What am i missing here

[pabear89]

System, EG4 6000ex 48v
battery bank of 6 Eg4 lp48v batteries.

System works well with pv charger when the is sun and inverter supplys the breaker box with 120v.
Problem came up when generator was connected to inverter ac input side.
It did not like my dirty power and would not charger batteries.

Installed new EG4 5000w charger, Turned everything off to install cables.
Have cables from inverter and charger at opposite ends on buss bar in cabinet, ie pos on top neg on bottom for inverter and pos on bottom and neg on top for charger.

Inverter off, pv panels disconnected, Battery bank has 3 battery's with 2 green and 3 with 3 green status lights lit.
Turn on gen and preset charger to Will's settings for Eg4 48v all good charger goes into charging mode light flashing info panels shows charging.
watching it and all seems good, Till the batteries start dropping green lights not adding like they are charging.
What the **** 2 minutes later and more status lamps go out.

Panic mode.... Turn off charger and they seem to be stable but lower than starting point.
Wait 5 minutes and turn on pv connect, inverter connects and batteries start charging like normal.

Am at the point where I am pulling what little hair I have out.
First charger I ordered would not work at all and it was returned to sender.
Now this one shows its charging but the status lights on the batteries are going backwards.

Have been running a cheap 12v system for 2 years without a problem.
Any ideas on what I missed?

 

[Jmhai3]

When you say dirty power gen set you mean construct type or is it a Pure Sine Wave Gen set?

The unit (Chargeverter) you are using does say it supports what you are doing so I would look back over your connection of the wires and see if something got bumped or loosen up doing the installation.

If doable I would start over. Hook everything back up like it was before the issue started and check that everything is functioning as it was and then reconnect the unit to see if it repeats the issue.
Verify that it is a Chargeverter problem (or a combination of the system and Chargeverter together) and not something with the system itself.

You answered some of what I questioned here from the other post.

One thing I would ask is did you try charging the batteries (or just one) with the unit alone not hooked to the system at all. Maybe something is not playing nice with the EG4 6000 system settings (may need to be changed) and the Chargeverter?

Have cables from inverter and charger at opposite ends on buss bar in cabinet, i.e. pos on top neg on bottom for inverter and pos on bottom and neg on top for charger.
Not sure I understand this layout?
l must watch the video on this unit Will posted.

 

[pabear89]

inverter was off, pv disconnected when charger was running.
end swap is supposed to balance load draw and charge.
Batteries connected to buss bar in bank box.
Construction generator.

 

[Jmhai3]

I am not a professional so giving my personal advice on how I would diagnose the issue.

I would remove the inverter completely (wires disconnected) from the equation to test the charger only.
Just because the switch is off on the inverter does not mean it may not be influencing the charger or functional operation.
Connect one battery and the charger see if it works first with the simplest setup possible than work my way back to full system install.

• One battery only (does it work correctly?) works correctly. If not bad unit or settings.
• All or multiple batteries only (test) work correctly. Same
• connect inverter. works correctly???
• See when the issue presents itself.

 

[pabear89]

I see your point, but this charger is a stand alone unit. its supposed to replace the inverters charge side from ac input. (nothing hooked up on the inverters ac input side) What I do not understand is why the battery would be dropping charge status when it should be charging.
Have the system on pv and inverter off and it is charging batt bank like normal slow because of lack of sun but working.

 

[Hedges]

Maybe settings in ChargeVerter are incompatible with lithium BMS.

Can you connect 4x 12V automotive batteries in series for 48V? e.g. park four cars side by side and connect in series with jumper cables.
See if Chargeverter charges simple dumb lead-acid battery.

Any messages from BMS of Eg4 lp48v?

Check settings of voltage and current. Try turning ChargeVerter down to lower current and voltage.

Have you monitored battery voltage with a meter? Generator voltage? Not necessarily fast enough to see momentary spike, but at least nominal/average reading.

 

[pabear89]

Have watched a lot of videos and not seen this happen in any of them.
The inverter was off so it was not displaying anything.
Charger voltage set at 54.2 , raised from 48 in small amounts till charger cycled on.
Charge amps set at 35.

Was pondering that same thing, I have 4 12v batteries that need charging so that may be a testing point tomorrow.

Panic point was watching the battery rack dropping charge status lamps so quickly like the charger was drawing all the power out of them, but the display was showing the charge amps slowly dropping from the 35 start down to 27 in 2 minutes.

First checked the the gen voltage and it was a steady 122v supply and could hear the engine strain lighten as charge amp dropped.

didn't check the battery level

 

[pabear89]

sent email to solarsovereign this morning, will see what they suggest.
Did find it interesting that the ad for this charger shows exactly how i have it set up.
My gen set is bigger but the battery cabinet set up is a total match to what i have.

 

[pabear89]

So have not gotten a response from anyone about this problem yet. (contacted 3 companys)
I was going to run a test like Hedges suggested but it is raining and no way am i going to
hook it up inside just incase it decides to blow up the lead battery's.

Half tempted to pull the covers off and look inside for answers but do not want to void warranty to peek.
So twiddling my thumbs waiting for information.

 

[pabear89]

So not hearing from any support services and a lot of searching, went out to retest this charger.
First photo shows status of bank charge from yesterday's pv input. Inverter is off.
Next photo shows charger setting before switching its breaker on, went into charge mode and then in 30 seconds later is the
photo of the status lamps on the bank have dropped.

Soon as it is possible to get a 4 lead batteries in series connected to try and see what it does.
till then just lost on why it does this to my rack.

 

[pabear89]

Well I hooked up the 4 12v batteries and voltmeter showed 48v.
Hooked the charger up and settings were 56.0 v and started with 40a.
turned it on and it started to charge, voltmeter showed 55v.
Bumped it to 60a and still remained the same but display showing a drop in charge amps outgoing,
pushed it to 90 amps with same results.
Shut charger off and voltmeter shows 52v on battery set up, So I have to assume the charger is working.
Total test time was approximately 10 minutes.

Now What? any thoughts..... open on how to fixing this.

 

[Hedges]

That showed charger works with a dumb battery.
If it behaves differently with lithium battery, the suspicion is BMS disconnects.

Over-voltage? Cell imbalance? Excessive inrush current to capacitors in charger?

Are you able to read BMS, see if it shows error messages, also cell voltages?
Connect just one to the charger and test it alone?

Some people talk of lithium in parallel with lead-acid. Assuming voltage settings aren't incompatible, you could try that.
Lead-acid battery has precharged any capacitors that may be in charger. It would smooth out some things.

 

[pabear89]

not sure but trying to show what is happening, maybe it is supposed to work this way?

 

[Cronix]

Charger voltage set at 54.2

Manual for your battery suggests 56.2V

 

[pabear89]

did a readjustment to 56.2 and retesting still dropping status lamps, tried posting video but no luck.

Have watched so many videos of this charger installation and none of them show the status lamps flashing and going backward.
When I have just the pv connection the flashing charge lamp hopscotch thru the bank and the status lamps are solid on and only move up as each battery charges up.

When I turn on the charger unit the charge lamps go to all solidly on but the status lights start flashing and move downward.

Anyone using this charger with the eg4 lp battery bank can tell me how it is working for them?

 

[pabear89]

And the saga continues, Have been using the system for a few days with sun charging the bank.
Went out to the shed this morning and looked, battery status lamps were at 2 with a few flashing back and forth from one to two.
So I thought why not give this thing one more attempt and see, Only thing different this time was the inverter was ON.
Fired up the generator let it warm up, tossed on the breaker and went inside.

Charger shows power, settings are same 56.2 volt and 35 amp.
Fingers crossed reached up and flip on the chargers breaker, It cycles on and within 10 seconds all the battery alarms were
sounding the status lamps had gone down to one, red alarm lamps flashing but the charge lamps were all solid green.

Flipped off the charger but bank was still in shock with all having red fault lamps flashing and the pv side trying to charge (I think) because the green charge lamps were hopscotching up and down the bank.

Have contacted eg4 but seems like they may be stumped also.
Pv side has been working great when I have sunlight even with hazy clouds it does try its best to recharge the bank.

Hoping to get this thing worked out before too much longer, I know there are some really more expertise people here that may have some ideas. I have too much $ invested here for it to only halfway work.

Thanks for reading my novel.

 

[pabear89]

Well after further research on this, I did test the charger on one battery.
Isolated from the rack and charger hooked directly up to it only.
Settings still at 56.2 and 30a switched on the breaker and sat and watched it.
Status level was at 2 lamps lit, went right away down to one and I sat waiting for the alarm and red flashing to begin.
But suddenly it changed and went to the second lamp flashing and taking the charge, 20 minutes later it turned the second lamp solidly on and moved to 3rd lamp flashing. So proving it does work.

Now going thru entire check over from everything start to finish like a total new install making sure all I's are dotted and T's cross, each and every connection torked, cables in correct order and tight system restarted and running.
Fingers crossed and generator warm and running, I threw the chargers breaker on and sat down.

Well the status lamps fell across the bank and all headed to lamp one lit, My heart fell waiting for that first one to go flat.
But they all finally went to the first status lamps solidly lit and stopped dropping after almost 30 minutes.
Then the shocker..... the second status lamps start flashing showing they are taking the charge.

So with coffee in hand I sat and watched the flashing lamps of the rack, Yeah like watching paint dry slowly but still concerned with is this really going to work.
Generators run time now approaching 1.5 hours and then some of the status lamps went solid 2nd lit, and 3rd flashing.
So I let it continue and it seems to be all good now.

So What am I missing? Seems the batteries are smarter than me, Having to assume that the bms system took over and brought them to a balance point before going into charge mode on the entire bank.
Small piece of information that would have been nice to have added to the instruction manual which is lacking at best.

The end of this novel....... I hope.

 

[400bird]

OMG, you are killing me. It's minor but those aren't "status" LED they are SOC (state of charge)
I don't know why, but reading through this it was like fingernails on a chalkboard.

I'm glad you got it figured out!

 

[pabear89]

I understand , But is not the state of charge the status of the battery?
At 70 , we sometimes use logical terms for things.
Its tuff enough to keep up-to-date pondering if it may be our last day tomorrow.

 

[corporal_Canada]

Voila