JKBMS Inverter Edition Problems/Issues | No Support / Help to fix major issues. - DO NOT BUY ! Warning (as of Oct.12.2024)
- Thread starter Steve_S
- Start date
Quattrohead
Emperor Of Solar
You guys keep doubling down on shit products LOL, supporting a company that does not support you.
Brucey
Velcro Man
Thanks
I think you will only be able to order 1 for that price. Order 1 and wait till tomorrow if you want a second for that price.
I don't need them to support me. I want a BMS that does what I want it do do and stays out of my way. The old non-comms JK fits that bill just fine.
Quattrohead
Emperor Of Solar
Just like the JBD/Overkill 100A, they just work.
No active balancer.
Also, no self-shutdown when the BMS goes in low voltage disconnect to prevent its self consumption from draining the pack further.
ghostwriter66
"Here - Hold my Beer"
@houseofancients "Wrong again, this is due to popular demand, and a result of jk being pushed really hard on social media"
I Have NO idea where you get THAT from ... NO -- anything that JKBMS is going to do is NOT dependent on US Created social media complaints ... they simply don't care .... and anyway most of the places that people are posting their complaints to are behind China's "Great Firewall" internet censorship project which restricts many foreign websites and platforms, especially major U.S. social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Heck, China has over two million (thats 2,000,000) government employees that do nothing but monitor, delete, and censor social media content that is viewed as detrimental to China's public image - to include their government owned programs and suppliers.
YES ... social media is important to a Chinese company -- FOR SALES ... to engage with consumers for SALES ... I will say that JKBMS probably spends at least 75% of their marketing budget on advertising and social networking platforms ... THAT does NOT mean that they are influenced AT ALL about YOUR social media posts ... or 1000 of you posting....
anyway -- even IF you did find Some one to care at JKBMS -- them trying to get the mothership to free up some developers time on ONE project to look at another is FLEXIBILITY the Chinese do NOT have ...
again - go back and read all the posts from the heavy media hitters on this thread - to include Will and Andy and several others that have 100's of thousands of followers --add to THAT the number of JKBMS DISTRIBUTORS that have also contacted JKBMS directly -- and what have they got for the last 2 -3 weeks .... CRICKETS .... so if the Chinese did care about any of this you would think they would have answered even ONE of those dozens of complaints from social influencers and distributors ... BUT THEY DIDN'T ... because they are NOT setup that way - nor care ...
I Have NO idea where you get THAT from ... NO -- anything that JKBMS is going to do is NOT dependent on US Created social media complaints ... they simply don't care .... and anyway most of the places that people are posting their complaints to are behind China's "Great Firewall" internet censorship project which restricts many foreign websites and platforms, especially major U.S. social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Heck, China has over two million (thats 2,000,000) government employees that do nothing but monitor, delete, and censor social media content that is viewed as detrimental to China's public image - to include their government owned programs and suppliers.
YES ... social media is important to a Chinese company -- FOR SALES ... to engage with consumers for SALES ... I will say that JKBMS probably spends at least 75% of their marketing budget on advertising and social networking platforms ... THAT does NOT mean that they are influenced AT ALL about YOUR social media posts ... or 1000 of you posting....
anyway -- even IF you did find Some one to care at JKBMS -- them trying to get the mothership to free up some developers time on ONE project to look at another is FLEXIBILITY the Chinese do NOT have ...
again - go back and read all the posts from the heavy media hitters on this thread - to include Will and Andy and several others that have 100's of thousands of followers --add to THAT the number of JKBMS DISTRIBUTORS that have also contacted JKBMS directly -- and what have they got for the last 2 -3 weeks .... CRICKETS .... so if the Chinese did care about any of this you would think they would have answered even ONE of those dozens of complaints from social influencers and distributors ... BUT THEY DIDN'T ... because they are NOT setup that way - nor care ...
ArthurEld
Solar Wizard
Many of us are very happy with what we have from JK so far. I'm not sure why anyone else would care about that.
Maybe the JK inverter BMS was released too soon and that pissed some people off. It didn't make any difference to me because I take a long time to get going. I'm just using the inverter BMS just like I used the old JKs with the phone app.
Someday I will get around to connecting it to my inverter. Maybe I will start to get impatient then. Or maybe it will just work.
ghostwriter66
"Here - Hold my Beer"
The Chinese would simply take the French manure -- package it -- mark it as NEW and IMPROVED version 14.2 ... then sell it back to the FRENCH making a huge profit -- and the French would buy it all up thinking that they got a great deal ...JK are then lucky that France is not their only region of sell. France, famous for farmers driving long convoys of tractors with manure and dumping it outside the parlament when they are fed up with some injustice. And yes, farmers do still have pitchforks!The imagination floats away to a thought of french farmers driving manure to China and dumping it outside HQ of JK...
Hell JKBMS doesn't even go to trade shows anymore -- they don't have to -- broken or not -- they are still #1 in the game ....
houseofancients
Solar Wizard
I am not reffering to jk, they have proven they simply don't care..
I dm reffering to all these kits and box builder for end cliënts putting in that jk upon the request of those end cliënts after seeing all these social media thingies praising the crap out of these bms's
The box builders will cater if there is enough business in it for and if they there are BMS problems, simply refer to jk...
Quattrohead
Emperor Of Solar
Don't need them, hardly anyone should ever need them unless they have absolutely gash cells.
Quattrohead
Emperor Of Solar
Yeah this all needs to stop, there are perfectly good BMS from JBD and Seplos that already work substantially better and have some sort of support, even if it's not American tier one support.
I don't want to bother with initial top balancing cells. I want to put them together, slap the BMS on it, and have it balance them in operation in a matter of days. It takes forever to do that with 300Ah cells and a passive balancer.
ghostwriter66
"Here - Hold my Beer"
Just going to have to argue on that one -- a little ... cells drift ... i don't care how great they are ... we are in the process of putting together (48) of the EEL DIY boxes as we speak ... we literally have almost (800) 330Ah cells unboxed and a cluster of folks putting these units together ... The issue is that you could simply have one cell that decides that its going to creep up continuously 0.01 volt everyday - and within 6 months that one cell is now causing your entire pack to stop charging at 60% because that one cell is tripping the over protection alarm ... THATS why we need active balancing ... with batteries of this size PASSIVE just can't/won't cut it ... personally 4A ACTIVE is my favourite ... but recently we have had to throw some 15A ACTIVE NEELY's on some of the older so-called GRADE-A (from 2022)(which was more like GRADE-C) to help them get back in line ... easier to clip on a big-a$$ active balancer than try to take apart a rack for one or 2 batteries out of whack ...
I just performed a full battery tear down of my 24v build. These were supposed Grade A CATL cells that have been running on an Overkill BMS. I suspect these were more likely B or less cells. Having said that the Overkill could just not keep the cells working properly together where my third pack was nice and tidy under the control of the older JK Active BMS.
I did a comprehensive resistance test of each of the cells and the results were eye opening. I also recently picked up some "spare" CATL cells.
Basically what I found is that for the most part, the total resistance across 4 voltage levels (3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4) was fairly close. Then there were some cells that were a bit off and a single cell that was double the resistance and was likely my worst runner.
Long story short, a balancer can only do so much. If the batteries are poorly matched with each other there is a greater chance of a runner under heavy loads. I will be rebuilding the batteries with these newfound findings.
I did a comprehensive resistance test of each of the cells and the results were eye opening. I also recently picked up some "spare" CATL cells.
Basically what I found is that for the most part, the total resistance across 4 voltage levels (3.1, 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4) was fairly close. Then there were some cells that were a bit off and a single cell that was double the resistance and was likely my worst runner.
Long story short, a balancer can only do so much. If the batteries are poorly matched with each other there is a greater chance of a runner under heavy loads. I will be rebuilding the batteries with these newfound findings.
What amazes me is that people claim they 'need' active balancers- only if you buy crap cells to begin with...
I'm still running without any balancers on mine (for three years now)- I only have the 48v balancers for the 16S setup, and as I am still using the 4s4p setup (12v) for the caravan at the shed until the house is built, I didn't bother with them
(I do monitor, once an month I check for cell drift manually) as I have the gear to do manual cell balancing (up to 25A at 5v adjustable PSU I use)
In 3 years, they still haven't drifted more than 0.02v!!!
(I do stay away from both the top end and bottom end voltages, which is where almost all the drift seems to happen)
I'm still running without any balancers on mine (for three years now)- I only have the 48v balancers for the 16S setup, and as I am still using the 4s4p setup (12v) for the caravan at the shed until the house is built, I didn't bother with them
(I do monitor, once an month I check for cell drift manually) as I have the gear to do manual cell balancing (up to 25A at 5v adjustable PSU I use)
In 3 years, they still haven't drifted more than 0.02v!!!
(I do stay away from both the top end and bottom end voltages, which is where almost all the drift seems to happen)
ConnerLabs
Solar Enthusiast
Some might say that the top and bottom voltages are the only places cell imbalance gets a chance to reveal itself…
have you done a capacity test of the pack by charging until one cell hits overvoltage, then discharging until one hits undervoltage while counting Ah?I can believe that cells bought direct from Winston would stay in balance by themselves for 3 years, but it would be good to have experimental evidence…
Not really-that involves taking them into areas I'd rather stay out of lol...Some might say that the top and bottom voltages are the only places cell imbalance gets a chance to reveal itself…
I can believe that cells bought direct from Winston would stay in balance by themselves for 3 years, but it would be good to have experimental evidence…
I rely on the voltage checks, that I have so little drift (it is literally at the limits of my best meter) after so long suggests that 'babying' them like I do is far better than hammering them hard and trying to rely on balancing to hide the issue....
plus these really are good cells- sure they cost a bit more, but they have been on sale here in Australia for basically a decade and a half, with almost zero failures.... and most of those were badly abused...
Solar Steve
New Member
Currently running 3 inverter JK BMS systems and for my needs they work pretty well. Yes, the SOC measurement is worthless, and I get some erratic notifications in the system logs, but they shut down the battery with over/under voltage and over/under temperature conditions and do a nice job balancing the pack. I wish the alarm and status information were communicated in a better way to my Victron inverters, but I use this for information only and don't rely on it to start/stop charging, this is set by the pack voltage. SOC is determined by my Smart Shunt.
The software is bad, documentation and customer support worse, but the hardware does what I want it to do, following some setup help from this forum and especially Andy at off-grid garage.
The software is bad, documentation and customer support worse, but the hardware does what I want it to do, following some setup help from this forum and especially Andy at off-grid garage.
If you never get to the top (and bottom) of the voltage curve, it's normal that you don't see any drift. Remember, voltage with LFP is not an indicator of state of charge for LFP except at the knees of the curve. You could have once cell at 65% and the other at 80% state of charge with the exact same voltage.
Yes Andy at Off grid garage had a major acrimonious divorce with JK, after all that un paid evaluation work he put in for them - he has been ghosted. Total arrogance by JK and they dont care cos they think they are at the top and are No1 *****. Its called Hubris 
prosier
New Member
Its not. JK is working on a .30 version of the software, including probably a lot of the mistakes Andy showed.
Actually Andy is already testing .30 at the moment.
So JK did not ghost anyone. And for the ones that doesn't like JK, just get some other brand BMS. No issues with that.