Something I forgot to mention near the end. Standard procedure is to fuse every set of end runs with a ~120A fuse. If you get your math wrong like I illustrated around 9:54 but took the time to fuse everything, all that will happen is a blown fuse rather than melting insulators. Stay safe out there!
We are lucky in that the Pylontech US5000-B model (specced and supplied just for the Australia standard) has the addition of a factory installed 125A circuit breaker on the front panel. Just wire straight to the inverter.
Great video! I just have a question regarding connecting the end runs to the inverter through a Victron Lynx Distributor. Would I put both end runs on the end of the distributor at the same point(where the red and black covers are) or would I run them separately with fuses for each? I'm using Pylontech US5000B that have breakers.
Hey there. The Lynx Distributor is really designed around the MegaFuses. Since you already have breakers on the US5000B, I would recommend you check out the Lynx Power In, which gives the same clean install without the fusing requirements.
This video covers a valid point. It's all about redundancy, especially in harsher climates. I can understand in extreme cold climates it's not always possible to climate control the battery room leading to reduced capacity and even a battery shutting down due too cold to charge a possibility Here in most of Australia due the hot summer weather 3 months of the year we always DERATE everything to 70% MAXIMUM CONTINUOUS current. That is BOTH with the batteries and inverter being usually in an air conditioned room set to a max of 27 degrees C when it can be 45 outside for the hottest hours of the day. When it's hot we have so much sun and long days so climate control of the battery room is so easy to do as we have surplus solar power. We always look at the best outcome for longevity of life for the hardware and reliability of day to day use as a worst case weather situation. Interestingly my Pylontech US5000-B battery label states 50 amps is the preferred CONTINUOUS CURRENT per battery and 100 amps Max , so my spec across 3 batteries is 150 amps x 48volts = 7.2Kw @ 240 volts is it's comfort zone. There is also up to 200 amps PEAK rating per battery for "seconds" on top of that and the inverter can do 22Kw peak to cope with induction motor starts such as air compressors, water pumps or large power tools and even welders My 3 x US5000-B batteries run 2 sets of end run cables giving 240 amps (cable amps continuous) that feed an 11kw inverter that is feeding a home demand load max CONTINUOUS LOAD of 7.2Kw (approx 70% max load) or what we call a (very common) 240 volts 32 amp circuit. This is fine for a small 120 sqm home. You will need double that for a large 240sqm plus family home with air conditioning by far the biggest current draw with cooking after that. Heat pumps are used for hot water and excel in hot climates using only 1-3 kwh per day so are not big power users. So even if 1 battery were to drop out of the 3 it would not be noticed in the home as 2 batteries can easily supply 75 amps each. Not ideal for longevity but any battery issue would likely be fixed in days or weeks and not months or years
Thanks so much for sharing this Philip. This is exactly the kind of system design philosophy that we are trying to share over here in the States. I can't think of any other critical home system that gets day-to-day use that gets constantly run on the bleeding edge of maximum performance, some level of redundancy is always key. It sounds like you have some great systems!
This was instructive! I am thinking of building a 3 phase 15kw system, with 3 Victron Multiplus inverters and a bank of 4 batteries in parallel. If I run 2 sets of end-runs that would mean a maximum of 240 amps and in the end would result a 60 A curent drawn from each battery. How should I do the math in order to have the system balanced over 3 inverters? Would it make sense to add more batteries?
For balancing the DC loads between inverters, you will want to have a master DC bus that can act as a central point for all the DC components to connect to. The Victron Lynx system is really great for this and is what I would generally recommend to make fusing easy. Think main bus-bar vs running the batteries directly to the inverters DC terminals. Aside from that, having a cable kit for every 2 or 3 batteries is a good rule of thumb. Regarding battery capacity, if you use a main DC bus then balancing DC loads won't be an issue regardless of battery capacity. The thing to think about here is how long do you expect the system to run on just battery power? If you are pulling 240A from 4 batteries, that realistically gives you less than 2 hours of run time. Given the details of your circumstance, that might be totally fine. If that's not enough, you will need more batteries.
Great videos about PylontTech. Just one consideration for the feature of the BMS managing power distribution across different cable lengths - if the discipline of cabling is maintained where the installer does keep lengths the same, any BMS failure could be mitigated by the fallback physical implementation. Does this sound reasonable or does the BMS not really fail in this way (or are there safeguards in place)?
Hi Nick. The TLDR is that the BMS does the majority of balancing by just getting out of the way of physics so there is no wear and tear occurring. If the BMS board fails, you can't charge/discharge the battery anyway due to the now-deactivated MOSFETs, so there's no real advantage in planning a system to be redundant in that way. In a low-voltage parallel system, the natural balancing flow of current between batteries with a voltage (state of charge) imbalance will be more than enough to make up for any reasonable imbalance that comes from wire resistance IF the BMS allows it to happen. Most BMS boards are mated to cells that they are not truly calibrated for and make up for this with stricter safety protocols. This is why most batteries will throw an error code and isolate when this type of balancing is detected, hence the necessity to ensure that such imbalances never happen in the first place by being super consistent with wiring, aka that physical implementation you identified. The genius of the Pylontech BMS is that it is mated to and calibrated for their own in-house, self-manufactured cells, which allows them more room for these natural balancing flows to occur without creating a safety issue. If something were to go wrong, or for more aggressive active balancing, they also have the ability to close off the MOSFETs and isolate a single unit from the charge or discharge state of the battery bank until the other units come into enough parity for passive balancing to commence. By combining the ability to allow passive balancing to naturally occur, supplemented by active isolation-based balancing, we get some freedom from the normal constraints associated with most LFP batteries such as needing to match wire lengths or cycle counts/ages for the batteries in a bank.
Hi. My Pylontech manual clearly shows the red and black shorties connecting left to right terminals. Eg, top battery (master) black and red shorties connected to RHS black/red terminals and then connect down to the LHS black / red terminals. So they all zig-zag rather than in stright vertical lines. I hope this makes sense. So why have you connected them differently?
Hello, thanks for the question and good eye. When you open the battery up, the terminals are all connected to the same respective bus bar, black terminals to the negative bus and orange to the positive. As such it doesn't matter if you zig-zag or go straight down.
Hi there, good Q. I'm not 100%. The cables we sell come from Pylontech (called Amphenol Radsock connectors). I don't know that we've sourced them elsewhere because there are a lot of different sizes to choose from and we didn't want to wonder and worry about it. The main issue/concern, of course, is to ensure a good connection. I know we've tried a few look-alikes that we returned because we weren't happy with the connection. These snap in really tight. icmontana.com/products/us5000-cable-kits.
Mike, hi! Is there a video of how to properly setup us5000 pylontech with victron inverter for dummies? We have some crazy blackouts in Ukraine, I bought one us5000 and MultiPlus-II inverter, but have no experience of connecting and configuring these parts together. It's hard to find a decent electrician that wont burn your house down, so I'd like to do it myself : )
Hey there, we will make a video on this topic. For now, check out the guide I wrote up and feel free to email me with any questions (mike@icmontana.com) icmontana.com/blogs/technical-articles/pylontech-us5000-quick-start-guide
What would the pros/cons be of connecting all the batteries as 1 single stack and then either having a single end run for the stack or 2 end runs for the stack?
Hey Miner, it all depends on what your max loads are. If your inverter is incapable of pulling more than say 80A and your charger caps out at 50A, then there would be no pros to introducing a second end run and just the cons of added cost. If your loads are enough to pull or push more than 120A that's when you start adding additional end runs. The BMS actively manages the loads on the individual batteries so there is minimal/irrelevant gain in power distribution by introducing more end runs.
Hey James, sorry I wasn't super clear on that point. The battery cables do not have any communication protocol in them. In a closed-loop system with Victron equipment, the batteries communicate, via CAN-bus, how many of them are connected and how much current they can handle. If one goes offline, the overall charge/discharge current is decreased to compensate for the reduced capacity. In a system where you have limited capacity for current due to your wiring, such as 2 batteries with 1 end run, the upper limit imposed by the cabling should be hard-coded into the Victron system. This way, the inverter will always default to the lower of the two values given by the batteries via DVCC and the hard-coded limit set by the installer. In our next video, we'll go over those settings.
Thanks for the clear explanation. If I add a new pylontech battery to my existing stack, do I need to let them balance amongst each other first, before connecting them to the inverters? Or will that sort itself out over time?
Thanks for the question! With Pylontech batteries, all you need to do is get the battery connected and in communication, then the BMS will take over to ensure that the new battery comes into balance with its partners. To my knowledge, no other battery readily available in the US has this functionality. Every other battery I have worked with needs to be manually balanced before connection, if you are even able to add a new battery at all. Hats off to Pylontech’s BMS for this.
Hi Mike, thank you for this video. I have just tried to add a US200C as master to my stack of three US2000 batteries but the the MegaRevo 8K inverter presents a 27 BMS Communications error. All batteries have Dip switch 1 set to 0 so the communications rate is the same at 115k. I am suspecting that my old BMS cable to the Inverter that worked with the three US2000 batteries in not wired properly for the newer US200C battery. Am I correct?
Hello David. You are correct that the BMS cable for the US2000C is different from what you are currently using. In terms of the BMS cables available from Victron, the US2000 uses a BMS Type B cable while the US2000C uses a BMS type A cable. Functionally, the difference is that the ground wire on the battery side is on pin 2 for the US2000 and is on pin 6 for the US2000C. Please check my response to the email you sent me for a visual diagram.
@@intelligentcontrols Hi Mike, thank you so much responding with such a helpful answer. I responded to you by email but am also responding here as it may be helpful to someone. I was able to successfully build a new cable and it is working flawlessly. All I needed was pins 4/5. Thank you again so much.
Would love to see some more informateion on victrons class-t power in as this seems to now be more appropriate for LifePo4 batteries and the high Aic that mega fuses might not be able to handle.
Hi @_Miner, great question. We wanted to write a more comprehensive reply so here's more on the new T-class distributor and a bit about what it means for lithium banks. icmontana.com/blogs/technical-articles/what-to-know-about-victron-s-class-t-fuse-distributor
We have 3 Pylontec us2000 & 2 us2000c as a stack of 5. Been working well for several years. But now the Sofar ME 3000SP inverter is showing a fault and has let the batteries go flat? They have in turn shut down, Sofar have said I need to recharge them for them to start? How do I go about this?
@intelligent Controls very interesting video.. thx! one question though.. I have 6 batteries (US5000) and 4 sets of end runs in a 3 phase system with 3 Multiplus II 5000. do I need extra sets of end runs to connect 6 more batteries? I don't want extra power, just more storage. The power is limited by the Multiplus imho. I will not be using more amps with 12 instead of 6 batteries, right?
Hi Nick, since the bottleneck in this system is the MultiPlus, there is no need to increase the cable runs with a storage upgrade. Ultimately, the batteries will do less work, and the cabling and inverter will work the same.
Hey, no problem at all. The primary advantage comes down to speed. A fuse will blow in about 2 milliseconds, while an MCB takes 20 ms. Additionally, while an MCB might seem to have an advantage with its reusability, if a fuse in one of these systems blows it's generally because there has been some catastrophic failure and having someone reset an MCB without addressing the issue could be dangerous.
So the end runs are rated at 120A and they go from the battery to a busbar. Well if there's 3 sets of end runs going to the busbar.... what size cable do you need to go from the busbar to the inverter? Still 120A or 360A?
Hi David, thanks for the question. The cable running from busbar to inverter should be rated for at least as much as the combined value of end runs. So in your example, 360A.
@@intelligentcontrols I thought so, thanks for clearing that up. Are you sure the pylontech cables are rated at 120A? I can't find that anywhere on Pylontechs website. Or is that the industry standard for 25mm cable?
@@intelligentcontrols thanks again for the info. Can you please clear a couple of things up for me? Is the 120A at continuous running? Also the manual for my us5000's states a recommended discharge current of 80A and peak of 100A but the sticker on the side of the battery states nominal 50A and maximum 100A. I have 2 us5000 batteries. Should I set my inverter to discharge at a maximum of 100A or 160A (well 120A until I upgrade my cables)? Many thanks
@@sukmy1i sorry for the delayed reply.. The cables are rated for 120A continuous and the batteries can handle 100A. The thing is, if you are running at the absolute maximum to meet your loads, then that is really just a signal to size up your system. Your car can likely go 120mph, but if you drove it around all day at that speed then your service life is going way down. If your loads are not a deciding factor and can be whatever you allow them to be, then I would take the number of batteries you have and multiply them by 50A. Then size your number of cables so that a single pair of end runs never has more than 100A going through it. That will give you a nice middle ground for your max discharge current that won't overtax your system. If your needs are more than that, you can make it work up but I would start looking to add more capacity.
Sorry, I don't understand why if I have 5 batteries I only have 3X120A, and if I have two batteries I have 240A. Why I can't divide 5X120A by five in this array of five batteries? Can you explain that again? Thanks.
Hey Bryan, Sorry for the confusion, all of this is dependent on how many end runs you are using. Each one of those sets of wire is rated to handle 120A, even if the batteries can provide more than that, you still can't pull more current from a battery bank than the end runs can handle. So, if you have 5 Pylontech batteries and 3 sets of end runs, you are limited by the 3x120A capabilities of the end runs. If, for some reason, you expected to pull more current, which is highly unlikely in the real world, you could add 2 more end runs and access the full 5x120A current capabilities of the batteries.
I personally don't think the cables are heavy enough,if you have three 5 kw inverters you could make those cables act as heating elements, do they not make heavy cables??
@@jillyanddavedave280 If you have 5x 5kva inverters in a 3-phase setup, that's 15kva or less of continuous output power. The batteries are ~52v which is only ~290A. In this case, the proper battery size would be at least 3 to 4 US5000s. Each end run would be capable of 100A, but I would recommend that every 2 batteries get an end run to the distributor. For 12 batteries with a cable set for every 2 battery combination, that would result in a current capability of 600A continuous. They are small wires, but their current capability adds up. The other option that you and most are familiar with is to just have a larger interconnect, say a couple of 4/0, but then it's very oversized for smaller systems and still undersized for large systems. Remember that 12 batteries in Pylontech's world is still a small system when the LV combiner hub allows us to go up to 96. Small systems with a couple of US5000s with a 3k inverter will make most small cabins work wonderfully.
Problem with this BMS is, that is not capable to handle 30 - 50 AMPS balance current, if I have MPPT / chrager, that is not able to communicate. Also there is problem, if I connect 20 % and 85 % SOC batteries in parall. With 50 A balance current, you have job done after few hours, with small balance current you have to wait till summer.,
Hi @PavolFilek The nice thing about the Pylontechs is that the BMS will allow the natural physics of the parallel connection to not only siphon a small balancing current but also actively balance in a far more proactive manner using charge and discharge loads. I have spreadsheets of data showing your exact scenario with 20% and 85% SOC batteries coming back into balance within
So you're saying that it is better to pay 2000 euros instead of 50 euros on cables? The way I see it is if you run every battery to a lynx distributor you can achieve with just 3 batteries what you claim you can with 5. Each cable can handle 120amps and each battery can deliver it just as long as they are not connected to each other. In your example the batteries can deliver up to 600amps if each connected to a lynx distributor or a power in with a fruction of the cost of adding a sixth battery. Why don't you propose that?
Hello Chris. This is a question of system sizing. There are 2 factors to be considered when sizing a battery bank. The first is the total power reserve or energy storage, and the second is the ability to deliver that power in the form of current. The number of batteries is the limiting factor for both energy storage and current delivery, and the cabling is the other limiting factor for current delivery. There are very few practical situations where current delivery needs to be equivalent at a 1C rate to energy storage. The current capabilities of the wire runs do not need to match the current capabilities of the batteries, if the energy storage capacity of the batteries is greater than what the system is designed to draw in 1 hour of continuous use. This is where you can experience savings with Pylontech’s cabling system. So yes, if you want 3 batteries with 14.4KW of power reserve hooked up to a system that will draw that down in 1 hour by pulling 300A or 14,400W/Hr of continuous current, then you buy 3 batteries and 3 end runs and go to town. In the more likely scenario where we have 3 batteries and the system is designed to pull a max current of 50A giving you 6 hours of power reserve, you just saved $100 because you only need to purchase 1 end run. So the rule of thumb is to size your batteries to your energy storage needs, and size your cables to your power delivery needs. If that is a 1 to 1 ratio, so be it. If not, that's a win for Pylontech’s cabling system.
Thank you for the reply. Indeed you size the batteries based on the energy reserve and delivery you want. But in your example having e.g. 5 batteries I think is not optimum to connect them the way you display since by connecting them to a bus bar, you maintain energy capacity but you increase greatly energy the delivery potential from 360 to 600 while still evenly distributing the power demand. Anyway that's my 2pennys worth
@@christsitouridis2213 Not a problem, thanks for the question. By the standards of most batteries, you would be absolutely correct. The cool thing about the Pylontech BMS is that it can use the MOSFETs to regulate power distribution so we don't have to worry about getting our wiring perfectly symmetrical for the sake of even draws. You certainly could wire it differently though, if your system was designed to pull 24kw of power in 50 minutes.
Depends on what you mean by selling. Most batteries use CAN bus, which is a pretty standard protocol. The extra comms cables in Pylontech’s cable kit are just tossed in for free as a useful addition to the end runs. The Victron BMS cable is something you could do the research on and then pin out and solder yourself from an appropriate network cable if you wanted. Most people would rather just spend $14 for the convenience. Your mileage may vary.
Something I forgot to mention near the end. Standard procedure is to fuse every set of end runs with a ~120A fuse. If you get your math wrong like I illustrated around 9:54 but took the time to fuse everything, all that will happen is a blown fuse rather than melting insulators. Stay safe out there!
I can only find megafuses available of 100A or 125A. What should i choose?
@@ronaldod7116 125A megafuses are the way to go.
We are lucky in that the Pylontech US5000-B model (specced and supplied just for the Australia standard) has the addition of a factory installed 125A circuit breaker on the front panel.
Just wire straight to the inverter.
Great video! I just have a question regarding connecting the end runs to the inverter through a Victron Lynx Distributor. Would I put both end runs on the end of the distributor at the same point(where the red and black covers are) or would I run them separately with fuses for each? I'm using Pylontech US5000B that have breakers.
Hey there. The Lynx Distributor is really designed around the MegaFuses. Since you already have breakers on the US5000B, I would recommend you check out the Lynx Power In, which gives the same clean install without the fusing requirements.
This video covers a valid point. It's all about redundancy, especially in harsher climates. I can understand in extreme cold climates it's not always possible to climate control the battery room leading to reduced capacity and even a battery shutting down due too cold to charge a possibility
Here in most of Australia due the hot summer weather 3 months of the year we always DERATE everything to 70% MAXIMUM CONTINUOUS current. That is BOTH with the batteries and inverter being usually in an air conditioned room set to a max of 27 degrees C when it can be 45 outside for the hottest hours of the day. When it's hot we have so much sun and long days so climate control of the battery room is so easy to do as we have surplus solar power. We always look at the best outcome for longevity of life for the hardware and reliability of day to day use as a worst case weather situation.
Interestingly my Pylontech US5000-B battery label states 50 amps is the preferred CONTINUOUS CURRENT per battery and 100 amps Max , so my spec across 3 batteries is 150 amps x 48volts = 7.2Kw @ 240 volts is it's comfort zone. There is also up to 200 amps PEAK rating per battery for "seconds" on top of that and the inverter can do 22Kw peak to cope with induction motor starts such as air compressors, water pumps or large power tools and even welders
My 3 x US5000-B batteries run 2 sets of end run cables giving 240 amps (cable amps continuous) that feed an 11kw inverter that is feeding a home demand load max CONTINUOUS LOAD of 7.2Kw (approx 70% max load) or what we call a (very common) 240 volts 32 amp circuit. This is fine for a small 120 sqm home. You will need double that for a large 240sqm plus family home with air conditioning by far the biggest current draw with cooking after that. Heat pumps are used for hot water and excel in hot climates using only 1-3 kwh per day so are not big power users.
So even if 1 battery were to drop out of the 3 it would not be noticed in the home as 2 batteries can easily supply 75 amps each. Not ideal for longevity but any battery issue would likely be fixed in days or weeks and not months or years
Thanks so much for sharing this Philip. This is exactly the kind of system design philosophy that we are trying to share over here in the States. I can't think of any other critical home system that gets day-to-day use that gets constantly run on the bleeding edge of maximum performance, some level of redundancy is always key. It sounds like you have some great systems!
This was instructive! I am thinking of building a 3 phase 15kw system, with 3 Victron Multiplus inverters and a bank of 4 batteries in parallel. If I run 2 sets of end-runs that would mean a maximum of 240 amps and in the end would result a 60 A curent drawn from each battery. How should I do the math in order to have the system balanced over 3 inverters? Would it make sense to add more batteries?
For balancing the DC loads between inverters, you will want to have a master DC bus that can act as a central point for all the DC components to connect to. The Victron Lynx system is really great for this and is what I would generally recommend to make fusing easy. Think main bus-bar vs running the batteries directly to the inverters DC terminals. Aside from that, having a cable kit for every 2 or 3 batteries is a good rule of thumb. Regarding battery capacity, if you use a main DC bus then balancing DC loads won't be an issue regardless of battery capacity. The thing to think about here is how long do you expect the system to run on just battery power? If you are pulling 240A from 4 batteries, that realistically gives you less than 2 hours of run time. Given the details of your circumstance, that might be totally fine. If that's not enough, you will need more batteries.
Great videos about PylontTech. Just one consideration for the feature of the BMS managing power distribution across different cable lengths - if the discipline of cabling is maintained where the installer does keep lengths the same, any BMS failure could be mitigated by the fallback physical implementation. Does this sound reasonable or does the BMS not really fail in this way (or are there safeguards in place)?
Hi Nick. The TLDR is that the BMS does the majority of balancing by just getting out of the way of physics so there is no wear and tear occurring. If the BMS board fails, you can't charge/discharge the battery anyway due to the now-deactivated MOSFETs, so there's no real advantage in planning a system to be redundant in that way.
In a low-voltage parallel system, the natural balancing flow of current between batteries with a voltage (state of charge) imbalance will be more than enough to make up for any reasonable imbalance that comes from wire resistance IF the BMS allows it to happen. Most BMS boards are mated to cells that they are not truly calibrated for and make up for this with stricter safety protocols. This is why most batteries will throw an error code and isolate when this type of balancing is detected, hence the necessity to ensure that such imbalances never happen in the first place by being super consistent with wiring, aka that physical implementation you identified. The genius of the Pylontech BMS is that it is mated to and calibrated for their own in-house, self-manufactured cells, which allows them more room for these natural balancing flows to occur without creating a safety issue. If something were to go wrong, or for more aggressive active balancing, they also have the ability to close off the MOSFETs and isolate a single unit from the charge or discharge state of the battery bank until the other units come into enough parity for passive balancing to commence. By combining the ability to allow passive balancing to naturally occur, supplemented by active isolation-based balancing, we get some freedom from the normal constraints associated with most LFP batteries such as needing to match wire lengths or cycle counts/ages for the batteries in a bank.
Hi. My Pylontech manual clearly shows the red and black shorties connecting left to right terminals. Eg, top battery (master) black and red shorties connected to RHS black/red terminals and then connect down to the LHS black / red terminals. So they all zig-zag rather than in stright vertical lines. I hope this makes sense. So why have you connected them differently?
Hello, thanks for the question and good eye. When you open the battery up, the terminals are all connected to the same respective bus bar, black terminals to the negative bus and orange to the positive. As such it doesn't matter if you zig-zag or go straight down.
Can you tell me the size of the radlok? If i wanted to make my own cables.
Thanks
Hi there, good Q. I'm not 100%. The cables we sell come from Pylontech (called Amphenol Radsock connectors). I don't know that we've sourced them elsewhere because there are a lot of different sizes to choose from and we didn't want to wonder and worry about it. The main issue/concern, of course, is to ensure a good connection. I know we've tried a few look-alikes that we returned because we weren't happy with the connection. These snap in really tight. icmontana.com/products/us5000-cable-kits.
Mike, hi! Is there a video of how to properly setup us5000 pylontech with victron inverter for dummies? We have some crazy blackouts in Ukraine, I bought one us5000 and MultiPlus-II inverter, but have no experience of connecting and configuring these parts together. It's hard to find a decent electrician that wont burn your house down, so I'd like to do it myself : )
Hey there, we will make a video on this topic. For now, check out the guide I wrote up and feel free to email me with any questions (mike@icmontana.com) icmontana.com/blogs/technical-articles/pylontech-us5000-quick-start-guide
What would the pros/cons be of connecting all the batteries as 1 single stack and then either having a single end run for the stack or 2 end runs for the stack?
Hey Miner, it all depends on what your max loads are. If your inverter is incapable of pulling more than say 80A and your charger caps out at 50A, then there would be no pros to introducing a second end run and just the cons of added cost. If your loads are enough to pull or push more than 120A that's when you start adding additional end runs. The BMS actively manages the loads on the individual batteries so there is minimal/irrelevant gain in power distribution by introducing more end runs.
Do the "shorty" connectors have some kind of communication you did not mention?
How do the batteries know how the 120A cables are connected?
Hey James, sorry I wasn't super clear on that point. The battery cables do not have any communication protocol in them. In a closed-loop system with Victron equipment, the batteries communicate, via CAN-bus, how many of them are connected and how much current they can handle. If one goes offline, the overall charge/discharge current is decreased to compensate for the reduced capacity. In a system where you have limited capacity for current due to your wiring, such as 2 batteries with 1 end run, the upper limit imposed by the cabling should be hard-coded into the Victron system. This way, the inverter will always default to the lower of the two values given by the batteries via DVCC and the hard-coded limit set by the installer. In our next video, we'll go over those settings.
Thanks for the clear explanation. If I add a new pylontech battery to my existing stack, do I need to let them balance amongst each other first, before connecting them to the inverters? Or will that sort itself out over time?
Thanks for the question! With Pylontech batteries, all you need to do is get the battery connected and in communication, then the BMS will take over to ensure that the new battery comes into balance with its partners. To my knowledge, no other battery readily available in the US has this functionality. Every other battery I have worked with needs to be manually balanced before connection, if you are even able to add a new battery at all. Hats off to Pylontech’s BMS for this.
Hi Mike, thank you for this video. I have just tried to add a US200C as master to my stack of three US2000 batteries but the the MegaRevo 8K inverter presents a 27 BMS Communications error. All batteries have Dip switch 1 set to 0 so the communications rate is the same at 115k. I am suspecting that my old BMS cable to the Inverter that worked with the three US2000 batteries in not wired properly for the newer US200C battery. Am I correct?
Hello David. You are correct that the BMS cable for the US2000C is different from what you are currently using. In terms of the BMS cables available from Victron, the US2000 uses a BMS Type B cable while the US2000C uses a BMS type A cable. Functionally, the difference is that the ground wire on the battery side is on pin 2 for the US2000 and is on pin 6 for the US2000C. Please check my response to the email you sent me for a visual diagram.
@@intelligentcontrols Hi Mike, thank you so much responding with such a helpful answer. I responded to you by email but am also responding here as it may be helpful to someone. I was able to successfully build a new cable and it is working flawlessly. All I needed was pins 4/5. Thank you again so much.
Would love to see some more informateion on victrons class-t power in as this seems to now be more appropriate for LifePo4 batteries and the high Aic that mega fuses might not be able to handle.
Hi @_Miner, great question. We wanted to write a more comprehensive reply so here's more on the new T-class distributor and a bit about what it means for lithium banks. icmontana.com/blogs/technical-articles/what-to-know-about-victron-s-class-t-fuse-distributor
We have 3 Pylontec us2000 & 2 us2000c as a stack of 5. Been working well for several years. But now the Sofar ME 3000SP inverter is showing a fault and has let the batteries go flat? They have in turn shut down, Sofar have said I need to recharge them for them to start? How do I go about this?
Hello, If the batteries are fully discharged, you will need to give them 48V at >5A of current to bring them back.
@intelligent Controls very interesting video.. thx! one question though.. I have 6 batteries (US5000) and 4 sets of end runs in a 3 phase system with 3 Multiplus II 5000. do I need extra sets of end runs to connect 6 more batteries? I don't want extra power, just more storage. The power is limited by the Multiplus imho. I will not be using more amps with 12 instead of 6 batteries, right?
Hi Nick, since the bottleneck in this system is the MultiPlus, there is no need to increase the cable runs with a storage upgrade. Ultimately, the batteries will do less work, and the cabling and inverter will work the same.
can we plug that cable from the A/CAN port to the Cerbo GX VE.CAN port?
For a Victron installation, the BMS cable running from the A/CAN port will plug into the BMS.Can port on the Cerbo.
@@intelligentcontrols Thanks I will try this when I get home. The battery is working but I just cant see it in the Cerbo as a device.
Sorry to sound like a newb but I am.... Why do we always seem to use fuses and not MCB's for overload protection? Thanks.
Hey, no problem at all. The primary advantage comes down to speed. A fuse will blow in about 2 milliseconds, while an MCB takes 20 ms. Additionally, while an MCB might seem to have an advantage with its reusability, if a fuse in one of these systems blows it's generally because there has been some catastrophic failure and having someone reset an MCB without addressing the issue could be dangerous.
@@intelligentcontrols thanks
So the end runs are rated at 120A and they go from the battery to a busbar. Well if there's 3 sets of end runs going to the busbar.... what size cable do you need to go from the busbar to the inverter? Still 120A or 360A?
Hi David, thanks for the question. The cable running from busbar to inverter should be rated for at least as much as the combined value of end runs. So in your example, 360A.
@@intelligentcontrols I thought so, thanks for clearing that up. Are you sure the pylontech cables are rated at 120A? I can't find that anywhere on Pylontechs website. Or is that the industry standard for 25mm cable?
Yes, 120A - pylontech specifies so in the manual.
@@intelligentcontrols thanks again for the info. Can you please clear a couple of things up for me? Is the 120A at continuous running? Also the manual for my us5000's states a recommended discharge current of 80A and peak of 100A but the sticker on the side of the battery states nominal 50A and maximum 100A. I have 2 us5000 batteries. Should I set my inverter to discharge at a maximum of 100A or 160A (well 120A until I upgrade my cables)? Many thanks
@@sukmy1i sorry for the delayed reply.. The cables are rated for 120A continuous and the batteries can handle 100A. The thing is, if you are running at the absolute maximum to meet your loads, then that is really just a signal to size up your system. Your car can likely go 120mph, but if you drove it around all day at that speed then your service life is going way down.
If your loads are not a deciding factor and can be whatever you allow them to be, then I would take the number of batteries you have and multiply them by 50A. Then size your number of cables so that a single pair of end runs never has more than 100A going through it. That will give you a nice middle ground for your max discharge current that won't overtax your system. If your needs are more than that, you can make it work up but I would start looking to add more capacity.
Sorry, I don't understand why if I have 5 batteries I only have 3X120A, and if I have two batteries I have 240A. Why I can't divide 5X120A by five in this array of five batteries? Can you explain that again? Thanks.
Hey Bryan, Sorry for the confusion, all of this is dependent on how many end runs you are using. Each one of those sets of wire is rated to handle 120A, even if the batteries can provide more than that, you still can't pull more current from a battery bank than the end runs can handle. So, if you have 5 Pylontech batteries and 3 sets of end runs, you are limited by the 3x120A capabilities of the end runs. If, for some reason, you expected to pull more current, which is highly unlikely in the real world, you could add 2 more end runs and access the full 5x120A current capabilities of the batteries.
I personally don't think the cables are heavy enough,if you have three 5 kw inverters you could make those cables act as heating elements, do they not make heavy cables??
@@jillyanddavedave280 If you have 5x 5kva inverters in a 3-phase setup, that's 15kva or less of continuous output power. The batteries are ~52v which is only ~290A. In this case, the proper battery size would be at least 3 to 4 US5000s. Each end run would be capable of 100A, but I would recommend that every 2 batteries get an end run to the distributor. For 12 batteries with a cable set for every 2 battery combination, that would result in a current capability of 600A continuous. They are small wires, but their current capability adds up. The other option that you and most are familiar with is to just have a larger interconnect, say a couple of 4/0, but then it's very oversized for smaller systems and still undersized for large systems. Remember that 12 batteries in Pylontech's world is still a small system when the LV combiner hub allows us to go up to 96. Small systems with a couple of US5000s with a 3k inverter will make most small cabins work wonderfully.
Standard Cat 5 etc network cable work fine as link cables
Problem with this BMS is, that is not capable to handle 30 - 50 AMPS balance current, if I have MPPT / chrager, that is not able to communicate. Also there is problem, if I connect 20 % and 85 % SOC batteries in parall. With 50 A balance current, you have job done after few hours, with small balance current you have to wait till summer.,
Hi @PavolFilek The nice thing about the Pylontechs is that the BMS will allow the natural physics of the parallel connection to not only siphon a small balancing current but also actively balance in a far more proactive manner using charge and discharge loads. I have spreadsheets of data showing your exact scenario with 20% and 85% SOC batteries coming back into balance within
So you're saying that it is better to pay 2000 euros instead of 50 euros on cables? The way I see it is if you run every battery to a lynx distributor you can achieve with just 3 batteries what you claim you can with 5. Each cable can handle 120amps and each battery can deliver it just as long as they are not connected to each other. In your example the batteries can deliver up to 600amps if each connected to a lynx distributor or a power in with a fruction of the cost of adding a sixth battery. Why don't you propose that?
Hello Chris. This is a question of system sizing. There are 2 factors to be considered when sizing a battery bank. The first is the total power reserve or energy storage, and the second is the ability to deliver that power in the form of current. The number of batteries is the limiting factor for both energy storage and current delivery, and the cabling is the other limiting factor for current delivery.
There are very few practical situations where current delivery needs to be equivalent at a 1C rate to energy storage. The current capabilities of the wire runs do not need to match the current capabilities of the batteries, if the energy storage capacity of the batteries is greater than what the system is designed to draw in 1 hour of continuous use. This is where you can experience savings with Pylontech’s cabling system.
So yes, if you want 3 batteries with 14.4KW of power reserve hooked up to a system that will draw that down in 1 hour by pulling 300A or 14,400W/Hr of continuous current, then you buy 3 batteries and 3 end runs and go to town. In the more likely scenario where we have 3 batteries and the system is designed to pull a max current of 50A giving you 6 hours of power reserve, you just saved $100 because you only need to purchase 1 end run.
So the rule of thumb is to size your batteries to your energy storage needs, and size your cables to your power delivery needs. If that is a 1 to 1 ratio, so be it. If not, that's a win for Pylontech’s cabling system.
Thank you for the reply. Indeed you size the batteries based on the energy reserve and delivery you want. But in your example having e.g. 5 batteries I think is not optimum to connect them the way you display since by connecting them to a bus bar, you maintain energy capacity but you increase greatly energy the delivery potential from 360 to 600 while still evenly distributing the power demand. Anyway that's my 2pennys worth
@@christsitouridis2213 Not a problem, thanks for the question. By the standards of most batteries, you would be absolutely correct. The cool thing about the Pylontech BMS is that it can use the MOSFETs to regulate power distribution so we don't have to worry about getting our wiring perfectly symmetrical for the sake of even draws. You certainly could wire it differently though, if your system was designed to pull 24kw of power in 50 minutes.
Three US5000 are to much for the small 25mm² cables!
That's why you can use multiple cables. If you are pulling more than 100A off of three batteries, all you need is another cable kit.
Wait hold on, are you selling ethernet cables as communication cables 😂
Depends on what you mean by selling. Most batteries use CAN bus, which is a pretty standard protocol. The extra comms cables in Pylontech’s cable kit are just tossed in for free as a useful addition to the end runs. The Victron BMS cable is something you could do the research on and then pin out and solder yourself from an appropriate network cable if you wanted. Most people would rather just spend $14 for the convenience. Your mileage may vary.