[RE-wrenches] Boot-strapping discharged lithium batteries.

Wed Dec 11 18:43:02 PST 2024

William,

I just resusitated an e-Flex that had been warehoused for awhile with the
on button depressed.  The voltage had dropped to 9 volts.  Fortress tech
support said to use a small power supply of about 5 amps to initially get
the batteries up and then use a larger one such as the IOTA 13 amp to bring
it on up.  I left my small 2 amp power supply on overnight and it was up to
42 volts the next morning and I topped it of with the IOTA.  The other
e-Flex I had to recover had a bad fuse which had 51 volts on the battery
side and 38.5 V on the BMS side. Fortress sent me a new fuse.

I install an IOTA 54-13 on all my off grid systems plugged into a dedicated
generator outlet or regular outlet activated with bypass. I wire the DC
output directly into the DC bus in the inverter.  That allows a
generator/bupass output to automatically restart the Lithium batteries.  It
also can play an important role in supplying emergency power when the main
generator has failed. The IOTA can be plugged directly into a small backup
generator such as a Honda 2000 or equivalent.  That backup system worked
flawlessly in a rental ski house when the Generac 12kw failed and no sun
was available to run the house with a Fortress E Vault and Radian
inverter.  With multiple refuelings, the renters saved their ski week and
the owner was saved from having to refund thousands of dollars rental fee.
Ironically right now I am running my 2000 watt generator right now at my
house through the IOTA  because I am doing some remodeling and had to take
the big generator off line to to reroute the power wires. I hope to get the
new wire in tomorrow

John Blittersdorf

 On Wed, Dec 11, 2024 at 2:47 PM Steve Higgins via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

William...
>
> I have found that the best way to do this is to get a regulated power
> supply...
>
> You can use a 60V-5A regulated power supply such as this.
>
>
> https://www.amazon.com/Adjustable-Switching-Regulated-Adjustments-Jesverty/dp/B0B7739SMN/ref=sr_1_3?crid=23FQP9GRXJN8V&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.8lw5oh09yqEulTUX5HEVIIDjBTKpHwzMunKsxWbirnjrTcbTeCRMpvBkvecHly3QdpCCneegdeFTlmca1113laVHIMZkY4Y_o01Ju1LnSLeXjKUPqLwojKzLHVlADneIPWCWsvCoWU9M6Fh4YCBs48kp4eECgcZz7yvdMMVVNHeJkxlFjdvtX9yVW3TGV_wq1BAeToAbxIpzVofasQZ96Ct8GRBLW1bVabcCc_RmAhs.4rbtHxDJBEfcDO734UIYkkHpTk6Cr64NgmGhT7Co2B4&dib_tag=se&keywords=60V+Regulated+power+supply&qid=1733945986&sprefix=60v+regulated+power+supply%2Caps%2C173&sr=8-3
>
> I have found that this is a great way to wake up LFP batteries that have
> gone into protection mode.
>
>
>
> <http://www.rollsbattery.com> <http://www.rollsbattery.com>
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> On Wed, Dec 11, 2024 at 11:22 AM William Miller via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
>> Bruce:
>>
>> There has been some correspondence here on boot-strapping low SOC lithium
>> batteries in protect mode. Buying an outboard battery charger seems hard to
>> accept when you are standing next to a sophisticated battery charger.
>>
>> We had a few occasions of a large E-vault system shutting down for low
>> charge due to mis calibration of SOC. We restarted the system by
>> disconnecting the closed loop data connection, reprogramming the inverters
>> to think they were operating with a VRLA bank and restarting the system.
>> The battery bank, when restarted came on line just long enough to accept
>> battery charging.
>>
>> Once the SOC came up to acceptable levels we reset the system for a BMS
>> battery and we were back running.
>>
>> Maybe this procedure might work for someone else. I have a step-by-step
>> for doing this with a Sunny Island system if anyone wants to look it over.
>>
>>
>> William Miller
>> Miller Solar.com
>> 805-438-5600
>> www.millersolar.com
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Dec 11, 2024 at 11:08 AM Bruce Erickson via RE-wrenches <
>> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Recently one of our four now-orphaned SunVault systems failed to back up
>>> for our customer. On site we found the batteries discharged below cut-in
>>> voltage for unknown reasons (no more monitoring, no more tech support).
>>> Even though it had been sunny for a few days the system failed to retain a
>>> reserve to restart once sun returned. I’m looking for recommendations for
>>> 48 volt external chargers for this situation. We’re looking at Iota which
>>> only has a 13 amp charger at 48v but does have a plug-in module for
>>> controlling LiFePo charging. At 256 amphours of parallel batteries
>>> hopefully an 8 or 10 hour charge would get us up to cut-in. I’m also not
>>> sure how the Iota will play with any BMS the SunPower batteries might have.
>>> Any recommendations for this situation would be much appreciated.
>>>
>>> Thanks in advance,
>>> Bruce
>>>
>>> Bruce Erickson
>>> Mendocino Solar Service
>>> 707-937-1701
>>> PO Box 1252
>>> Mendocino, CA 95460
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> "Serving the Solar System"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
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