EasySolar-II GX - AcOut2 on when SOC > 80, Off when SOC < 70, cycling on/off @ 67%, Assistant bug?

DIY
, , , , , ,
1

Hi All,

I’ve had this setup in the past and it worked well, but I’ve added a battery to the stack, and updated all the firmware versions, and now it’s cycling the ACOut2 relay every ~5 seconds.

The intention is to have AC2 on when the battery is full (enough), and off otherwise to prolong the period the AC1 loads can run at night.

System: EasySolar-II GX (3000/48), 3 Pylontech batteries 1 (new) 5kw, 2 older 3kw. The 5kw is the new 1C version, and it’s the master.

Assistant rules are as follows:

image
image476×378 59.6 KB

It used to be on at 92%, and off at 85%, since the battery pack was smaller (just the 2x 3.5kw pair). And that worked fine.

I don’t think adding the new battery is causing this problem. All the specs, stats, max charge amps, etc all look right at various states of charge.

Upgrading the victron firmware though was a pretty hefty leap in version numbers (~2 years worth of updates) and I had to re-create the assistants.

I’m fairly sure I made them fundamentally the same. But it might have been that I was using “Charge State” before instead of “State of charge” I’m not sure, and VeConfigure doesn’t elaborate on the differences.

The problem is, once the SOC goes below 70, it cycles on and off every 5-10 seconds. I added a relay locker of off = 60 seconds, and then I get on for 5, off for 60, back on for 5, …

Pre Upgrade, it wouldn’t come on again until it hit the high level (80% in this case). I’m not sure how it’s possible to be turning on now at 68% only to be turned off again 5 seconds later.

Maybe there’s another flag I need to fix outside the assistant bits. It’s been ~4 years since I originally set this up, so memory has faded a bit.

I fear though, that it’s some sort of bug in the assistants. And worse, I leave for the event this is for in 5 days, so I’m not having a huge amount of time to sort this.

Happiest to find a fix, thought I’ll gladly accept a bandaid at this point. AC2 just needs to not come on with SOC < 70..

Thanks, Peter

2

Any other assistants installed?
Show a summary of all.
Did you have a full charge cycle since upgrading?

3

It had just those two when the problem was initially noticed. I’ve since added a relay locker to slow down the cycling a bit..

image
image568×549 85.1 KB

That’s the full assistant list.

Full cycle, not exactly, it’s sitting relatively idle in my shop. I was curious about the idle drain, so left it running solo for ~ 2 weeks since charging it to 100% for the first time with the additional 5kw battery.

image
image1025×642 21.6 KB

A friend in the shop let me know it was making a clicking noise every few seconds on the 12th.. When I added the relay locker (remotely) as a precaution. When arriving at the shop, I confirmed that the AcOut2 was indeed coming on for ~5 seconds, and then off for ~60 in cycle.

Not knowing how to fix this, I AC charged it to ~90% to stop the cycling for a few days. At the event in a week from now it’ll be 100% off grid.

I fear the most that this is an assistant bug, since the data looks stable, and the assistant rules don’t have any logical overlap possible to cause this behavior.

4

image
image1327×309 24.1 KB

If this helps any.. I’m presuming the assistants all fall under the v556 bit for the internal multiplus. but I’m likely going to try the EasySolar update 3.55->3.60 if no better ideas come to me by Monday.

5

I would try to power cycle the unit, reset the unit to factory settings and start from scratch with the configuration.

6

So the firmware upgrade I did ~3 weeks ago fundamentally did reset it to factory settings. And this is the only config I’ve changed besides wifi, and AC charge current limit since.

I’m happy to power cycle it to give that a go, but I also shudder at even the conception of Victron’s equipment being in the same category as a Microsoft reboot. I expect significantly more reliability from Victron, though their gatekeeping regarding support does trouble me.

7

Every computer can get suck, shouldn’t happen but can happen.

The order of the assistants can also matter.
I normally first configure the ON and than OFF, maybe try that.