Schneider xw pro 6848 not powering up with eg4 lithium battery

[Koldsimer]

I can't recall if you covered this earlier in the thread and I didn't get a good view of your EG4 bank wiring in your video, but would you mind detailing how they're wired?

What wiring is the same when you use other batteries and what wiring is different?

I am using equal length 2 gauge wire to hook each of my four batteries to the rack that Signature sells. They are all hooked to a common busbar.

I have a 10' 4/0 cable that is wired to my inverter and i have been switching it from bank to bank to turn on inverter. It is the same cable used in all attempts.

Concerning the batteries, i have tried them all individually and in every possible combination with the same result. I have tried them connected via the 485 cable, not connected etc. Same result.

I made sure all connections are tight and clean several times early on.

 

[robby]

I'm a hands-on kind of guy, trying to play keyboard warrior.

You might be right, that turning on battery doesn't trigger precharge, not until it sees a capacitive load? If so, I'd have to enhance my "design" to fool it (add a capacitor before my external switch and resistor.)

i have been saying that since post #219 when I first found the thread.

 

[mnd]

I am using equal length 2 gauge wire to hook each of my four batteries to the rack that Signature sells. They are all hooked to a common busbar.

I have a 10' 4/0 cable that is wired to my inverter and i have been switching it from bank to bank to turn on inverter. It is the same cable used in all attempts.

Concerning the batteries, i have tried them all individually and in every possible combination with the same result. I have tried them connected via the 485 cable, not connected etc. Same result.

I made sure all connections are tight and clean several times early on.

Can't do much better than that I guess.

Only other thing I can think of is one EG4 wired directly to your mini-PDP (can't recall if you've already tried this too.)

 

[Koldsimer]

Can't do much better than that I guess.

Only other thing I can think of is one EG4 wired directly to your mini-PDP (can't recall if you've already tried this too.)

It's about the only configuration i haven't tried. I can't because the terminal on my 4/0 doesn't fit between the plastic guard surrounding the terminal on the lifepower battery.

 

[mnd]

It's about the only configuration i haven't tried. I can't because the terminal on my 4/0 doesn't fit between the plastic guard surrounding the terminal on the lifepower battery.

I was more thinking that you'd lug the EG4 upstairs, but understand if that's a bit of a challenge.

 

[Mr-Sandman]

I simply don't see the 10' of 4/0 being any factor here. It's more than enough cable and he has hooked 2 other battery banks up thru the same cable and they worked fine.

 

[AGDorsum]

Just spit-balling here so be gentle. What has not been eliminated is the battery cabinet/bus bars. Could the bus bars have a break or some other issue to cause a drop in voltage when a load is applied? Would it be possible to connect your lithium battery (that starts the inverter) to the bus bars (with EG4’s powered off) and start inverter? Nothing else seems to have made a difference. Again, I am old (in age) and new to battery banks but long time trouble shooting computer hardware issues.

 

[Mr-Sandman]

When he uses external power to get his inverter up, I think the batteries work fine, providing plenty of power under load. SO if it was a cable or buss bar issue, I think that would show up while actually inverting power to the loads (potentially 200amps). As far as I know he hasn't had any issues while operating, just with the low voltage initial startup.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

Update: We are investigating about 4 different inverter models that all appear to be having issues per multiple comments in this thread and a few other threads. This is something we want to figure out as best as possible - it only hurts us when our batteries don't work with another companies inverter. That being said, the current workaround to use the batteries with any model (so far) that has run into this issue is to provide a supplemental DC power supply to start. After starting, the batteries have no issues. So far we have been unable to reproduce the issues with any of the multiple inverters we have on our tech bench (several which are mentioned by users to have an issue) so we are not sure exactly what appears to be causing the issue. I can promise we are working diligently to make this right.

 

[Mr-Sandman]

@signaturesolarrichard just to make sure the XW Pro 6848 you are using for testing is a "apple 2 apples" test, you might make sure it's running the latest firmware 1.11.01bn49. You'll need an Insight or Combox to see or update firmware. Not sure if you have that or not.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

@signaturesolarrichard just to make sure the XW Pro 6848 you are using for testing is a "apple 2 apples" test, you might make sure it's running the latest firmware 1.11.01bn49. You'll need an Insight or Combox to see or update firmware. Not sure if you have that or not.

True, we didn't verify that. It's new so I would hope they are shipping the most current (stable) firmware version but I'll try to find out. I'd also like to point out a hiccup this presents -- that being we could have 2 users on different firmware versions. At what point do we consider this test 'complete'? Because I don't know if we could ever employ enough people to test every manufacturer times every model times every firmware version. Just an honest question.

 

[Mr-Sandman]

True, we didn't verify that. It's new so I would hope they are shipping the most current (stable) firmware version but I'll try to find out.

You would think, but my new one I received a month or so ago was many revision behind. One of the first steps in commissioning them per their guide is to update firmware to the latest.

 

[MrM1]

Ok... OK... Just Ship me a couple of the 200Ah 24v models and I'll be glad to test them with a Schneider Conext SW.
?

 

[AGDorsum]

When he uses external power to get his inverter up, I think the batteries work fine, providing plenty of power under load. SO if it was a cable or buss bar issue, I think that would show up while actually inverting power to the loads (potentially 200amps). As far as I know he hasn't had any issues while operating, just with the low voltage initial startup.

Understood and I agree, but, don’t the capacitors require a huge amount of amps to initially charge? Could be just enough impedance to hamper startup. Again beginner, opinions worth the price charged.

 

[Horsefly]

Ok... OK... Just Ship me a couple of the 200Ah 24v models and I'll be glad to test them with a Schneider Conext SW.
?

Me too!

 

[merritt2828]

Did they offer you a solution?

I haven't contacted SS. Like most things you buy nowadays, I just figured I'd have to modify it to make it work right. I got it running using the charge controller's output and it's been on ever since. Being off grid, shut downs are a bit inconvenient. Tomorrow I will shutdown and try to boot up in the opposite order than the EG4 manual suggests and see if the precharge circuitry will do its job.

I was really hoping SS would provide the unlock code to modify the precharge timing and we could all move on. The battery has worked well otherwise. This was a trial unit for me, but if I can figure out how to extract the MODBUS traffic thru the RS485 port, I'll probably order more.

 

[Mr-Sandman]

I was really hoping SS would provide the unlock code to modify the precharge timing and we could all move on.

I've asked @signaturesolarrichard to provide to procedure to change the pre-charge parameter and he has not delivered....... He did say that they could do that..

 

[merritt2828]

Setting is "CHG_UT_Delay" and by default is 4000ms.

I'm sure you know your equipment better than me, but that looks like "charge under temp delay" - just going by the naming convention in the rest of the settings. Then again, I don't see any other values that would equate to precharge timing.

 

[merritt2828]

I tried powering up in the opposite order than the manual suggests, and the EG4 successfully started the magnum 4448 and classic 150 at the same time.

While I had power down, I did some investigating. Way earlier in this post, someone asked about the resistor. It is a 10.3 ohm (measured) 200 watt resistor. The precharge circuit is enabled by a separate board with a 12v relay, and yes, there is full battery voltage on that board...(SS, you want to explain?)

It appears that the precharge circuit is in parallel with the FETs. I measured the resistance during boot up between the battery negative and negative post, expecting to see 10.3 ohms, followed by 0 ohms. Instead, after a 4 second boot up with high resistance, it read 0 ohms for about 4 seconds, then 3 ohms....and stayed that way. I would think that the 0 ohms would be causing some people's problems, but mine booted up good by turning on the battery last. So I'm little confused.

Anyway, here's an overall shot.

 

[Mr-Sandman]

Thanks for the pics. The big question remains, what triggers the Pre-Charge circuit? I've asked this question probably 6 times. I'm starting to think Signature Solar doesn't know how their batteries pre-charge circuit works.