parameters I would need for my battery, and it looks like they pulled up the correct parameters for my battery.
 
The battery needs to be charged but its a catch 22 situation. The inverter most likely will not turn on charging unless it senses the proper battery voltage and without charging, the battery voltage is going to dip too low when connected to the inverter because the inverter is trying to pull current but none is available especially if the BMS has disconnected on Low Voltage Cut Out.

The way forward is with an external charger or even bench top power supply that is adjustable.
 
BentleyJ said:
The battery needs to be charged but its a catch 22 situation. The inverter most likely will not turn on charging unless it senses the proper battery voltage and without charging, the battery voltage is going to dip too low when connected to the inverter because the inverter is trying to pull current but none is available especially if the BMS has disconnected on Low Voltage Cut Out.

The way forward is with an external charger or even bench top power supply that is adjustable.
Click to expand...
Is it too dangerous to lower the cutoff point on the AIO so that it can charge it even though the battery is low?
 
The inverter cut off range can be lowered but if you look up the range of values available the lowest is probably around 45V, each brand is a little different. The battery voltage you are reporting is well below that value.

Seems like a battery issue so I'm suggesting you narrow the problem down to one variable, THE BATTERY. Disconnect it from the inverter and charge it, observe the behavior and verify the BMS and cells are all working properly.
 
khisanthax said:
I'm in contact with sungoldpower as I have their AIO (TP6048) but while I wait for a reply I thought I would ask here as well. I purchased the dihool 160A single pole circuit breaker. I have the breaker on the positive wire from the battery to the inverter. With the circuit breaker off, if I test at the positive terminal on the battery it's 48.60v, if I test on the battery side of the circuit breaker it's 48.60v, if I test at the inverter it's 16.50v, if I test at the inverter side of the breaker it's 16.50v. When I turn on the circuit breaker, when I test the battery it's 12v, when I test the battery side of the circuit breaker it's 12v, when I test the inverter it's 12v, and the inverter side of the battery is 12v.

All of this is with the panel circuit breaker off and also I did not connect the AC input or output as I wanted to make sure the panels, aio and battery were working before I started connecting it to important equipment.. The AIO TP6048 was reading that the battery was not connected and then threw an 09 fault code which is part of why I emailed Sungoldpower.

Is this just a faulty circuit breaker?
Click to expand...
Are you precharging the inverter capacitors before "turning on" the breaker?
 
BentleyJ said:
The inverter cut off range can be lowered but if you look up the range of values available the lowest is probably around 45V, each brand is a little different. The battery voltage you are reporting is well below that value.

Seems like a battery issue so I'm suggesting you narrow the problem down to one variable, THE BATTERY. Disconnect it from the inverter and charge it, observe the behavior and verify the BMS and cells are all working properly.
Click to expand...
Alright, I'll have to purchase something to charge it without the inverter.
 
khisanthax said:
I wish I was. I didn't know about that until I researched it just now. Any chance there's a simple way of doing that?
Click to expand...
I don't think it gets much simpler than jumping the breaker with some wires and a resistor or a graphite pencil (with the eraser removed) if you don't have a resistor, you can also use an incandescent light bulb if you don't have a resistor or a pencil...
Lots of threads on it.

My TP6048 has been running since October, beside overloading it twice (I was pushing it on purpose) I haven't had any major issues.
 
42OhmsPA said:
I don't think it gets much simpler than jumping the breaker with some wires and a resistor or a graphite pencil (with the eraser removed) if you don't have a resistor, you can also use an incandescent light bulb if you don't have a resistor or a pencil...
Lots of threads on it.

My TP6048 has been running since October, beside overloading it twice (I was pushing it on purpose) I haven't had any major issues.
Click to expand...
Fair enough. Just feeling a bit overwhelmed but I'll Google how to use the light bulb since I don't have a resistor on hand.

Could that be why it's not charging or detecting the battery?

I am glad to hear that someone is using the same model to good effect.
 
42OhmsPA said:

Yes. I'm guessing the BMS is going into protect mode because of the current the capacitor(s) are pulling to charge up.
Click to expand...
I bought the resistor since I didn't easily find any 48v light bulbs with the base and wire leads. I also bought a battery charger to see if that works.

Question: If the inverter turns on with the PV and battery connected, does that mean that the capacitors are charged or do the capacitors only charge with the battery?
 
The external charger seems to have worked. It charges the battery to 53.6v and said it was full. I plugged it in and the inverter was able to turn on. The support guy had me set the discharge stop at 46v and the dc low cut off at 44v. Could those be too low and so when the battery was at 48v the bms would cut off the battery meanwhile the inverter was trying to drain down to 46v before charging?

Also, I noticed when I turn on the inverter I have to wait 6 seconds before it actually turns on, I'll ask if this is the precharge.

Now, the problem is I have 8 195w panels in 1 series, measured at 162v but the inverter says it's only generating 10w ...should I start a new topic?
 
BentleyJ said:
The inverter cut off range can be lowered but if you look up the range of values available the lowest is probably around 45V, each brand is a little different. The battery voltage you are reporting is well below that value.

Seems like a battery issue so I'm suggesting you narrow the problem down to one variable, THE BATTERY. Disconnect it from the inverter and charge it, observe the behavior and verify the BMS and cells are all working properly.
Click to expand...
What I noticed is that after charging the battery with a charger it stays at 53.6v. I connect it to the inverter and the inverter powers on. A while later it discharged and the battery error came in again and the battery was not recognized. When I disconnected the battery and tested it the voltage was at 50.6v. through out this what I'm noticing is that the PV array is measuring at 162v but only pulling in 10-14w. I'm pretty sure that's not enough to charge the battery while it's connected to the inverter. At first the battery cutoff for discharge was 48v, then I changed it to 59v and it still happened. Now I have it set to 51v but either way I'm guessing that the inverter is not getting enough power from the PV array. I don't have a load connected as I don't trust it enough but even without a load to draw more power, the battery should draw more than 10w from the PV to charge it.

Any thoughts?
 
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