Warning on chinese instructions for JK BMS

[Ray Clout]

Hi All
I've been trolling for whatever information I can find regarding the incompatability between some mobile phones and the latest versions of the app for these devices. Forget getting help from the makers.....they just dont respond.

However....what I did find...in the manual. "Smart BMS with Active-Balancer", Ver. 2.1, 2022/8/29 is a very serious contradiction....and not just a simple typo....in the wiring connection text explanation and diagram

Page 16 of the document shows an image of the BMS terminal B- connected to the battery negative of cell 1 in the stack, and P- (also called C-) connected off the BMS....controller/charger etc.
From my previous experience with bms (ANT) this is intuitively and practically correct.

The text on page 26, however.....
quote
"P-/C- (1st. Cell Negative) and B- (B- Negative out from the BMS) are connected correctly"
end quote

Now....ok...some are going to say "so what?....its chinglish", but thats not the point.
For a product that is arguably regarded as one of the best on the market, these problems....along with an app that has so many issues, one could expect better from the manufacturers.

 

[740GLE]

Not to throw shade, but who reads instructions? For my JBD I didn’t even download anything from JBD specific to my BMS, I followed advice from others and overkill PDF.

I I’ll prob sign into DrYouTube for commissioning my JK 24v BMS, I hear off grid garage has a good video about it.

 

[Ray Clout]

Not to throw shade, but who reads instructions? For my JBD I didn’t even download anything from JBD specific to my BMS, I followed advice from others and overkill PDF.

I I’ll prob sign into DrYouTube for commissioning my JK 24v BMS, I hear off grid garage has a good video about it.

Fair point and I was going to mention exactly that.....who reads instructions?
Maybe Noobs
It doesnt matter if you read or not. They should be reliable and consistent

 

[timselectric]

Page 16?
That's a lot of pages.
I just looked at the diagram for wiring.
What problems are you having with the app?
It's working perfectly for me. And I don't remember anyone else having trouble.

 

[Ray Clout]

Page 16?
That's a lot of pages.
I just looked at the diagram for wiring.
What problems are you having with the app?
It's working perfectly for me. And I don't remember anyone else having trouble.

Are you kidding?
Many reports on the app not even installing let alone working
When I try to instal the latest version from play store, I get an error from play store saying "this app is not compatible with your device"
If I download the apk files and attempt an instal using an apk installer, I get the same message.
Lots of people have been reporting the same error. In fact a couple of people have been snooping the BT traffic between the phone and the app to attempt a hack.

The only version I can instal is 3.7.4

 

[timselectric]

Are you kidding?
Many reports on the app not even installing let alone working
When I try to instal the latest version from play store, I get an error from play store saying "this app is not compatible with your device"
If I download the apk files and attempt an instal using an apk installer, I get the same message.
Lots of people have been reporting the same error. In fact a couple of people have been snooping the BT traffic between the phone and the app to attempt a hack.

The only version I can instal is 3.7.4

Not kidding.
This is the first time I have heard this.
So it's just the newest phones?

 

[Ray Clout]

Not kidding.
This is the first time I have heard this.
So it's just the newes

Not kidding.
This is the first time I have heard this.
So it's just the newest

Not kidding.
This is the first time I have heard this.
So it's just the newest phones?

I'm not sure on which models. My phone is not new, and is certainly one of the cheaper models.

I may be going down the rabbit hole here, but the deeper I dig the more its pointing towards the gps.
It appears.....from cryptic comments in the manuals.....that the messaging protocol used between the phone and bms is the gps protocol.
I suspect that the app takes advantage of writeable registers used by the phone for gps raw data to store bms parameters before writing to the app.

The manufacturer Jikong, make the comment in one of their manuals on communications, that the app will not "read the users gps data"

Make of that what you will.

 

[timselectric]

I'm not sure on which models. My phone is not new, and is certainly one of the cheaper models.

I may be going down the rabbit hole here, but the deeper I dig the more its pointing towards the gps.
It appears.....from cryptic comments in the manuals.....that the messaging protocol used between the phone and bms is the gps protocol.
I suspect that the app takes advantage of writeable registers used by the phone for gps raw data to store bms parameters before writing to the app.

The manufacturer Jikong, make the comment in one of their manuals on communications, that the app will not "read the users gps data"

Make of that what you will.

Does your phone not have GPS?

 

[Ray Clout]

Does your phone not have GPS?

It does and its turned on......makes no difference.
Tha manual states only that the Android OS must be greater than 12...mine is 13

 

[Ray Clout]

It does and its turned on......makes no difference.
Tha manual states only that the Android OS must be greater than 12...mine is 13

I saw one member....on here.....complaining about buying the JK BMS and the app wouldnt instal.....blamed the seller for not telling him of the problem and wanted a refund

 

[740GLE]

Others have tried older versions of the software and had to go back quite a while to find one that worked for them.

 

[timselectric]

Definitely strange. I don't know what the answer would be. Maybe make sure that the app has permissions to access the GPS.

 

[rhino]

I believe @Steve_S had the same shenanigans with the "JK BMS" Android app. I'm not sure what he finally ended up doing. I've been using iOS version and haven't run into these version issues.

 

[Ray Clout]

Others have tried older versions of the software and had to go back quite a while to find one that worked for them.

I found the 3.7.4 version worked, but anything newer than that....no go
One of the admin guys gave me the link to many older versions to try
There is also a few github guys trying to work out a fix.

 

[timselectric]

Glad that you found a solution.
Hopefully this will help others that may run into this problem.

 

[Ray Clout]

Glad that you found a solution.
Hopefully this will help others that may run into this problem.

I just confirmed in one of the makers document that there is communication between the bms and gps, so maybe my phone doesnt allow access to raw gps data. Thats the only thing I can think of.
The problem of having a very old app version is missing out on some features

 

[E. Cho]

I've been using Android 10 with a low to mid level Motorola smartphone and which is several years old. I've used the JK App for the last 8 months with the JK_B2A24S20P BMS, with zero issues since activating the BMS and installing whatever that initial version of the app was. The app has been updated several times through the Google App Store and I've never had an issue.

I recently updated the app to v4.16.3, despite probably not needing to, as I don't use the device that was included in the new update. Again no problems. If anything, the app seems to find my BMS faster during scanning and the BT range is maybe a bit better or still very good. I imagine the BT range is influenced by where one installs the BMS in or on their DIY Pack. Again, I'm using Android 10 OS and the OS will not be updated to anything newer by Motorola or Google. The App just works. I have saved a copy of each app version as I install them, in case of a future update not working but so far have never needed the backups.

When looking for the JK BMS app initially, I found that there were several sources. In the end, I think that I installed the app based on the JK QR Code, which took me to the Google App Store, vs. using the other sources which I had downloaded but not installed.

Yes the manual can be a bit confusing or overwhelming or both but I slowly muddled through it, along with search info here and YouTube and some of my wiring questions were not rushed into, until I understood the system and energy path vs just following the JK translation. Doesn't seem like JK or other Mfgs want to or need to make more translation effort, though that isn't an excuse. There are many products and websites out there that have very poor translations. Maybe it will get better with Chat GPT but I won't be surprised if it doesn't.