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Trophy Battery Heaters Operation

smr.ruby

New Member
Joined
Mar 28, 2022
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102
Location
Colorado
This may be a bit geeky and I don't have a known problem I'm trying to solve but I curious if there are others out there with Trophy batteries that understand their heater sequence in detail. I know from the docs and discussion with Dan that they divert charging power to the heaters if the battery is too cold to be charged. Presumably locking out the charge mosfet until temperature comes up to some level. But I'm curious what temps they turn on and off? Which sensors they are based on? What the thresholds or deadbands are? Again, not trying to solve a problem just nerd out with other Trophy battery owners. I did have some challenges with the BMS on one of the 110AH CATL units but after working with Dan he ended up replacing it (no cost to me) with one of the 100AH EVE units. Dan is a great guy but I did get the impression he is super in the details on how the system works. He is maybe a bit of an intermediary between some other designers and OEM? He is maybe the specifier, packager, and US side of the equation.

So for some data from the 100 AH EVE Units BMS data here is an initial charge on a recent cold day:
Cell temperatures in the mid 20F range when the sun came up
1704491955223.png
Battery SOC starts to rise at 9:30 in the morning even though the Cells are still well below 30F. Hopefully the BMS is incorrectly wired and assuming power going into the heaters is actually going into the batteries?
1704491995075.png

Battery's own charge current is intermittent - that isn't the sun - from 9:15 to 10:07 or so. Maybe that is the heaters cycling? Have not seen that load profile during warmer charging. Probably it looks like something heaters inside an enclosed case with an over-temp switch/stat would do - heat, trip cool, heat, trip cool
1704492059431.png

However the battery pack and cell voltage does rise during that initial period. But that is probably just chemical result of increasing ambient temperature since voltage is increasing around 9am before the inverter has even come on.
1704492142836.png


Other experiences or learnings with these? Again no reason to believe they aren't working but I know these BMSs aren't perfect (bit about SOC increasing when it shouldn't be charging) and I haven't opened this one up to see how the heaters are wired to the BMS or the battery terminals.

On the 110AH CATL Trophy battery I ended up insulating it and putting my own heaters outside the case that used battery power to keep the batteries even warmer (65F if sun allowed). On the above 100AH EVE battery it is "stock" trophy with just the internal charge only heaters.

My batteries are installed off grid in an unconditioned ISU-90 container at 7500ft elevation in the northern Colorado foothill. Other than the BMS issues with the 110AH CATL unit they have been running fine for 2+ years. They are intermittently used to power tools and an RV on site a a job site where I'm building a future home (on the weekends and in my spare time). When I'm not there (most of the time) they power internet communication, cameras, weather station, computer logging this battery and inverter information ,etc. Point being they are not heavily cycled unless I'm there for a few days.
 
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What BMS does trophy use? If they have PC software you can look at the set for low temp charging, set it to the number you want and then it will probably switch the heaters on at the temperature you specify.
 
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