AEVA Forums

Quick tip re power up with battery: There are cheap 48V switch mode PSUs available on ebay, I have used one successfully on the battery terminals to fire up a PIP-4048 for quick testing etc.

I thought this was an interesting development. Arvio is now locally reselling KiloWattLabs (USA-based) supercapacitor which comes with its own electronics needed to simulate a 48VDC battery. https://arvioshop.com.au/supercapacitor Being capacitor based, it supports 1 million cycles, 100% depth of di...

The PIP-4048GE obviously has a very different DC side design as it allows a solar input voltage of 150 to 450VDC. You didn't say if you live in Australia. One of the advantages of the old PIP is the DC voltages stay under 120V DC and thus it is legal for non-electricians to configure the DC wiring ...

jds686868 wrote: ↑

Wed, 13 Dec 2017, 13:41

So what's my question..... Should I put 3 or 4 panels in series??

Three panels is optimal. with 250W panels I see (roughly) voltages of 70 to 90 under load.

Thanks for the hard work. I am looking forward to trying it out.

My usage is likely to be to default the current to zero (for safety / full battery), and have the BMS set maximum possible charge current when the battery is not full, and not really anything in between.

Computer control easy I can do that already , you only need a relay with 4 poles less than $5. Do you want control with a web page so any device can be used eg smart phone? No, I've got a little embedded computer which will power up extra units depending on time of day, load, and battery %soc .. do...

Sure - but I actually wanted it to be computer controlled and 4-way or 4x relays is overkill unless absolutely necessary

Does anyone know if the remote on/off inputs can be "daisy chained" ? Can I switch on/off two or more inverters at the same time by connecting their NC/NO contacts in parallel or series and a single switch?

Zero would be great. I always thought it was a serious deficiency that they don't allow you to simply stop charging completely (except by swizzling voltages).

(There really should be a physical input terminal that disables all charging)

Thanks for the explanation weber. I can still work with that, but if it stops receiving commands (something broken or an emergency), could it default to 0A instead of 2A?

So if you get it working, we'll be dynamically setting the voltage, right? Not the current.

Which makes sense: when we want to stop charging, we want the current to be 0A (at float voltage), not 2A (the minimum current you are able to specify).

By the way weber/coulomb, I've been meaning to ask: Did you ever come across code that governs AC charging? Specifically resetting charge back to zero for another "sweep" all the time. It really seems like a bug, since it happens even when charging off mains and not a generator.

Coulomb and I spent the day investigating the feasibility of a dynamic maximum charge current command. This sounds good! I have been reluctant to flash mine thus far, since I don't ever let the PIP reach bulk charge termination. I've never tried the MNCHGC command. I am setting up a new (parallel) ...

hennejg if your solar input and battery are sized optimally, I think you don't really need to worry that much about charge rate - you can set things up so that the PIP will be sending its maximum charge to the battery for say, 96% of the battery capacity. You can then switch to a lower charge rate (...

Hi andys. I never claimed to measure it. You will see that I refer to it as "estimated" every time I mention it. Ah yes! Very clever indeed, especially the way you determine charge completion. (Although in practice I've noticed the voltage can be "sticky" during periods of transition from charge to...

weber how do you measure open circuit voltage while the battery is still a member of a possibly charging or discharging pack?

I am updating the PIP twice day over serial via PBFT command to begin and end rapid charging. Other than wearing out the EEPROM (not sure how many cycles it would support?) it is working well for me.

Thank you ghatikar, most interesting. This situation is quite frustrating as I'm not sure what generator to buy for my new system (4 x parallel PIP) because I don't know what it will be able to charge at. Also I am not using generators with AVR, just the constant RPM direct AC type. I have been look...

Just tried a new generator - its a Honda 13HP petrol with 8kW alternator. Reading a strong 240VAC while maintaining 50 amps PIP charge rate, for quite some time before dropping out. Then it gets worse and worse, shorter periods until the next drop out. I tried removing all other AC loads and it just...

Lately my mains input has been higher, around 245-250V. I have been successfully charging at 40A with no drop-outs.

Feels like it might have a "hair trigger" on change in input voltage or phase which makes it stop charging suddenly when on lower voltages or generator.

I noticed there's now a PIP5048MS on sale

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/142343699895

Anyone got any information on this? It looks like the same as the 4048 but with an upgraded AC inverter? Very annoying as I just purchased a bunch of 4048s

[ Edited Coulomb: clickable link ]

Similar behaviour to mine, but yours is triggering quickly at 30A, mine can go up to 40A and sit there for 5-10 minutes (less if I'm running loads too).

I should add that the exact same thing happens to me when charging on mains (grid). Due to high cable length and poor quality, the voltage drops to 220V and below, and the pip cuts out at around the same point.

I always assumed it was just a low voltage cut-out but maybe something else is going on.

With my much smaller (single cylinder Honda) generator I experienced the same thing. The generator is rated for over 3kW output, but once I go above around 2.2kW the voltage at the PIP input sags below about ~220VAC, the PIP cuts out and starts ramping up from zero again. I can trigger this pretty r...

I'm also working on a shed+house setup and it just seemed too hard to balance loads, so I'm attempting to stick to single phase.

Also I've discovered you can single phase 4 pole electric motors in up to 3.7kW (5HP) so I can't see single phase ever being a problem for me.