[RE-wrenches] Issues with HomeGrid

Tue Feb 11 18:17:35 PST 2025

For what it's worth, they haven't said anything about internet connectivity
on these two systems I'm dealing with right now, and they are both Gen 3.

One site has a bunch of firmware discrepancies, and this is the site with
one module that has all cells low voltage. Not sure if it's even
recoverable. It's sitting at 39V.

The other site has all the same firmware. This is the one I went to today.
One of 16 modules (2 full stacks) has one of 15 cells internally that is
low voltage. To me, that's a clear warranty swap situation, but customer
service wasn't having it. Disassemble the battery and charge it? That's not
a solution. It has been escalated. We will see what happens.

Clearly we should be able to take these back to the shop for diagnostics at
a minimum and get them RMA'd. Requiring the purchase of a Windows laptop
and a battery charger is not ideal for sure.

The only good thing I can say is customer service took over my PC today
remotely and ran diagnostics after installing the required software (which
isn't a fast process). I was expecting them to say, "yep it's toast and
we're sending you a new one, valued customer."

No such luck.

Jason

On Tue, Feb 11, 2025, 6:48 PM Tyrone Houck via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

> Yep. And the 10 year warranty is only good if connected to the internet.
> Firmware update of every module is crucial or else there will likely be
> imbalances. You may be able to address it as 1 and shut of the others and
> charge it through the bus but if it's cell voltage is too low it may be an
> rma situation. I have had similar issues especially with gen 2. Zero issues
> yet with any gen 3 modules but the internet thing really struck a nerve as
> they only just recently got their internet monitoring functional.. having
> to go back to every site is a serious pain just to ensure what should be a
> basic warranty. Best of luck and feel free to contact me offsite if you
> have any other questions I might be able to  help with.
> Tyrone Houck
> Oregon Solarworks LLC
> CCB #204937 LRT #076
> 541-787-1366
> tyrone at oregonsolarworks.com
>
>
>
> On Tue, Feb 11, 2025, 3:36 PM Jason Szumlanski via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
>> Hi Wrenches,
>>
>> I am regretting some HomeGrid Stack'd off-grid installations right now.
>> There is a major flaw in the way these function in an error state. For
>> those of you that don't know, these 48V batteries are stacked with a single
>> BMS on top, covering up to 8 batteries below. Each battery module has a
>> circuit breaker and dip switches to identify the battery communication
>> number and location in the stack. Each BMS can be paralleled to additional
>> stacks with communication cabling.
>>
>> The issue is when one battery module goes into an error state. What will
>> happen is that battery stack's BMS will recognize the error, and then shut
>> down the whole stack. This cascades to the other stacks and the system
>> shuts down - fails to deliver 48V at the output terminals on the BMS of any
>> stack.
>>
>> That is annoying, but what's even more problematic is you can't just shut
>> off the offending battery to bypass it. You need to physically change all
>> of the dip switches to bypass it and then reprogram the BMS to re-recognize
>> the new module count (after taking it out of parallel). This is all very
>> time consuming and requires the inverter system to be shut down. Even if a
>> battery is not in an error state, you can't just turn it off. The whole
>> system goes haywire.
>>
>> Once you have it bypassed, you can hook up a RS-232 cable (Mac users need
>> not apply) and use their software to gather diagnostics. Customer service
>> will then want to do additional diagnostics with the battery in the stock,
>> but that is not reasonable in and off-grid system where uptime is critical.
>> One of the faulty modules I am dealing with was diagnosed as one of 15
>> cells with low voltage. The "solution" is to take it out of the stack and
>> charge it to 100% with an external charger.
>>
>> By the time I'm done with all of the diagnostic nonsense, I can almost
>> pay for a new battery with the lost labor. Isn't the whole idea for this
>> not to happen with balancing done automatically? It was suggested to me
>> that it didn't get charged to 100% often enough, and that is why it
>> happened. That isn't an acceptable reason for failure in an off-grid
>> system.
>>
>> I hate to say this, but EG4 has a far better 5kWh solution in this
>> respect. Each module has it's own BMS. When one fails, you can simply turn
>> off the circuit breaker and everything else continues to work. In fact, a
>> fault in one BMS doesn't take out the whole stack or stacks of battery
>> modules.
>>
>> Back to HomeGrid. When this happens, in my mind this is an automatic RMA.
>> They should be replacing these, no questions asked. Especially at almost
>> twice the price of EG4. They actually want me to disassemble the case of
>> the battery and charge it with an external charger (which I don't have)
>> directly from the terminals that are internal to the battery case. Totally
>> unacceptable. Whatever is inside that case is their problem in my opinion.
>>
>> I am not selling anymore HomeGrid until I get satisfactory resolution to
>> these issues. EG4 isn't perfect, but I have actually had pretty good
>> success installing some that I sold and quite a few that consumers
>> purchased directly. And at almost half the price, it's easier to eat the
>> cost of a battery here and there for customer satisfaction.
>>
>> Anyone have similar issues with HomeGrid?
>>
>> Jason Szumlanski
>> Florida Solar Design Group
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