Schneider xw pro 6848 not powering up with eg4 lithium battery

[Solar Guy Richard]

Does anyone understand why the battery has not been swapped months ago? Please enlighten me.

It was first assumed it was an issue with this specific model of inverter so we ordered one which, for many reasons, took longer to arrive than expected. We are now beyond control testing and working on the specific system.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

Small defect rate and can't find the problem with sample testing.

Melamine contaminated gluten in pet food was near 100%, no problem reproducing the issue.

Dogs killed by pet jerky was small fraction, so when FDA tested 30 samples from store shelves, they declared the problem was not ethylene glycol. They didn't take large enough sample size to have any chance of finding one with lethal concentration. They refused to test any open packages supplied by owners of pets that were killed. The samples they did test, some had zero ethylene glycol and some had varying amounts well below lethal dose - but higher concentration than standards for glycerin (one ingredient) allow. Their published data showed a large standard deviation, and I was able to compute what fraction of batches would have a lethal concentration. It appeared in line with likely nation-wide sales of the product and pet death rates.

Won't (so far) test the battery or inverter Koldsimer has a problem with. Sound similar?

Once you have 3 or more failures, statistics begin to give narrower bands. You can then calculate expected failure rates of other groups, e.g. other models.

Our federal regulatory institutions are now employing people incompetent in statistics, and allowing them (or assigning them?) to creating press releases for the public. It is showing up in false reports regarding vaccine side effects representing background rate, identifying food contaminants, effectiveness of automobile safety devices. Only private companies who care to do the job right protect us. (and forums with consumer comments, useful so long as not stuffed with false data by people having an agenda, as is happening with some current health issues.) A problem with forums and user reviews is we have only numerator (complaints), not denominator (number of units sold). When making buying decisions, we want to know failure rates.

Agree on many points.

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

0.05% of customers have a problem. Swap the whole thing, simple field replacement. See if you can replicate problem in lab, isolated to subcircuit level and repair. Ship replacement battery same day you receive complaint, and issue a return tag for original one.

One guy said if he got past precharge issue by having SCC bring up power to inverter, then battery was able to power it. That says BMS isn't the problem, can carry current. It is a hiccup during precharge. (could be different issues in different units, but likely a single issue.)

For the guy half way across the world, express shipment of BMS and/or precharge subsystem would be better than hazmat freight.

I would very much appreciate replacement bms

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

Just to add
Outback is running ok for now surges from battery is ok but I didn't really put really huge surge loads so I am saying again.

The issue with the Eg4 seems to be the precharge circuit and not the actual bms.

Just my little two bits.i will update there are unsatisfactory changes.

 

[Purgatory]

Just to be clear @HighCountryBill do you have the EG4 LifePower4 48v batteries "No LCD Screen"?

This is very useful information for Signature Solar and confirms there's a bigger issue with their batteries, than just the Schneider inverters not being happy with their pre-charge, it appears other inverters are having issues with them as well.

My Victron Multiplus 2 doesn’t like them either

 

[Mr-Sandman]

My Victron Multiplus 2 doesn’t like them either

@RichardfromSignatureSolar sounds like this issue with the LifePower4 batteries is more widespread issue than you guys originally thought "hoped". In THIS thread there has been reports now of Schneider, Outback, Magnum, and now Victron inverters having issues with them. All MAJOR well respected inverter brands...

There IS something wrong! I hope you get to the bottom of it very soon and have a solid solution to keep your customers happy.

 

[Quattrohead]

doing what we can to try and duplicate the issue - going so far as to increase the pre-charge resistor to 10 seconds! - and more.

How many more times do you want to shove your fingers in the vice to figure out it really does hurt?
I was going to post you need to decrease the the precharge time not increase it but then I saw you actually trying to duplicate the problem. Apparently though this is not possible in your office so you either need to hot foot it down to Kolds place to try and understand it or just send him the other battery pack that seems to not have this issue. You only need one of the battery packs that will start his inverter he can continue to use the other three.
Honestly this whole thread shows every which way possible to have poor customer service and terrible diagnostic methods sorry to say.
By the way that pre-charge needs to be under a second, possibly somewhere between 100 and 500 milliseconds. Open up these inverters that are having issues and find out how many micro farads of capacitance there is on their input.

 

[Hedges]

If problem is an occasional defective battery, Richard from SS just has to try out 2000 batteries to maybe see the problem once.
Poisson distribution, expected number of occurrences is "1", standard deviation "1", so with reported 0.05% failure rate, after trying 2000 batteries:

37% chance of zero failures.
37% chance of one failure.
18% chance of two failures.

Poisson distribution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Or, he could just test the failing customer unit.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

How many more times do you want to shove your fingers in the vice to figure out it really does hurt?
I was going to post you need to decrease the the precharge time not increase it but then I saw you actually trying to duplicate the problem. Apparently though this is not possible in your office so you either need to hot foot it down to Kolds place to try and understand it or just send him the other battery pack that seems to not have this issue. You only need one of the battery packs that will start his inverter he can continue to use the other three.
Honestly this whole thread shows every which way possible to have poor customer service and terrible diagnostic methods sorry to say.
By the way that pre-charge needs to be under a second, possibly somewhere between 100 and 500 milliseconds. Open up these inverters that are having issues and find out how many micro farads of capacitance there is on their input.

This is literally where we are at now. As I stated before - we tried to duplicate it with a control. Now we are remotely testing some firmware changes, and if not I personally will likely make the trip to Kolds. Sorry you don't appreciate my customer service, I've really tried going above and beyond on this (and many more) threads to help people.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

My Victron Multiplus 2 doesn’t like them either

I believe we have one of these in the office, so I will test locally again with this one.

 

[acdoctor]

My wife purchased a drone for me. It preformed great for the first month I had it. I flew it in temperatures from 15 to 38 deg F. The next month it warmed up a bit. I tried flying it at 55 deg F and could not keep it connected to ground unit. Graph was showing radio interference. The next morning 20 deg flying with no problems. Tried agin at 50 deg started off well then about lost it completely. After that tried putting it in the freezer and would stay linked for some time then disconnect. Contacted the costumer support. Sent it in for repairs. They tested and determined nothing was wrong and sent out. I received it with low expectations. And it seemed worse than when I sent it in. I sent it back again with videos of it not working. They sent a complete new system that has worked flawlessly since. They said they wanted mine to test and figure out on their time frame.
I wasn’t happy it failed initially and especially that they sent it back without repairing or replacing it. But was glad they replaced it in the end so they could troubleshoot the old one.
I would buy from them again.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

Update: So today me and Kold spoke on the phone. There is a freezing rain weather event happening currently in Texas, which is out of the normal. Schools are cancelled, the whole bit. Anyways, due to the weather, Kold didn't feel comfortable shutting his system down (I don't blame him). So we will pick up again tomorrow. I'm emailing him a software update to try and we will do the walk through tomorrow.

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

This is literally where we are at now. As I stated before - we tried to duplicate it with a control. Now we are remotely testing some firmware changes, and if not I personally will likely make the trip to Kolds. Sorry you don't appreciate my customer service, I've really tried going above and beyond on this (and many more) threads to help people.

Working hard there not smart

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

My wife purchased a drone for me. It preformed great for the first month I had it. I flew it in temperatures from 15 to 38 deg F. The next month it warmed up a bit. I tried flying it at 55 deg F and could not keep it connected to ground unit. Graph was showing radio interference. The next morning 20 deg flying with no problems. Tried agin at 50 deg started off well then about lost it completely. After that tried putting it in the freezer and would stay linked for some time then disconnect. Contacted the costumer support. Sent it in for repairs. They tested and determined nothing was wrong and sent out. I received it with low expectations. And it seemed worse than when I sent it in. I sent it back again with videos of it not working. They sent a complete new system that has worked flawlessly since. They said they wanted mine to test and figure out on their time frame.
I wasn’t happy it failed initially and especially that they sent it back without repairing or replacing it. But was glad they replaced it in the end so they could troubleshoot the old one.
I would buy from them again.

That great customer service. I would buy fromcthem too.
Again I am going be labeled a midnite boy

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

So my update on eg4 batteries.

Batteries performed well (as it should) for the past week on the Outback Radian.

Radian start up issue still remains.
I have also agreed with others fromcthis site and fb .It would appears that the pre-charge resistor is not.the issue but the bms .

It would be nice if SS can at the least give bms so the It can be swapped.

 

[robby]

I wonder what happened with @Koldsimer

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

I wonder what happened with @Koldsimer

We had some bad weather this weekend that prevented testing. Supposed to talk today, I'm waiting on a return message from him.

 

[Mahendra Gomanie]

We had some bad weather this weekend that prevented testing. Supposed to talk today, I'm waiting on a return message from him.

I wonder is he fed up

 

[Koldsimer]

I'm still here. Been a horrible stretch of weather for 5 days straight. Couldn't try anything during those times because i'm unsure of the threshold for my scc's to provide the bump necessary to start inverter and they weren't making much at all for that 5 days. Couldn't risk making changes and then find i couldn't start the system due to low power. Anyway, RIchard has been in communication, and we are trying to get together to make some changes to the bms settings i guess. After spending countless hours to get them to work, i guess it's gonna take at least a few more when i have the time.

 

[Purgatory]

I believe we have one of these in the office, so I will test locally again with this one.

That would be great, I can’t seem to get past the issue I am having with the 12V version. I can during the day get the system to start up with mppt Producing solar power, but if it’s not running the battery will kick into safe mode at any attempt to start up. The other issue I seem to have is if the system is under much load the safe mode kicks in and kills power to everything. I’m going to rerun all testing this weekend using an agm battery and see what results I have. If everything operates properly from the AGM then I am left with 1 conclusion. Hopefully it’s something I have missed but right now I don’t see it. Will post with updates.

 

[Mr-Sandman]

@Koldsimer @RichardfromSignatureSolar you guys do any testing? We are 670 post deep in this, I'm anxious to hear the outcome of your testing, Signature Solar to state the root cause/problem and what the fix will be.

 

[Koldsimer]

Hey @Mr-Sandman , we are getting together via phone this morning to try some different things. I'll update with the results.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

@Koldsimer @RichardfromSignatureSolar you guys do any testing? We are 670 post deep in this, I'm anxious to hear the outcome of your testing, Signature Solar to state the root cause/problem and what the fix will be.

We are (hopefully) having a phone call today.

 

[Solar Guy Richard]

Update: This is unrelated to my call with Kold, but earlier I stated which registry entry dictated the precharge timer - the information I provided was incorrect (which I thought and was also pointed out by a few users here). My friends in China copy pasted the wrong table when answering my question and I passed that information to everyone here, but I have contacted them again to clarify (because the table name did not seem to match up with what I was looking for) and they replied with the correct information.

The CORRECT table name is UV_OFF_Time. Sorry that I shared incorrect information but I wanted to make sure I corrected myself so people do not have the wrong answer online. I will also go back and edit my previous post with the correct info to make sure no one accidently finds it in the future.

 

[Koldsimer]

Quick Update- Spent nearly an hour going back and forth on the phone with Richard. We got into the batteries bms and tried making changes and updates but the battery kept rejecting our efforts. Im sure @RichardfromSignatureSolar can provide a more detailed answer. He is determining what the next steps will be. Should know more this evening.