Lux ac battery controller

Solarchaser

Haha, oops typo there 😅 

philologus

Help needed please.

Because there were times in the early hours of this morning when charging my battery (9.6) from the grid would be economical I set it to charge from 00.30 - 01.00, 02.30 - 03.00 and 03.00 - 05.30.

I must have done something wrong because it charged my battery to 100% and then kept providing my own use power without using any from the battery.

The app is currently showing zero power being produced.

Battery level 95% but none being discharged.

298w consumption.

298w import.

The 'Normal' green dot is there and the standby symbol with Backup power (EPS) is there too.

I want to set it to self use/battery/export priority and I don't understand why it indicates that the panels are not currently producing anything.

Any help would be appreciated.

George

devondumpling1961

philologus said:

Help needed please.

Because there were times in the early hours of this morning when charging my battery (9.6) from the grid would be economical I set it to charge from 00.30 - 01.00, 02.30 - 03.00 and 03.00 - 05.30.

I must have done something wrong because it charged my battery to 100% and then kept providing my own use power without using any from the battery.

The app is currently showing zero power being produced.

Battery level 95% but none being discharged.

298w consumption.

298w import.

The 'Normal' green dot is there and the standby symbol with Backup power (EPS) is there too.

I want to set it to self use/battery/export priority and I don't understand why it indicates that the panels are not currently producing anything.

Any help would be appreciated.

George

If the system is set to charge, the batteries won't provide power to the circuits.

If you think about it, if they did the system would then have to immediately charge the batteries up again, which is effectively the same as (but less efficient than) using the power straight from the grid.

Money-wise, if your consumption outstrips your PV you should do exactly what you're doing (making sure the consumption during the charge periods is less than the gap between your consumption and PV).

If the other way around,  you shouldn't do any charging at all.

I set my batteries to charge to a certain level during cheap times.  This level depends on both anticpated next day generation and heating needs (the only variable in consumption) - both of these from the weather forcast.

This time of year it's set to 70%, and the time it's set to charge for depends on the anticpated gap. 

philologus

I checked the inverter and battery and turned everything off, waited five minutes and turned them all on again and everything is back to working as it should be. I think I'll run a battery check later though.

I still have no idea why this happened so advice would still be very welcome.

Solarchaser

That is strange, never had that personally. 
I've only ever run one charging schedule. 
20:30 - 23:30 as that's my octopus go faster time.
I run it between October and March usually, solar takes care of charging on the other months.

Wattstored

Solarchaser said:

That is strange, never had that personally. 
I've only ever run one charging schedule. 
20:30 - 23:30 as that's my octopus go faster time.
I run it between October and March usually, solar takes care of charging on the other months.

Exactly the same here for Oct-March although my Lux charging schedule is aligned with the Intelligent Octopus 6 hours 23.30-05.30. 

philologus

The app was showing that I had 95% (of 9.6) charge in the batteries but they were not feeding into the house use and that the panels were not charging anything.

When I checked the inverter and batteries none of them was working. (No lights to indicate that they were.)

I turned them all off individually and then, after a five minute wait, turned them all on again.

Everything worked again.

newbuilder

Does anyone have EPS set up on their Lux?
Can EPS go straight to a manual or auto switchover where it will break the AC connection from grid to distribution box and switch EPS on instead? or is their a limit to the AMPS it can take. I would of course wither trip some RCD/MCB during EPS time or just not use those circuits.

Also I read somewhere that you have to reserve a  permanent allocation to EPS regardless of using it or not, can someone direct me to the minimum that has to be kept? At the moment I don't go below 10% battery - would this be deemed enough?

So te EPS, does it only use the EPS reserve or will use full battery when switched over after or in line with solar?

Thanks in advance. 

chainreaction

Hi newbuilder, I have the EPS set up (and it works, has been used 3 times in the current set up). We have 2 distribution boards with most of the heavy loads on the second newest DB, which was put in when we extended the house (dishwasher, wash m/c, dryer, oven, hob). The older DB has basically everything else. When the lux was put in I got the installer to connect the EPS to the old DB. the 1st power outage I didnt have any app access (we have a wifi extender in the garage for the lux), which is when I realised that the garage feed came from the new DB, so this has been moved to the old DB (fed via EPS). Since then we've had a further 3 power outages (storms etc) and the EPS worked perfectly, the only telltale we have that we have lost grid is the oven and microwave clocks are lost, its then a case of making sure we try and minimse use until we get power back. I havent tried boiling a kettle when we;ve lost grid and are just sat on the battery, as this is the only load capable of over powering the inverter. Immediately grid is back the lux seemlessly switches back to normal mode. 
The downside of my current set up is if the inverter fails for any reason we would lose power to my old DB as the wiring for it is now via the inveter. Depending on your electrical capability, or if you know a qualified elctrician, it may be worth adding a second DB with the lights, sockets (which feed your router, central heating boiler etc, any wifi extenders) etc and move them across to the new DB and then run the supply to the DB  from the EPS of the lux. You need to ensure the Power Backup is enabled with the monitoring for the lux (top of the maintain desktop page). 

I have not set any permanent allocation for the EPS, so it will stop supplying power at 10% charge, I guess you could set this lower but at present I havent changed that setting. Guess if I'm getting near 10% left with the grid down I may alter it. 

Your main solar will be lost as it will see loss of volts with the grid down, your EPS only feeds some of the house not the part that the solar feeds into. You could get around this by having a small number directly feeding into your house circuit. I have 2x250W panels doing just that (they feed into the garage circuit which sits on my old DB) so continue to work supporting the battery during a power outage.  

Hope this helps

newbuilder

Thanks @chainreaction, are you saying when power drops all solar connected to the inverter is lost or does it charge the batteries but will not go to the house directly?

I was thinking of a manual switchover to the whole house and manually switching off the cooker at the same time? 

How is your earthing for the house, mine shares the neutral supplied by grid and I read that this means you need to earth rod?