Trophy Batteries

[MeadMountain]

Dan came to check on the batteries today. He checked all of the connections and voltage on each battery and determined voltage is appropriately balanced across the system, which is good news and alleviates his concerns about the wiring as a source of our issues. He seemed unconcerned about the SOC's not syncing across the bank, though he asked me to observe and report to him the specific SOC's if one drops to 20% or below while others remain high. He seemed to imply large variances in SOC are normal and his only concern is if some batteries drop extremely low. He dismissed the supposition that perhaps the SOC is not being accurately reported.

I definitely need to be able to reliably know the SOC of the bank as a whole. I don't have a separate monitoring shunt though perhaps one needs added.

He's going to research the issue of batteries reaching maximum charge and then staying idle rather than rejoining the load until we manually intervene.

 

[mvonw]

Dan came to check on the batteries today. He checked all of the connections and voltage on each battery and determined voltage is appropriately balanced across the system, which is good news and alleviates his concerns about the wiring as a source of our issues. He seemed unconcerned about the SOC's not syncing across the bank, though he asked me to observe and report to him the specific SOC's if one drops to 20% or below while others remain high. He seemed to imply large variances in SOC are normal and his only concern is if some batteries drop extremely low. He dismissed the supposition that perhaps the SOC is not being accurately reported.

I definitely need to be able to reliably know the SOC of the bank as a whole. I don't have a separate monitoring shunt though perhaps one needs added.

He's going to research the issue of batteries reaching maximum charge and then staying idle rather than rejoining the load until we manually intervene.

In my bank of 6 Trophies, I have had one drop to 0% SOC while others were 95%. Skeptical...

 

[SkyMo]

I talked with Dan today. He has new BMS firmware he is testing and hopes to release it to us beta testers here in a couple days. Fingers crossed.

To summarize my setup. 4 batteries wired with 2/0 cables to a common busbar then to 8000 watt dumb inverter and EPEver solar charge controller. The SOC number vary wildly, watching the amp draw of all batteries I see one consistently either not helping with the load or taking all the load. Easy to see, at the start, the Orange battery does nothing, but 30 minutes later it does all the work. Batteries are not hooked together with the communication cables as that seemed to make matters worse.

 

[Koldsimer]

I talked with Dan today. He has new BMS firmware he is testing and hopes to release it to us beta testers here in a couple days. Fingers crossed.

To summarize my setup. 4 batteries wired with 2/0 cables to a common busbar then to 8000 watt dumb inverter and EPEver solar charge controller. The SOC number vary wildly, watching the amp draw of all batteries I see one consistently either not helping with the load or taking all the load. Easy to see, at the start, the Orange battery does nothing, but 30 minutes later it does all the work. Batteries are not hooked together with the communication cables as that seemed to make matters worse.

View attachment 105189

I was hoping the soc numbers on the modules were not accurate but it appears they are and the batteries are not sharing the load at all. Man, that's not good. Hope you can get it figured out.

 

[mvonw]

I talked with Dan today. He has new BMS firmware he is testing and hopes to release it to us beta testers here in a couple days. Fingers crossed.

To summarize my setup. 4 batteries wired with 2/0 cables to a common busbar then to 8000 watt dumb inverter and EPEver solar charge controller. The SOC number vary wildly, watching the amp draw of all batteries I see one consistently either not helping with the load or taking all the load. Easy to see, at the start, the Orange battery does nothing, but 30 minutes later it does all the work. Batteries are not hooked together with the communication cables as that seemed to make matters worse.

View attachment 105189

I’ve started to see similar wonkiness too with my battery array. It really only shows up when I apply heavy loads and draw down the batteries. When I have light loads under 300 watts, the batteries seem to track fairly closely. If the entire array starts to get below some arbitrary soc level, one of the batteries seems to take all the load and go to 0 SOC while the others stay at a much higher level.

Yesterday, I finally connected my batteries to my large permanent (10K) PV array so I expect I will be keeping the entire battery array at a much higher average SOC.

 

[errcl65]

Yeah, my run is 300ft.. I have four strings, so the cable cost is huge I've about $10k in wire and conduit on this project. Way more than I anticipated. PVC Conduit is crazy now too...

Use 3 or 4 inch drainage tile.

 

[comfydude]

You guys jinxed me. Just this week my battery started going out of balance significantly with two batteries going to 0 and the rest at 90%. I think this was because I started using heavier loads. I don't know if this is typical with other batteries in parallel like this or not. Or if it's a problem with this particular battery. I expected it's probably the later from your reports.

You guys jinxed me. Just this week my battery started going out of balance significantly with two batteries going to 0 and the rest at 90%. I think this was because I started using heavier loads. I don't know if this is typical with other batteries in parallel like this or not. Or if it's a problem with this particular battery. I expected it's probably the later from your reports.

I just had the same thing happen with my 6 trophy 110 batteries.

 

[mvonw]

I just had the same thing happen with my 6 trophy 110 batteries.

I really want to know what is going on with these batteries. I hope a firmware upgrade can fix them.

 

[RV10flyer]

I told you guys several months ago my 220 was flaky. I have cell #10 running to 3.65V while my Sol-Ark bus voltage is 55.7V! Dan hasn't sent me a fix or a new battery pack for me to change out yet. I have 10 batteries and different BMS's. My Daly junk even does better. I'm replacing all of them with JK BMS's with 2A balancing. Trophy uses a 200A Seplos BMS. Their parameters are set up to baby the junk cells. I'm setting up two of my own Seplos 200A BMS's, one took all day, as I'm not a computer guru. It worked excellent charging today, 30 Amps into each of my 10 batteries, no restricting charge amps to 10A!!. Working good during discharge tonight. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Gotta go through a charge/discharge cycle now. I'll run it alone to do that. 134kWh would take me three days to run down to 2.5V per cell!!

 

[RV10flyer]

I really want to know what is going on with these batteries. I hope a firmware upgrade can fix them.

I doubt it. Part of it is the typical 5% junk grade B runners, part of it is their babying the pack with current limiting parameter settings and the other part is Seplos BMS's going to bed under 1.0A. I'm under 1A whenever PV is taking care of the loads while batteries topped off in float, then again at night when my house loads are under 500W!

I measured 0.250A-0.650A of current flow out of battery today. Nothing showing up on the display or laptop. Hence, it wakes up and goes, "oh spit, I'm 2.0V below my buddies and I don't know why". Let's connect, hit my current warning, go into "passive current limiting" bs. Then on charge up, "while my buddies are all charging at 30A, I'm lazy and moving 10.5A!" No wonder the SOC actual and displayed is effd up.

 

[houseofancients]

I told you guys several months ago my 220 was flaky. I have cell #10 running to 3.65V while my Sol-Ark bus voltage is 55.7V! Dan hasn't sent me a fix or a new battery pack for me to change out yet. I have 10 batteries and different BMS's. My Daly junk even does better. I'm replacing all of them with JK BMS's with 2A balancing. Trophy uses a 200A Seplos BMS. Their parameters are set up to baby the junk cells. I'm setting up two of my own Seplos 200A BMS's, one took all day, as I'm not a computer guru. It worked excellent charging today, 30 Amps into each of my 10 batteries, no restricting charge amps to 10A!!. Working good during discharge tonight. We'll see how tomorrow goes. Gotta go through a charge/discharge cycle now. I'll run it alone to do that. 134kWh would take me three days to run down to 2.5V per cell!!

there are b grade cells in the trophy packs ?

 

[mvonw]

there are b grade cells in the trophy packs ?

I think that’s RV10flyer’s assertion, but I’m pretty sure Dan @Trophy would dispute that. I don’t have an opinion on that ( I have 6-110AH batteries), but I definitely see some wonky SOC fluctuation on the BMS display. I haven’t delved deep into what’s going on. Hopping Trophy will make a statement at some point on what might be going on. Right now, mine are working, but have zero confidence that I know the true SOC of my battery bank is at any given time. If I decide to junk $11k worth of batteries, I’m not going to be happy.

 

[RV10flyer]

there are b grade cells in the trophy packs ?

My battery has had these symptoms since day one. They obviously don't test them or they would've found cell number 10 running high while charging. So it's either a bad connection, poor 150 mA balancing or a bad cell or a combination.

 

[RV10flyer]

I think that’s RV10flyer’s assertion, but I’m pretty sure Dan @Trophy would dispute that. I don’t have an opinion on that ( I have 6-110AH batteries), but I definitely see some wonky SOC fluctuation on the BMS display. I haven’t delved deep into what’s going on. Hopping Trophy will make a statement at some point on what might be going on. Right now, mine are working, but have zero confidence that I know the true SOC of my battery bank is at any given time. If I decide to junk $11k worth of batteries, I’m not going to be happy.

Oh we won't have to junk them. We just won't get full capacity out of them and they will be sleeping a lot. Out of 10 batteries, my trophy shuts off before any of the other 4 with runners. It will be up to about 90% SOC, #10 reaches OVP, and wow you're now at 100%. Magic. I don't think so. Daly is even better, it shuts off bluetooth and the lcd screen. Then you get to guess what made it go off. Same old thing, grade B cells going off on OV.

 

[mvonw]

My battery has had these symptoms since day one. They obviously don't test them or they would've found cell number 10 running high while charging. So it's either a bad connection, poor 150 mA balancing or a bad cell or a combination.

They won't warranty this?

 

[RV10flyer]

They won't warranty this?

Dan has been working on these issues of my 220aH since April Fool's Day 2022. If I wanted glitches, I would have bought cells and Daly's from AliExpress. I wanted to help build up our US battery suppliers, but was hoping I would get a little better quality product. I'll just do them all myself from now on. It's cheaper, easier for me to work on. Unfortunately these cells are welded in.

 

[rhino]

Unfortunately these cells are welded in

The SOK 48V server rack battery are the only ones that are not welded so you can fix any connection issues yourself, right?

 

[mvonw]

Dan has been working on these issues of my 220aH since April Fool's Day 2022. If I wanted glitches, I would have bought cells and Daly's from AliExpress. I wanted to help build up our US battery suppliers, but was hoping I would get a little better quality product. I'll just do them all myself from now on. It's cheaper, easier for me to work on. Unfortunately these cells are welded in.

I would've thought he'd just ship you a new new one. I completely agree, I just want my batteries to work and not have to even think about them.
These things are clearly just shipped directly from China., so whatever qc happens, happens there..

 

[RV10flyer]

The SOK 48V server rack battery are the only ones that are not welded so you can fix any connection issues yourself, right?

Yes if I buy any more completed batteries I will buy SOK from current connected. But I enjoy building my own so I will probably just keep doing that with JK 200A 16S BMS's.

 

[houseofancients]

My battery has had these symptoms since day one. They obviously don't test them or they would've found cell number 10 running high while charging. So it's either a bad connection, poor 150 mA balancing or a bad cell or a combination.

150ma , with inverter comms should work just fine.
only reason folks go nuts over these active balancers if they are using no songood cells ( b c or worse grade).
provided the cells are fully top balancee before going into service