Lux ac battery controller

chainreaction

Anyone seen this before? My controller and batteries have been working very well, so I'm onto small gains to improve efficiency of the system and reduce any high rate electric import. The other day I was up early and at 6am (current time of low rate tariff ending) noticed that the controller did not pick up load until 06.03 (via my smart meter display and also confirmed in the app) I've checked the controller and it's clock is approx 45secs fast to actual time. The controller charge priority is enabled and runs from 01.00 to 06.00. I could set the controller time to 3 mins fast, but thought I'd post this to see if anyone else has seen this issue and solved it. 

philologus

I figured out how to remove the inverter from the wall and I took it  to the Lux agent, Infinity Innovations, Keighley, on Tuesday morning and the Boss, Jake, who has been very helpful, provided me with a replacement inverter to bring home with me. I'll be installing it tomorrow I hope.The installer didn't help and HIES were a waste of time. My next step was going to be the Energy Ombudsman - but we shouldn't have to do this. The original installer went bust and so HIES should have taken it from there but they said that the Warranty was invalidated by my adding more batteries to the one that I had originally had installed when I bought the system.

As far as I'm concerned, the inverter guarantee was for ten years and I'd only had it for four. The inverter ended at the point where the battery cable left the inverter terminal - so my adding three more batteries to the other end of that cable should not have invalidated the warranty. I think the maximum number of batteries this inverter can handle is five - so I was OK there.

Once I've got it up and running again I'm going to put something together to send to the Ombudsman and/or OFGEM to let them know what has happened and for them to sort HIES out because they have proved to be worse than useless.

Thank you to everyone on here who offered such sound advice.

EVandPV

I recently started having an issue with one of my Pylontechs where the soc seems to get out of whack when it discharges below around 50% and it jumps 20-30% lower than the other 3 in the stack, even though the voltage is in the same region as the rest.
Does anyone know how to do soc calibration ? I'm guessing there's more to it than just allowing it to balance at 100% as that doesn't fix my issue.

Heedtheadvice

Not really sure of the answer @EVandPV but given that the BMS 'balances' the batteries when a new one' with different state of charge to the rest, is added automatically it might  be worth trying ( when all batteries are in  a low state of charge - say under that 50% you mention) switch close down and switch has off all batteries, disconnect the anomalous one (assuming it is not the master) and then restart the remainder as  normal. Once they are at  a significantly different state of charge ( such as 20% or one led different) shut down again reconnect  and power up.

The BMS ought to bring them all to the same state of charge.

Not sure it that will do any good but probably the 'reboot' is worth  a try.

Then if no improvement or other info contact supplier or Pylontech/agents?

EVandPV

Cheers HTA, I'll maybe give that a go. 👍

philologus

I bought a pair of cables for the inverter to batteryconnection.

The old (BURNT) cables have:- 

 AWM E325912  STYLE 10269   4AWG   105C    1000V   VW-1  ---  AWM  1   A  4AWG 105C  1000V  FT1 TYC 

Written along their length.

The new ones I've bought have:-

E248566  AWM   STYLE  10269   AWG 4  105C   1000V   XINHONGYE   AWM   1  A   105C   1000V  FT1   RoHS COMPLIANT

written along their length..

The end that connects to the battery is the same with both, but the spade end of the new ones is very slightly wider than the old ones and will not fit into place at the inverter terminal end.

Is it OK to file a bit off them to make them fit?   We are talking about  1mm to come off.  I think the important number is AWG4 so my feeling is that it should be OK to file a bit off the spade but I thought it would be a good idea to ask on here first.

The new cables are from an installer and are ones that were spare from a job he did that needed longer cables.

The old ones are 50cm longer than the new ones but will reach OK.

Both cable are the same diameter.

Any thoughts please?

I'm in the process of setting it up tonight and the first cable I tried to connect said  "NO". 

1961Nick

philologus said:

I bought a pair of cables for the inverter to batteryconnection.

The old (BURNT) cables have:- 

 AWM E325912  STYLE 10269   4AWG   105C    1000V   VW-1  ---  AWM  1   A  4AWG 105C  1000V  FT1 TYC 

Written along their length.

The new ones I've bought have:-

E248566  AWM   STYLE  10269   AWG 4  105C   1000V   XINHONGYE   AWM   1  A   105C   1000V  FT1   RoHS COMPLIANT

written along their length..

The end that connects to the battery is the same with both, but the spade end of the new ones is very slightly wider than the old ones and will not fit into place at the inverter terminal end.

Is it OK to file a bit off them to make them fit?   We are talking about  1mm to come off.  I think the important number is AWG4 so my feeling is that it should be OK to file a bit off the spade but I thought it would be a good idea to ask on here first.

The new cables are from an installer and are ones that were spare from a job he did that needed longer cables.

The old ones are 50cm longer than the new ones but will reach OK.

Both cable are the same diameter.

Any thoughts please?

I'm in the process of setting it up tonight and the first cable I tried to connect said  "NO". 

As long as the contact area is the same or greater than the previous spade/terminal setup there wont be an issue filing it down a bit. Shorter leads are better as it will lower the resistance of the cable especially at higher loads.

philologus

Thank you Nick.

I didn't set it up last night as I thought it better to wait for a reply on here - just in case.

The new spade has  25 - 8 stamped on it so I cleaned the old burnt one up a bit and and it has 2 58 on it too so I'll file the new one  down a bit to make it fit. I'll make sure that it is smooth and there are no filings left on it.

paul991

8 mm hole and 25 mm  cable

philologus

All done and up and running this afternoon.

A BIG "Thank you" to all those who kept me right and gave me the confidence to do it myself.

Jake, from Infinity Innovations deserves a lot of credit  too.

The battery to inverter  cable I replaced needs to be half a metre longer than the one I've fitted so I'll be keeping an eye open for one of those and I need a new waterproof cover for the inverter end of the battery connection as the old one's threads were scorched and damaged. The batteries haven't been used for four months so I was a bit worried about them  but they are now 15% charged and I'll charge them for a couple of hours overnight too.