Something to learn for everyone. It was my own fault. The problem here is the Xiao Xiang app as well as it connects to a random BMS if you not choose one quick enough.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Things are getting a bit complicated in the Off-Grid Garage. Not sure how you can simplify it. I guess you'll just have to accept these "learning experiences" as they come up.
Now that was fun! No time like having an oddity of some kind. Heeeja! Obviously, it was something every one could run in to.... Real life solar issues. That is what makes this channel so 👍😃
Yes, they will all balance out over time. there is no need to bring them to the exact same voltage. This only works with LFP batteries though due to the flat charge and discharge curve.
This could be a Useful Find . If a big storm approaches one could take a battery or two out of use to save for the extended outage . Hurricane , big winter storm , etc.
You could, but it's not really saving you anything. The overall capacity will be still the same, regardless if you use one battery after another or all at the same time.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yes for sure but , If you knew a long outage was coming you could have a couple charged fully in emergency reserve is what I was getting at . The Tesla power wall watches the weather and has the ability to charge from the grid if it senses an outage coming . This would only work if you have the grid available to charge with though.
@@onthelake9554 Yes, that is correct. I think the Victron system does something similar but it's not automated yet, so you need to tell the system to charge higher and prepare for a possible outage.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I thought the reason one of the batteries on the shelf was turned off was from accidentally picking the wrong BMS when you wanted to turn off the one on the workbench. So I was thinking you may have never actually turned off that one.
@@russkubes Ah, right, I see. Yeah, that makes sense now. I disconnected the link between cell 8-9 though when the battery is not in use, so that's even safer.
I've got them here on my website: off-grid-garage.com/cables-and-connectors/ There is also a video where I use them: th-cam.com/video/nnUXSEvb0sc/w-d-xo.html
Good job Andy, and congratulations on what must be ur shortest vid to date. I think a lot of people make too much fuss about inrush currents and what u have shown here is about what I would have expected, so it was good to see it in real time come down from 150A to under 100A quite quickly, this is really nothing on any of these batteries, the stress test here was could the outputting BMS handle it for the few seconds without tripping out. Another great vid & info. The beard is fine, let it go. Cheers
Thanks Evan. Yeah, I checked the setting of the Overkill before to see if it could handle it. When we did the test with paralleling the 304Ah battery with the 5Ah battery a while back, we could see the BMS tripping if the current is too high. I left all BMS's on 100A discharge, so they can power my loads individually in case I have to shut down two of the banks.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia that was my thoughts too, if you parallel banks, each one ideally should be able to power your load for redundancy & maintenance.
Good one Andy, great to know. It’s very encouraging to see that! (I would still be very suspicious of your Victron displayed SOC if it hasn’t been synced for a long time.)
Yes, absolutely. The shunt will be out of sync by a lot I would expect. Will be interesting to see once we fully charge again. Maybe next month already?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Cheers Andy. It will be VERY interesting to know how far it’s out of sync when the time comes, (and perhaps a good time to find out how your settings such as charge efficiency and peukert numbers are. I have my Victron shunt settings in the caravan set to be intentionally slightly pessimistic, - I’m still waiting on the replacement JK BMS- but most days if the sun is shining we get a full charge and sync anyway.) Currently - we have been three weeks away off grid in the caravan and have used LPG only very occasionally for the oven (just having a fresh muffin and coffee right now!). We do nearly everything on battery power including lights, TV and satellite, hot water for showers and washing up, induction cooker, baby air fryer, bread maker, coffee machine, washing machine, reverse cycle aircon for heating, and more. Doing all of this we haven’t been below about 40% SOC even with the occasional few days of overcast. LOVE my solar and Winston lithium batteries!! I could never go back to AGM!
@@FutureSystem738 wow, that's amazing, Dave. Even the hot water comes from the batteries, that is incredible. Sounds like really good system you have build there. Thanks for sharing.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yep- the hot water draws about 1kW. (It’s a 20 litre gas/electric Swift HWS). I mostly turn it on early afternoon so that the batteries are already full, and then solar provides most of the power, with only 20-25A coming from the battery. It takes about 45-50 mins to heat the hot water tank, and the 20 litres is enough for dishwashing and two hot showers. If there’s no sun shining it’s about 85A coming from the battery via a 2kW inverter, … but that’s still not a lot, under 0.25C from a 400Ah battery. I USED to have a 3kW inverter/charger (and never ever used the charger!), but ditched it as it was very heavy and had very high standby current. We now manage very well with a 2kW inverter, which can stay turned on from breakfast till bedtime, and has good low standby current. My wife has become very good at juggling loads to avoid tripping the inverter ;-)
Real life situation. Great shirt video! I thought I was lucky and had another Off Grid garage learning time video. Great learning but short video... Darn it .. ahahahah Cheers Andy
It sure would be helpful if those bluetooth apps would let you name each BMS (i.e. name each battery). I've a handful in two different apps and I've confused myself more than once!
Great thing about LiFepo4 is that you don't need all the same size battery banks. Where as AGM is a nightmare. So it wouldn't matter if this was a 5kw or 20kw bank. It makes it so much easier when buying batteries that you can buy 280ah one year, then 200ah or even 100ah and they all work together. Makes life so much easier. You just proved how easy it is to add another bank. If this was AGM you'd have all kinds of nightmares.
How so , I have 44 AGM batteries in 11 banks no nightmares in the 8 years they have been working I also have a nickel iron bank in parallel with them which gets disconnected for its bulk charge during the day as it needs 64 volts.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Lead acid will self balance as they are voltage charged as long as the series ones are the same capacity , other chemistries need to have some sort of BMS eg LiFepo4 but these should work in parallel with lead acid as the voltages are so close I am going to find out , the Nickel Iron work ok for discharge but need to have a charge of 64 volts (38 cells) for a number of hours. I get the same thing you did each night as the bank is connected back across the lead acid the NiFe bank charges the lead acid and then goes on to supply the loads until the voltage drops as they discharge they have a similar discharge curve as LiFepo4
Hi Andy, you are doing a great job. I watch your video Alot to the extent that your background song literally haunts me. My question is in regards to the JK BMS which I assume you are an expert on. When I have a low battery discharge, it cuts off as it's meant to be. However it does appear that when it cuts off discharge, it technically also cuts off charge which is strange since they both have the same leads(charge and discharge). How can I solve this problem? Because my solar charge controller doesn't come on unless it sees a batter voltage but the JK BMS wouldn't release a voltage when it's discharged.
Thanks for your feedback. You can listen to the song for free in all of my videos 😂 The BMS should allow charging the battery when you have a low voltage disconnect. Have a look at the status bar on top of the first screen. You can see the three buttons for Charging Discharging and Balancing and if they are enabled. So if one goes off, the other one should be still active (green). In your case it should still show the discharge button as green and power your charge controller.
Could you place a suitable LED bulb across the negative battery connections on the BMS that would illuminate upon a lost connection, when in normal operation the two negatives would cancel any potential in the circuit and the led would go out.
@@CollinBaillie Thank you! It helped a lot. I'm building my solar system now, preparing for the autumn and winter in Ukraine. No one knows what we will meet this year.
Hi Andy, I have a suggestion from the cheap seats. Why don't you get three cheap tables and set them up on the battery with each one handling its own BMS so no confusion?
Ah, you mean tablets, not tables. You got me confused here... 😂 The problem would be that they disconnect after a while when not in use and I have to reconnect to this specific BMS again anyway. Eventually, we will have all BMS connected to the Victron system so we can see the data there. the BT connection is only need if we change parameters. At least, this is the plan for now...
3:46 I believe, I heard 3 mosfets wailing as they died(like a popcorn) pop pop pop😂 In a test when I married 2 packs, there was only a 20mV voltage difference between packs, there were still 10A equalizing current.
No smoke, no dead Mosfets. Hence I checked the BMS settings before again. There is also a hardware limit setting of 250A in the BMS. If we reach that, it would turn off immediately. If you have like 20 FETs in parallel and each can carry 150A, it should be still safe. But it would be an extreme test for sure.
100 A out means 2x 50 A in so it is a limited stress considering that these LF280K cells are used to be capacity tested with 140A or 0,5C Looks quite good cause all batteries seemed to work quite well, no magic smoke at all.
I've done the same thing on my system, sort of. I've accidently turned the soft buttons off and didn't notice until there was an issue. Maybe the xiaoxiang app needs a confirmation prompt when switching these buttons manually.
The main problem is that the app is connecting to a random BMS if you're not selecting one in time. You have only a few seconds to choose the one you want.
Thanks Vernon. It will be in the next video actually. I filmed this yesterday. It performs really well in comparison to the other roof with less panels. It makes a difference, so I'm keen to get Andy2 in again and do the East roof as well...
@@1956vern there are trees everywhere and sun is very patchy in this area. I would also have to trench the cables over to the garage. Is there an Andy3 and 4? 😀
Im still sitting here watching and learning Andy how long does it usually take to charge from low voltage 2.5 etc all the way up to the full 3.65v ? whats the usual time frame to get them completely full? because i just got a low voltage alarm at 2am
Hi Andy, Have you connected any or all of the BMSes to the Victron ecosystem via your Venus OS. If yes, how? I could only find a driver for only one BMS to be connected to the Cerbo... Thank you!
Bonjour, comment avez-vous branchée les 3 packs batteries entre elles Je possède 2 packs de 16S 48v Comment les branchée le négatif avec le négatif et le positif avec le positif et apres Positif de la premier et le négatif de la deuxième ext ....merci Quel est le réglage idéal pour vous pour le Neey
Hi, dann ist es doch sicherer mit der SEPLOS Software. Da stellt man nicht aus versehen ein anderes BMS aus . ;) Und Danke für die vielen informativen Videos. Grüße aus Deutschland (deiner alten Heimat?)
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Hi Andy, ich habe auch das Seplos zu Hause liegen. Werde dazu aber auch ein Balancer parallel laufen lassen. Ich würde ja gerne mal auf ein Bier vorbei kommen aber die Anreise ist ein bisschen weit für mal einen Abend 🤣
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Hallo bester ich habe eine Frage ich habe mir Aufgrund Deiner videos jetzt mal rangetraut und versuche mein eigenes balkonkraftwerk zusammmenzustellen ich habe 2 solarpanel von eco worthy 340 watt den mppt von epever tracer und 2 batterien a 12.8× 30 ah wird das überhaupt funktionieren ?? bin ich richtig mit der annahme das wenn ich die batterien connecte habe ich ein 24 volt system und kann die panele in serie schalten ?? 1000000 Mio dank im vorraus für dein knowledge Yoda weiter so wir brauchen solar panels überall in Deutschland !!! 👍🏾
I have a 48v Lifepo4 100AH setup. It runs perfectly. However I also have a very nice 52v LG cell lithium ion 21AH Ebike battery. I would like to add the Ebike battery in to my banks. The voltages that I run (46-54.5) is within its bms parameters. Is this safe and possible to do? If so, how should I do it? What precautions need to be taken?
While it is technically possible, I personally dont feel this would be a good idea really, ur ebike batteries are not cheap either (unless u DIY ebike batts) and I would expect they will give u a much shorter lifetime use than the lifepo4 chemistry. $/watt u have roughly 1kw of ebike battery and 5kw of lifepo4 battery with a life expectancy of 10-20 years, how long will one ebike battery last cycled 80% daily? So some Q’s to ask yourself could be, is 1 ebike batterie 80% cheaper than 1 x 5kw lipo4? Will the ebike batteries last long when cycled this way before you spend any $ on trying to configure it into your system. I would tend to keep these two chemistries seperate for their respective uses and save a few bucks towards increasing the size of ur lifepo4 bank with another more similar battery type if u feel u need more power there. Just my opinion, hope this helps. Cheers
It is possible to parallel the two batteries. The main problem here are the two completely different charge and discharge curves. LiFePO4 is very flat while Li-ion is linear to it's SOC. So what will happen? The main LFP battery will stay in the almost constant voltage part of the curve and charges and discharges while the Li-ion battery will be following this voltage and gets only very small micro cycles. Unless you fully charge and discharge your LFP bank (steeper areas of the curves), you won't get much capacity gain from the parallel Li-ion pack.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia yes, that’s right, & in doing so (fully charging & discharging) could this also cause premature degradation of the lipo4 battery, which would further beg the question, if there is any real capacity gain advantage long term by doing this.
@@evil17 I will test this at some stage. Quite a few people have asked and wanted to know. I thought about a parallel setup of LFP, Li-ion and AGM at the same time and then cycle it through and watch the single batteries how they perform.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia so really no danger but not much gain from it? I do usually use most of my battery throughout the night. Usually down to about 10-15%, when running my A/C. If no ac then only maybe down to 75%. Only for fridge, lighting, cooking,etc. And thank you for your response. I love your channel. You’re the reason I went solar on my semi truck
You ideally want whole battery packs in parallel with their own BMS, connecting all cells in parallel masks problems and if the BMS dies you lose all power rather than drop to reduced capacity. I've currently got 64 cells in 2 packs that are 2p, once I get another couple of BMS's they will be split into 4x 16s1p packs. I know I have 1 cell that drops to 2.6v while the rest are mostly over 3.1v and need to rest and possibly replace, I can't easily do this if everything is paralleled together at the cell level without taking the whole thing offline.
For basically the sake of the cost of one BMS, you lose an awful lot of redundancy by paralleling them together at cell level. Having the banks as Andy does is much better. I’m going to build two banks and will definitely do exactly as Andy has done. Another BMS will only add a couple of hundred dollars, which is very cheap insurance.
Tried to take a live sneak peak at the Off-Grid-Garage in the Victron VRM World, but I get "Warning: Shared token invalid." message. I've had that happen to me a handful of times myself. Good thing is that the JK-BMS app requires you to verify password in order to get to those settings, however it is not "fool" resistant. Majority of the battery packs I've built are on the JK-BMS platform, I've assigned them 6 digit serial to them and the password has to match that number or I can't change the parameters to the BMS. Thank goodness most us just set it and forget it. Can't wait till you get more sunlight in the fall and see what the performance on the solar upgrades to the garage...
Thanks Felax. Also for your ongoing support and donations🙏 That could be a cookie in your browser why the VRM is not letting you in. If you have a look and delete that it should work again. Try also from another browser or device... The solar upgrade already makes a huge difference with all the shading. I'll show this in the next video...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I've cleared my browser cookies and history, but to no avail. Tried it on Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple Safari. Still getting the same error message. I've even tried the link on my Android tablet for shins and giggles with the same results. Maybe TH-cam is discombobulating something during the redirect? I'm just taking a bit of a wilde guess. Even tried to copy the link and opening it on a separate browser window and getting the same error message.
@@felaxchow207 I've received the same message on my test computer... I've checked the shared link with the one Victron provides and surely enough, it has changed! WTF?! 😒I have to go through all the videos now and change it! I need a script for that... Updated the one in the description now to vrm.victronenergy.com/installation/100328/share/d0ebad4e
@@OffGridGarageAustralia cool beans, I just updated my bookmark and it works like a charm. Oh what fun it is to update all of the past video descriptions. Looks like the Pool Fence array is your top performer today, but every bit counts when it comes to solar. Reminds me about the panels that I have propped up by the shed, it still averages 3 kWh per day for the past 7 years.
Andy, could you just add a page to your site that redirects to the VRM site? This way you can have all your videos link to your site (which won't change) and if the VRM URL changes again, you'd only have to update the redirect on your site rather than every video.
Andy look at Adriano kits there's a lot where it uses your telephone sends msg straight to your phone so you can notify you anywhere with phone network in Australia
![[Full Episode] The Restaurant War Thailand ศึกพ่อค้าซ่าแม่ค้าแซ่บ Episode 4 | 13 ต.ค. 67](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/h8N9tY46P-M/mqdefault.jpg)
![[DRIP] ‘CLIK CLAK’ PREVIEW](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/bcxkcOSbpac/mqdefault.jpg)
I like it when you share your mistakes. No harm done with this one.
Something to learn for everyone. It was my own fault. The problem here is the Xiao Xiang app as well as it connects to a random BMS if you not choose one quick enough.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Things are getting a bit complicated in the Off-Grid Garage. Not sure how you can simplify it. I guess you'll just have to accept these "learning experiences" as they come up.
Luckilly you had some spare charge instead of no power at all! Nice you shared this!
Yep, heaps of spare batteries... Didn't really noticed it until this morning.
Une bonne décharge de la batterie pour un bon test ANDY 😉
Now that was fun! No time like having an oddity of some kind. Heeeja!
Obviously, it was something every one could run in to.... Real life solar issues.
That is what makes this channel so 👍😃
Thanks a lot. Glad I decided to pick up the camera that morning...
Good thing JK-BMS lets you name each one. Also good to know if I change something and use 3 banks the 4th will level evenly when turned back on.
Yes, they will all balance out over time. there is no need to bring them to the exact same voltage. This only works with LFP batteries though due to the flat charge and discharge curve.
Thanks Andy, That JK-BMS is looking better every day.
Apart form the SOC calculation which goes up and up and up... They all need a good fresh re-sync now after the winter.
This could be a Useful Find . If a big storm approaches one could take a battery or two out of use to save for the extended outage . Hurricane , big winter storm , etc.
You could, but it's not really saving you anything. The overall capacity will be still the same, regardless if you use one battery after another or all at the same time.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yes for sure but , If you knew a long outage was coming you could have a couple charged fully in emergency reserve is what I was getting at . The Tesla power wall watches the weather and has the ability to charge from the grid if it senses an outage coming . This would only work if you have the grid available to charge with though.
@@onthelake9554 Yes, that is correct. I think the Victron system does something similar but it's not automated yet, so you need to tell the system to charge higher and prepare for a possible outage.
Time to sit and learn me some more good stuff
I learn every day. Just not enough time to make video about it all the time. I wish I could...
Spot on
Thanks
Don't forget to check the one you intended to turn off it ensure it's actually off, for that battery sitting on the workbench.
I'm confused now 😑
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I thought the reason one of the batteries on the shelf was turned off was from accidentally picking the wrong BMS when you wanted to turn off the one on the workbench. So I was thinking you may have never actually turned off that one.
@@russkubes Ah, right, I see. Yeah, that makes sense now. I disconnected the link between cell 8-9 though when the battery is not in use, so that's even safer.
Great video! What type of terminal blocks did you use to connect the wires of the bms and the active balancer? Thank you
I've got them here on my website: off-grid-garage.com/cables-and-connectors/
There is also a video where I use them: th-cam.com/video/nnUXSEvb0sc/w-d-xo.html
Good job Andy, and congratulations on what must be ur shortest vid to date. I think a lot of people make too much fuss about inrush currents and what u have shown here is about what I would have expected, so it was good to see it in real time come down from 150A to under 100A quite quickly, this is really nothing on any of these batteries, the stress test here was could the outputting BMS handle it for the few seconds without tripping out. Another great vid & info. The beard is fine, let it go. Cheers
Thanks Evan. Yeah, I checked the setting of the Overkill before to see if it could handle it. When we did the test with paralleling the 304Ah battery with the 5Ah battery a while back, we could see the BMS tripping if the current is too high.
I left all BMS's on 100A discharge, so they can power my loads individually in case I have to shut down two of the banks.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia that was my thoughts too, if you parallel banks, each one ideally should be able to power your load for redundancy & maintenance.
Good one Andy, great to know. It’s very encouraging to see that!
(I would still be very suspicious of your Victron displayed SOC if it hasn’t been synced for a long time.)
Yes, absolutely. The shunt will be out of sync by a lot I would expect. Will be interesting to see once we fully charge again. Maybe next month already?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Cheers Andy. It will be VERY interesting to know how far it’s out of sync when the time comes, (and perhaps a good time to find out how your settings such as charge efficiency and peukert numbers are. I have my Victron shunt settings in the caravan set to be intentionally slightly pessimistic, - I’m still waiting on the replacement JK BMS- but most days if the sun is shining we get a full charge and sync anyway.)
Currently - we have been three weeks away off grid in the caravan and have used LPG only very occasionally for the oven (just having a fresh muffin and coffee right now!). We do nearly everything on battery power including lights, TV and satellite, hot water for showers and washing up, induction cooker, baby air fryer, bread maker, coffee machine, washing machine, reverse cycle aircon for heating, and more. Doing all of this we haven’t been below about 40% SOC even with the occasional few days of overcast.
LOVE my solar and Winston lithium batteries!! I could never go back to AGM!
@@FutureSystem738 wow, that's amazing, Dave. Even the hot water comes from the batteries, that is incredible. Sounds like really good system you have build there. Thanks for sharing.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yep- the hot water draws about 1kW. (It’s a 20 litre gas/electric Swift HWS).
I mostly turn it on early afternoon so that the batteries are already full, and then solar provides most of the power, with only 20-25A coming from the battery. It takes about 45-50 mins to heat the hot water tank, and the 20 litres is enough for dishwashing and two hot showers.
If there’s no sun shining it’s about 85A coming from the battery via a 2kW inverter, … but that’s still not a lot, under 0.25C from a 400Ah battery.
I USED to have a 3kW inverter/charger (and never ever used the charger!), but ditched it as it was very heavy and had very high standby current. We now manage very well with a 2kW inverter, which can stay turned on from breakfast till bedtime, and has good low standby current. My wife has become very good at juggling loads to avoid tripping the inverter ;-)
Great to see also you mixed up things sometimes 😄
It's real life experience here 🙂
Real life situation. Great shirt video! I thought I was lucky and had another Off Grid garage learning time video. Great learning but short video... Darn it .. ahahahah
Cheers Andy
There is always something to learn. Either with or without shirt 😂
It sure would be helpful if those bluetooth apps would let you name each BMS (i.e. name each battery). I've a handful in two different apps and I've confused myself more than once!
Ah, you can name them but the app connects to a random BMS after 2-3 seconds if you don't choose one. Very annoying.
Great thing about LiFepo4 is that you don't need all the same size battery banks. Where as AGM is a nightmare. So it wouldn't matter if this was a 5kw or 20kw bank. It makes it so much easier when buying batteries that you can buy 280ah one year, then 200ah or even 100ah and they all work together. Makes life so much easier. You just proved how easy it is to add another bank. If this was AGM you'd have all kinds of nightmares.
How so , I have 44 AGM batteries in 11 banks no nightmares in the 8 years they have been working I also have a nickel iron bank in parallel with them which gets disconnected for its bulk charge during the day as it needs 64 volts.
Can you not parallel all kind of batteries if they have the same voltage and chemistry?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Lead acid will self balance as they are voltage charged as long as the series ones are the same capacity , other chemistries need to have some sort of BMS eg LiFepo4 but these should work in parallel with lead acid as the voltages are so close I am going to find out , the Nickel Iron work ok for discharge but need to have a charge of 64 volts (38 cells) for a number of hours. I get the same thing you did each night as the bank is connected back across the lead acid the NiFe bank charges the lead acid and then goes on to supply the loads until the voltage drops as they discharge they have a similar discharge curve as LiFepo4
Hi Andy, you are doing a great job. I watch your video Alot to the extent that your background song literally haunts me. My question is in regards to the JK BMS which I assume you are an expert on.
When I have a low battery discharge, it cuts off as it's meant to be. However it does appear that when it cuts off discharge, it technically also cuts off charge which is strange since they both have the same leads(charge and discharge).
How can I solve this problem? Because my solar charge controller doesn't come on unless it sees a batter voltage but the JK BMS wouldn't release a voltage when it's discharged.
Thanks for your feedback. You can listen to the song for free in all of my videos 😂
The BMS should allow charging the battery when you have a low voltage disconnect. Have a look at the status bar on top of the first screen. You can see the three buttons for Charging Discharging and Balancing and if they are enabled.
So if one goes off, the other one should be still active (green).
In your case it should still show the discharge button as green and power your charge controller.
Could you place a suitable LED bulb across the negative battery connections on the BMS that would illuminate upon a lost connection, when in normal operation the two negatives would cancel any potential in the circuit and the led would go out.
Nice to have a spare battery to recharge from.
Yes, that's what I was thinking too 😁
The battery bank looks amazing. Tried to find the video of how you made the shelf and didn't. If you filmed it actuallly?
There are like 20 videos about that. Look into playlists.
Playlist is Battery 2.0
@@ricardomarcelino8388 Thanks! Had to go way down in the videos list.
@@CollinBaillie Thank you! It helped a lot. I'm building my solar system now, preparing for the autumn and winter in Ukraine. No one knows what we will meet this year.
Thanks all for helping out here.
Hi Andy, I have a suggestion from the cheap seats. Why don't you get three cheap tables and set them up on the battery with each one handling its own BMS so no confusion?
Ah, you mean tablets, not tables. You got me confused here... 😂
The problem would be that they disconnect after a while when not in use and I have to reconnect to this specific BMS again anyway.
Eventually, we will have all BMS connected to the Victron system so we can see the data there. the BT connection is only need if we change parameters. At least, this is the plan for now...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia lol yes tablets sorry!
3:46 I believe, I heard 3 mosfets wailing as they died(like a popcorn) pop pop pop😂
In a test when I married 2 packs, there was only a 20mV voltage difference between packs, there were still 10A equalizing current.
No smoke, no dead Mosfets. Hence I checked the BMS settings before again. There is also a hardware limit setting of 250A in the BMS. If we reach that, it would turn off immediately. If you have like 20 FETs in parallel and each can carry 150A, it should be still safe. But it would be an extreme test for sure.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thanks 😊
100 A out means 2x 50 A in so it is a limited stress considering that these LF280K cells are used to be capacity tested with 140A or 0,5C
Looks quite good cause all batteries seemed to work quite well, no magic smoke at all.
Yeah, that's why I checked the settings of the Overkill BMS, it is only a 100A BMS so was running at its limit , I guess...
I've done the same thing on my system, sort of. I've accidently turned the soft buttons off and didn't notice until there was an issue. Maybe the xiaoxiang app needs a confirmation prompt when switching these buttons manually.
The main problem is that the app is connecting to a random BMS if you're not selecting one in time. You have only a few seconds to choose the one you want.
Question! Your new solar panels, how are they performing! I might of missed a vlog?!
Thanks Andy
Thanks Vernon. It will be in the next video actually. I filmed this yesterday.
It performs really well in comparison to the other roof with less panels. It makes a difference, so I'm keen to get Andy2 in again and do the East roof as well...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia
Haha Andy if you can get him to work for a spat or two!🤪
@@1956vern 🍺🍺🍺 we will see
@@OffGridGarageAustralia
Question, one of your episodes you were out back of your garage on a fields edge!
Why have you not put your array out there?
@@1956vern there are trees everywhere and sun is very patchy in this area. I would also have to trench the cables over to the garage. Is there an Andy3 and 4? 😀
Heya, lol to many bluetooth divices you really should give them differant names
Daly is also selling a addon / dedicated active balancer . it looks like a better buy
No dilly daly .
I have bought the Daly active balancers. Video is coming soon.
Im still sitting here watching and learning Andy how long does it usually take to charge from low voltage 2.5 etc all the way up to the full 3.65v ? whats the usual time frame to get them completely full? because i just got a low voltage alarm at 2am
Hi Andy do we turn off the BMSs balance,if we add a 5 amp balancer or do we leave it on not sure what to do .Cheers from sunny victoria
Hi Rene, you can just leave it on. All balancers can work together, no problem.
Thumbs up and still subscribed!
This guy! Thank you 😊
Oh no! Tell me you weren't handling live battery terminals without knowing it when dealing with the QUCC BMS!?
I always know what I'm doing. Almost...
Hi Andy,
Have you connected any or all of the BMSes to the Victron ecosystem via your Venus OS. If yes, how?
I could only find a driver for only one BMS to be connected to the Cerbo...
Thank you!
Isn't it exciting when something isn't as it is supposed to be? :)
I like it. Troubleshooting is my all time favourite!
That would do it! 😅
Hello once again as a beginner in lithium what bms would u recommend i bought a Daly smart bms for now because it was the cheapest ..
😁G'day 5am upload m8 early bird gets the worm thanks for the video.
It's always 5am. Videos are all scheduled from the night before. I'm still sleeping at that time 😴
That's because Daly has horrible QC issues. I have six of them, four in opration and they're all junk.
I have only one so far. It works but the balancer is 💩. App is very quick though.
Bonjour,
comment avez-vous branchée les 3 packs batteries entre elles
Je possède 2 packs de 16S 48v
Comment les branchée le négatif avec le négatif et le positif avec le positif et apres
Positif de la premier et le négatif de la deuxième ext ....merci
Quel est le réglage idéal pour vous pour le Neey
Hi, dann ist es doch sicherer mit der SEPLOS Software. Da stellt man nicht aus versehen ein anderes BMS aus . ;)
Und Danke für die vielen informativen Videos. Grüße aus Deutschland (deiner alten Heimat?)
Ja, aber Seplos hat viele andere Probleme. Das deren Software nur ueber den PC funktioniert ist nur eines davon...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Hi Andy, ich habe auch das Seplos zu Hause liegen. Werde dazu aber auch ein Balancer parallel laufen lassen. Ich würde ja gerne mal auf ein Bier vorbei kommen aber die Anreise ist ein bisschen weit für mal einen Abend 🤣
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Hallo bester ich habe eine Frage ich habe mir Aufgrund Deiner videos jetzt mal rangetraut und versuche mein eigenes balkonkraftwerk zusammmenzustellen ich habe 2 solarpanel von eco worthy 340 watt den mppt von epever tracer und 2 batterien a 12.8× 30 ah wird das überhaupt funktionieren ?? bin ich richtig mit der annahme das wenn ich die batterien connecte habe ich ein 24 volt system und kann die panele in serie schalten ?? 1000000 Mio dank im vorraus für dein knowledge Yoda weiter so wir brauchen solar panels überall in Deutschland !!! 👍🏾
JK BMS around 3.0v but SOC claims 35%? Don't understand this one yet.
I have a 48v Lifepo4 100AH setup. It runs perfectly. However I also have a very nice 52v LG cell lithium ion 21AH Ebike battery. I would like to add the Ebike battery in to my banks. The voltages that I run (46-54.5) is within its bms parameters. Is this safe and possible to do? If so, how should I do it? What precautions need to be taken?
While it is technically possible, I personally dont feel this would be a good idea really, ur ebike batteries are not cheap either (unless u DIY ebike batts) and I would expect they will give u a much shorter lifetime use than the lifepo4 chemistry. $/watt u have roughly 1kw of ebike battery and 5kw of lifepo4 battery with a life expectancy of 10-20 years, how long will one ebike battery last cycled 80% daily? So some Q’s to ask yourself could be, is 1 ebike batterie 80% cheaper than 1 x 5kw lipo4? Will the ebike batteries last long when cycled this way before you spend any $ on trying to configure it into your system.
I would tend to keep these two chemistries seperate for their respective uses and save a few bucks towards increasing the size of ur lifepo4 bank with another more similar battery type if u feel u need more power there.
Just my opinion, hope this helps. Cheers
It is possible to parallel the two batteries. The main problem here are the two completely different charge and discharge curves. LiFePO4 is very flat while Li-ion is linear to it's SOC. So what will happen? The main LFP battery will stay in the almost constant voltage part of the curve and charges and discharges while the Li-ion battery will be following this voltage and gets only very small micro cycles. Unless you fully charge and discharge your LFP bank (steeper areas of the curves), you won't get much capacity gain from the parallel Li-ion pack.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia yes, that’s right, & in doing so (fully charging & discharging) could this also cause premature degradation of the lipo4 battery, which would further beg the question, if there is any real capacity gain advantage long term by doing this.
@@evil17 I will test this at some stage. Quite a few people have asked and wanted to know. I thought about a parallel setup of LFP, Li-ion and AGM at the same time and then cycle it through and watch the single batteries how they perform.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia so really no danger but not much gain from it? I do usually use most of my battery throughout the night. Usually down to about 10-15%, when running my A/C. If no ac then only maybe down to 75%. Only for fridge, lighting, cooking,etc. And thank you for your response. I love your channel. You’re the reason I went solar on my semi truck
Which is why it might be useful to have the batteries parallised at the cell level with a beefy BMS!
You lose individual cell monitoring that way. Also, the ability to add/remove battery packs adds flexibility, and redundancy.
No that's the opposite of useful . No redundancy , can't single out a battery for repair , you wouldn't know if a cell was going bad , etc.
You ideally want whole battery packs in parallel with their own BMS, connecting all cells in parallel masks problems and if the BMS dies you lose all power rather than drop to reduced capacity.
I've currently got 64 cells in 2 packs that are 2p, once I get another couple of BMS's they will be split into 4x 16s1p packs.
I know I have 1 cell that drops to 2.6v while the rest are mostly over 3.1v and need to rest and possibly replace, I can't easily do this if everything is paralleled together at the cell level without taking the whole thing offline.
For basically the sake of the cost of one BMS, you lose an awful lot of redundancy by paralleling them together at cell level.
Having the banks as Andy does is much better.
I’m going to build two banks and will definitely do exactly as Andy has done. Another BMS will only add a couple of hundred dollars, which is very cheap insurance.
All of the above 👆 Thanks guys
Only one good price in this world, FREE....Peace
I ran my bank to 12% yesterday
From 15%? 😂
Guten Tag. Trinken Sie einen Kaffee.
🍺
Nagh keep the beard and let it grow.
It gets feral... 🧔
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I look like a Hobo! 🤣🤣🤣
Tried to take a live sneak peak at the Off-Grid-Garage in the Victron VRM World, but I get "Warning: Shared token invalid." message.
I've had that happen to me a handful of times myself. Good thing is that the JK-BMS app requires you to verify password in order to get to those settings, however it is not "fool" resistant. Majority of the battery packs I've built are on the JK-BMS platform, I've assigned them 6 digit serial to them and the password has to match that number or I can't change the parameters to the BMS. Thank goodness most us just set it and forget it.
Can't wait till you get more sunlight in the fall and see what the performance on the solar upgrades to the garage...
Thanks Felax. Also for your ongoing support and donations🙏
That could be a cookie in your browser why the VRM is not letting you in. If you have a look and delete that it should work again. Try also from another browser or device...
The solar upgrade already makes a huge difference with all the shading. I'll show this in the next video...
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I've cleared my browser cookies and history, but to no avail. Tried it on Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple Safari. Still getting the same error message.
I've even tried the link on my Android tablet for shins and giggles with the same results. Maybe TH-cam is discombobulating something during the redirect? I'm just taking a bit of a wilde guess.
Even tried to copy the link and opening it on a separate browser window and getting the same error message.
@@felaxchow207 I've received the same message on my test computer...
I've checked the shared link with the one Victron provides and surely enough, it has changed! WTF?! 😒I have to go through all the videos now and change it! I need a script for that...
Updated the one in the description now to
vrm.victronenergy.com/installation/100328/share/d0ebad4e
@@OffGridGarageAustralia cool beans, I just updated my bookmark and it works like a charm. Oh what fun it is to update all of the past video descriptions.
Looks like the Pool Fence array is your top performer today, but every bit counts when it comes to solar. Reminds me about the panels that I have propped up by the shed, it still averages 3 kWh per day for the past 7 years.
Andy, could you just add a page to your site that redirects to the VRM site? This way you can have all your videos link to your site (which won't change) and if the VRM URL changes again, you'd only have to update the redirect on your site rather than every video.
Andy look at Adriano kits there's a lot where it uses your telephone sends msg straight to your phone so you can notify you anywhere with phone network in Australia
Do you mean arduino kits?
Kids or Kits?
Just not enough time to look into all that automation stuff atm. But it is certainly a good idea.