Lux ac battery controller

saxon_viking

This is the solar prediction that I'm trying to integrate to control the charging. Blue is predicted, purple is the actual production overlay.

newbuilder

This is amazing, I would t know where to start but want it!

Spies

Can a normal electrician fit a lux power? Does it need it's own circuit as my CU is full. 

Solarchaser

It really should be on its own circuit yeah.
Any spark should be able to wire it in

saxon_viking

This is the solar prediction that I'm trying to integrate to control the charging. Blue is pre

newbuilder said:

This is amazing, I would t know where to start but want it!

Hi newbuilder, it wasn't that hard once I got going. I'm stuck on getting what I want at the moment as I've been sick to haven't been able to crack on.  Have a look on the  Home assistant forum and have a look. If you don't want to buy any equipment you can do a virtual machine installation, I use virtual box but there are others and you can play around to your hearts content. To be honest, it's probably easier to start with virtual machine version to get your self started.

Trust me, I'm no genius when it comes to this stuff. Many, many late nights and getting told off for "being on that bloody computer again"

ianatkin

I have a hybrid inverter and UHome batteries. I'm experiencing a couple of different types of unreliability and I was wondering if anyone else has experienced similar. 

About every two weeks at the moment the system will just stop using the batteries even though they're nearly full. No errors come up in the Luxpower app and there's no fault light on the batteries, they just show as providing 0W in the app. The Luxpower app shows the consumption and resulting grid import in the app so it's not a CT clamp issue. If I go and crawl up in the loft and turn everything off and back on it just starts working again. 

A different problem that has developed this weekend is the batteries responding very slowly to changes in house load. If I put the kettle on it's taking 30 seconds before the batteries start providing power when normally it would be very quick. 

We have one of those countertop halogen ovens that cycles a halogen lamp to heat food - with the cycle time being only about 30 seconds the system seems to be importing from the grid for most of the time the lamp is on and, just as it's about to turn off, the batteries will start discharging and then I'll be exporting to the grid for maybe 30 seconds and then the cycle repeats. It didn't used to behave like this, it previously would respond very quickly when this halogen oven was being used. Again, neither the app nor the units themselves showed any errors or faults. I've crawled up in the loft to reset everything and that seemed to fix it briefly but now it's doing the same thing again. 

I can't figure out if it's the inverter not asking for power from the batteries or the batteries failing to provide power as soon as it is demanded. I would guess it's the batteries at fault as everything seems to work fine when there's an excess of solar, plus the batteries have seemed to be flaky ever since they were installed. 

The batteries are on firmware v1.2.9 and the inverter is on AAAA-191B if that helps. 

Wattstored

Hi, I am new to the forum & have recently added Lux SquirrelPod/Pylontech 9.6kW batteries independent to my existing solar system.

We have two EVs and 5kW PV with 6.7kW battery storage but because of the way this was installed I'm unable to force charge without it registering as additional FIT payment (not permitted of course). The Pylontech batteries will therefore be independently force charged when needed.

The Lux setup is predominantly for use during the winter months when PV generation is low, to charge during the 6 hour Intelligent Octopus time slot which I already use for the cars & programmable appliances. 

I am trying to get my head around the ‘Maintain’ part of the Lux web based app and am unsure about some of the terminology/setup features so could someone please help and confirm what each of the following is meant to do (screenshot at the bottom shows where each question relates to)…

1. Power Backup (Enable/Disable). What does this do?
2. System Charge Power Rate % - what does this do? By trial and error it seems to have worked in reducing the charge wattage down to a level that charged the batteries without drawing from grid when solar excess was around 1kWh (which is why it shows 30% as this apparently worked when I used it*)
3. Charge priority settings - if enabled does this block discharge for the hours set in any/all of the 3 start/end times? As I have set it shown on the screenshot, the batteries don’t discharge until I change one or other of 1-2 start/end time to 00-00.
4. ….If so, what does disabling Charge Priority Disable actually do (enable permanent discharge down to 10%?)
5. What impact does changing Priority Charge Rate % have? 
6. What are Discharge Settings supposed to do?
7. What are the Forced Discharge Enable/Disable meant to achieve - is this purely for export back to the grid based on a PV linked inverter or will it somehow export from the Pylontech batteries back to the grid? (Something I do NOT want to do as I will not receive payment)
8. What are the meanings of On-grid discharge Cut-off and Off-grid discharge Cut-off.
9. As a final, probably dumb question, can anything be done between the two systems to automatically fill the Pylontechs once the other batteries are full? (I am assuming that there would not be a CT clamp configuration that could achieve this if I took one from the LUX to either the PV inverter +ve cabling or the main incoming house +ve supply cable).  

*When not charging overnight 23.30-05.30 I occasionally want to be able to start charging during the day at a lower rate than excess solar generation ie a cloudy period where the panels are exporting excess (after ‘their own’ batteries are full) so I want the Lux inverter to only charge the Pylontechs at a low rate to avoid also taking the remainder from the grid during a daytime peak period. I appreciate that this arrangement would require monitoring & adjustment in real time to try and avoid drawing from peak rate grid & therefore probably impractical. However there are occasional cloud free days where it could be used if I find a way to trickle charge at a low % rate, hence why I’m asking. 

The alternative is to set the Pylontechs to charge when the PV batteries are at a low SOC so solar generation goes there first but I don't want the LUX to draw 3.6kWh at the max of my other inverter, hence I need to understand the answers to questions 2 & 5 above so I can reduce to a lower charge rate.
 

Any answers or help from experienced users will be appreciated as I am not clear what many of the config settings for the Lux actually do.

Many Thanks

Andrew

madswitcher

Hi Andrew,

I also have a Lux Squirrel Pod/9.6K Pylylontec set up that is integrated into my existing 3.9 KW PV panels.  I am not sure from your post if your Lux set up is integrated with your PV panels as you state that is 'independent to', but I can answer some of your questions.

My set up is that the PV supplies the house with power when it can.  If it generates excess power it goes to the Pylontech batteries.  If they then get full, it tries to export the excess to the grid, but via a Solar Boost that detects this and tries to turn on the electric immersion heater.  The last export of power from the PV is the grid.

If the PV power drops then the house is supplied by the batteries and whatever is coming from the PV panels in the first instance.  If enough power is not available to supply the house, then additional power is drawn from the grid.  The last point of power draw is from the grid.

I think that this set up is the optimum from the PV/Lux/Pylontech.

I would like to be able to use the Octopus to charge the batteries over night, but at the moment transfer to Octopus from E-On is not financially beneficial.

So for your questions.

(1) Backup power.  Each of the Lux inverters can supply power of about 13 amps each from the EPS connector if the grid goes down and if the batteries are charged (see answer to question 7 below).  I had a local electrician change the house wiring so that the central heating boiler, down stairs lighting ring (all LEDS), garage ring main (for the Internet connection/wireless) and the lounge ring main are all on the same consumer unit which is separate from the rest of the house and which then connected to the EPS connector of the first Lux inverter.  Then if the grid goes down, the Lux switches over in about 0.01 of a second and powers the above circuits from the batteries.  This works very well and has been put to the test a few times.  Note that for more that 13 Amps emergency power, you have to have 2 separate circuits, one to each Lux EPS connection.

(2) I set the Charge Rate to 100% as I want as much power as possible to go into the batteries from the PV.

(3) to (7) I don't know as I cannot use battery charging from the grid at a low cost (yet).

(8) When the grid is on and house is being supplied from the PV/batteries, we want to keep a bit of power in reserve for the situation of if the grid goes down.  This is the 'On Grid cut off %'. I set mine to 12% so I always have 12% of the battery power in reserve.  When the batteries get down to this level, the house draws power from the grid.  However, we don' want to completely discharge the batteries if the grid is down and the emergency power is supplying the house, so I set the 'Off grid cut off' to 4%.  So the emergency power available when the grid goes down is 12-4 = 8% which is enough to see us through most brown/black outs.

(9) Don't know

Hope this helps and maybe some of the Octopus customers can help with the other questions.

Wattstored

Thanks @madswitcher, this setup is not integrated into my main PV system of panels, inverter & batteries for the reason I mentioned relating to the FIT meter.

PV supplies the house, cars etc & excess goes to the connected 6.7kW batteries & once full export is to the grid.

Manual charging of Pylontechs:
What I'm trying to do is then divert some or all of that excess to the Pylontechs via Lux inverter manually in real time via the Lux web browser or app. I don't want to set charge rate to 100% because this then draws grid peak rate at the difference between current excess and 3.6kWh so I need to set a lower rate but am unsure of the difference between System Charge Power Rate % and AC Charge Power Rate . Both settings look like they do the same thing but have different names - I'm confused?

Automate charging of Pylontechs?:
If there was a way to use the Lux solar CT clamp (currently attached to its inverter but coiled up) across to the other inverter which is 10m away in the Garage (Lux/Pylontechs in the house understairs cupboard) and automate this process then that would be fantastic but I don't know if that would work given that it is already supplying its own batteries? I could extend the cable but would it work & if so which +ve supply cable should it clamp round?

(By the way, the Lux does have a double 13a socket direct wired that the installer said will remain live in the event of a power outage - my wifi router is on it) 

Thanks for the explanation about the on-off grid cut off %ages but do I have to then permanently enable Forced Discharge or just in the event of a power outage? At the moment this is set to Disable as I don't really understand what Forced Discharge will do (compared to Charge Priority Enable that DOES discharge my batteries).

Apologies but I am struggling to understand the logic of many of the terms and settings.

dellpitch

Need help to understand why my Lux AC3600 ACS is not allowing my batteries to discharge.
When I look at the Lux monitor the battery symbol is showing zero charge yet the batteries are showing up to 5 green lights.
My system comprises of 32 SW250 poly panels(8kw) each fitted with Enphase micro converters and Envoy S internet gateway. My batteries are 3 - US 2000C and 1 - US2000
I have recently added a Zappi 2 charge point for my EV(64kw E Niro). Zappi works fine, charges the car from solar
The alarm LCD on the master battery is red continuously.
The Lux monitor shows "communication failure with battery".
I am at a loss not really understanding electrics, I am in a dark tunnel'
Any help/guidance would be much appreciated.