PIP-4048MS and PIP-5048MS inverters

[stoianco]

Hello All,

About one month ago a team installed me a complete system with a PIP-5048MS.

2 days ago (Wednesday) at 15:42 the solar panels got disconected and have never been reconected ever since! It worked on batteries and I just realized it today. Lucky for me i have big batteries. It has the settings: SBU and Solar only. Now I have moved it to Solar and Solar first to protect the batteries (I'm still ongrid for the time beeing).
Restart, changing parameters, restore parameters to factory default... no way to make it start taking some power from the panels.

I have 12 panels (4 strings of 3 panels) max V is 37.9*3, so no way to have more than 145V.
I have DC breakers between panels and PIP, I have DC breakers between batteries and PIP all looks ok
Today there were 101VDC at the PIP PV entrance - it just didn't care!

There is no error message -> only thing I realized is that I see no secondary CPU version in PowerWatch (?!?) Isn't that exactly the PV controller? Can it just die, while all the others are still working?!?

I have already send an email to support but they have up to 3 working days to reply
If any suggestion/ideea... please help!

Thanks a lot in advance!

[weber]

There is no error message -> only thing I realized is that I see no secondary CPU version in PowerWatch (?!?) Isn't that exactly the PV controller?

Yes, it is.

Can it just die, while all the others are still working?!?

Yes, it can. The PV controller or SCC (Solar Charge Controller) is a separate circuit board, mounted on top of the heatsinks of the main (inverter/charger) circuit board.. Another possibility is that some cable connecting to the SCC has come loose inside the PIP. You could check this by isolating the PIP from battery, PV array and grid, and taking the cover off, and giving each such connection a wiggle, or unplugging and replugging it.

[stoianco]

The unit is one month old, so in waranty period.
Make sense to be just a stupid plug topic, still, because is sealed, I'm not sure if I should open it.

[paulvk]

What are the panels how many watts?

[stoianco]

Canadian Solar CS6K-270P 12 pcs (4 strings of 3 pcs in series) => Voc: 37.9*3= 113.7V

[paulvk]

I would look into warranty return before opening.
Note I had more panels on one unit at one point but it maxed out at 61amps even though more power was available so it should not have overloaded.

[stoianco]

After a lot of emails with their support department, they asked me to open it, so I did it. I have find out that the MPPT board is burned out.
Now I'm waiting for their solution to repair it.

Thanks a lot for sugestions and support!

[6mdx]

Hi guys, been absent from the forum for a while.

I have finally "bit the bullet" and ordered 15 Calb 180s.

So my questions relates to setting voltages on my PIP HS 5048.

I note from Calbs spec sheet that:

initial charge 3.8 V,
operating voltage 3.65 V

So what is the best float and absorption settings and what voltage is 80% DOD?

thanks Robert

[weber]

Hi Robert.

For LFP cells (which CALBs are), Coulomb and I use a float voltage of 3.36 V per cell. The ideal absorb voltage depends on the maximum charge current and the internal resistance of the cell. I use 3.38 V + max_charge_current * internal_resistance. But internal resistance varies enormously with temperature. However you don't have to be too accurate with absorb voltage, since the cells don't spend a lot of time there. 3.50 V per cell is a reasonable compromise in most situations.

There is no voltage that will tell you when your LFP battery is 80% charged. The only states of charge you can reliably determine from voltage are those below 30% or above 95%. If the cells have been rested for at least half an hour and you know whether they were being charged or discharged prior to resting, then you can also tell if they are above or below 75% state of charge*, but that's about it. Some insight into the difficulty of estimating LFP state of charge from voltage (and some graphs of voltage versus SoC) may be found here:
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=4332&p=59994#p59994

* If they were being charged prior to resting, they are above 75% if they're above 3.33 V.
If they were being discharged prior to resting, they are above 75% if they're above 3.31 V.

[Edit note: Changed 3.32 to 3.33 and 3.30 to 3.31 above.]

[coulomb]

So what is the best float and absorption settings and what voltage is 80% DOD?

For LFP, 80% DOD (20% SOC) is about 3.21 VPC, or about 48.2 V for 15S. That's rested, after mild discharge, as you would hopefully get in early morning when your battery might be running low.

[weber]

Thanks Coulomb. As you probably guessed, I somehow missed the "DOD".

Robert, if you're looking for a low voltage cutoff setting for the PIP, for LFP cells, we use 3.17 V per cell in Brisbane, and 3.13 V per cell in locations further inland where the overnight temperature goes below zero in winter. As rested voltages, those correspond to about 7% and 5% SoC, but there will almost always be some load that takes the voltage below those thresholds at 20% to 40% SoC. And the PIP gives a warning well before that happens.

[curasun]

Good day guys,

One quick question, what bms are you using?
I'm planning to build a powerwall of liyhium-ion batteries in 14s configuration.
My concern is most BMS's for lithium ion balance at top at 4.2v and bottom at 2.5v. I don't wanna go to this extremes to prolong battery life. I'm using now a PCM60x and a PIP4048, can I limit the charge and dischage to 4.0v top and 3.0 bottom with the PCM60X AND pip4048 and let the BMS do the rest.

I was looking at this BMS, by Chargery.com, but I don't know if it can use solar as the charging source. but it looks promising.
www.chargery.com

What do you guys think?

Best regards R.G.Specht
From Carribean.

[6mdx]

Weber and Coulomb, thank for the detailed replies. Looking forward to sending the lead to Pb heaven. At close to a ton, it should give me money to buy more toys.

I ordered a BMS from the same WA place as the Calb180s. hopefully it will do the job, but I do wish i had asked you guys first.

cheers Robert

[Kimo-23]

hello to everyone in this forum.
I'm Italian and I'm proud to be with you in this forum.
I have a problem and I hope someone can help me
I have an Opti-solar sp5000 brilliant inverter.
it worked great for 2 years.
I do not know what my dad has done, and the charger board has burned.
I bought it from the parent company (opti-solar) and replaced it.
my problem is when I connect the batteries to start the inverter gives me the error (code 03) (battery over charged), I checked the voltage of the batteries and is 49 volts.
I also tried other batteries and always gave me the same error.
in the display where there is battery information, it gives me a voltage of 119 volts !!!!!
thanks to anyone who can help me to solve the problem.
and sorry for my poor English.
if you need some more information about my inverter, ask.
thank you

[reecho]

Is there a possibility for custom firmware for the 3024MSE?.

[weber]

Hi Kimo-23. When you say you replaced the "charger board", do you mean the solar charge controller (SCC) board? Or the main board that contains the AC charger (and inverter)?

[weber]

Is there a possibility for custom firmware for the 3024MSE?.

Sorry Reecho, but no. At least not from Coulomb and I. As you can imagine, it is very time-consuming work. Keeping up with PIP-4048MS firmware, and hopefully soon PIP-5048MS firmware, when new versions come out, is as much as we can handle. And even if we wanted to, we don't have a copy of the 3024MSE firmware and we don't have a machine to test it on.

[Kimo-23]

Hi Kimo-23. When you say you replaced the "charger board", do you mean the solar charge controller (SCC) board? Or the main board that contains the AC charger (and inverter)?

Hi Weber thank you for the answer.
replaced the SCC that is located across the top of the inverter.
I also detached the main board and I also checked the diodes and the resistors (following the instructions of the MANUAL SERVICE) it seems that everything is fine, but keeps giving me the error 03.
I would like to try to update the software, can you explain how to do it?
if it can do with the inverter turned off?
thank you so much

[weber]

Hi Kimo-23. I don't recommend updating the software at this stage. I suggest disconnecting the SCC completely from the main board, and then seeing if the SP5000 will work as an inverter and AC charger without giving the error 03. My thinking is based on the fact that the main board requests the battery voltage via serial communication from the SCC, as well as reading it from its own sense resistors. This experiment would establish whether the wrong voltage reading is due to the new SCC.

[reecho]

Is there a possibility for custom firmware for the 3024MSE?.

Sorry Reecho, but no. At least not from Coulomb and I. As you can imagine, it is very time-consuming work. Keeping up with PIP-4048MS firmware, and hopefully soon PIP-5048MS firmware, when new version come out, is as much as we can handle. And even if we wanted to, we don't have a copy of the 3024MSE firmware and we don't have a machine to test it on.

No probs. This site i'm working on (swapping Trojan lead for AVASS LifePo 4 with the mentioned PIP) may end up upgrading in the future. I will have to set some easy limits with the SCC and monitor it closely.

[coulomb]

Is there a possibility for custom firmware for the 3024MSE?.

I agree with Weber's comments. However, I note that the MSE series, being "economy" models, aren't parallelable. So they should not have the major charge bug, which is in a function associated with parallel operation. In fact, I believe that the source file name with the main charge bug is "parallel.c". [ Edit: It seems I was wrong; see this post. ]

So the major impetus for patching the firmware would not be present.

As a point of interest, what features were you hoping for in a patched firmware?

[weber]

... I note that the MSE series, being "economy" models, aren't parallelable. So they should not have the major charge bug, which is in a function associated with parallel operation. In fact, I believe that the source file name with the main charge bug is "parallel.c".

Despite asking Coulomb to explain this in email, I still have no idea why he thinks that the function containing the bug is "associated with parallel operation" in such a way as to suggest that it would not be present in a non-parallelable machine. The function is only associated with parallel operation in the weak sense that almost every function needs to consider other machines in parallel, when they can exist. The bug itself is not associated with parallel operation in any way.

The bug is in the function that checks whether the conditions have been met to go from absorb stage to float stage. This is required whether machines are parallelable or not. As Coulomb discovered, the bug consists in choosing the smaller of the absorb and float voltage settings when it should be choosing the larger. The cause was probably a programmer typing a "<" instead of a ">".

The MSE and MS series are so similar in every respect apart from parallelability, that I think it is almost certain they use the same code-base. I think the parallel version of that function was almost certainly created by copying a non-parallel version and modifying it. But there was no reason to revisit the buggy comparison in that process, as this only involves voltage settings, and voltage settings are necessarily the same across all machines in parallel. Other functions take care of that.

So I think it is highly likely that the MSE series have the same premature-float bug as the MS. But there is no need to rely on either Coulomb's theory or mine. If you have one, you can just do the experiment I describe here:
viewtopic.php?title=pip4048ms-inverter& ... 332#p59896

The good news is that Coulomb and I have weakened. We will look at fixing the premature float bugs (only), in any model closely related to the PIP-4048MS (off-grid, not grid-feed or hybrid) [Edit: and not those models with unsafe SCCs (those that can't go below 120 V and have no insulation monitoring)], if someone can send us a firmware update file for it, e.g. by forum private message. We will keep such benefactors anonymous.

[Kimo-23]

Hi Kimo-23. I don't recommend updating the software at this stage. I suggest disconnecting the SCC completely from the main board, and then seeing if the SP5000 will work as an inverter and AC charger without giving the error 03. My thinking is based on the fact that the main board requests the battery voltage via serial communication from the SCC, as well as reading it from its own sense resistors. This experiment would establish whether the wrong voltage reading is due to the new SCC.

Hi I tried to disconnect the SCC from the mainboard and connect only the batteries but the inverter does not start. I am desperate. is there any other way to remove the error 03 thank you very much

[weber]

Hi I tried to disconnect the SCC from the mainboard and connect only the batteries but the inverter does not start. I am desperate. is there any other way to remove the error 03 thank you very much

My mistake. I think there is a thin white cable with a 2-pin plug, from the SCC to the main board, that is needed to allow the main board to work. For this experiment, I think you can have every connection from the SCC to the main board except for the white ribbon cable that goes from the SCC to the processor daughter board. I think it has a 6 pin or 8 pin white plug. [Edit: Turns out it's 4 pin] It is a serial comms cable. Just leave that one disconnected, so the main board cannot communicate with the SCC. Then connect only the battery and see if it works as an inverter without the error 03.

What is the U1 version number?

When you reconnect the SCC comms cable, and connnect solar panels and battery, what is the U2 version number?

[coulomb]

in the display where there is battery information, it gives me a voltage of 119 volts !!!!!

The LC Display of the inverter model we know shows the battery voltage as NN.N, so a maximum of 99.9 V. How did you see the 119 V figure? [ Edit: I was wrong. Up to 999 V can be displayed by removing the decimal point. ]

Edit: "does not start" could mean doesn't invert, or nothing displays at all. In "fault mode" (when a fault code like 03 is showing), the inverter will never invert, but I believe you can still scroll through the display settings with the up and down buttons. What does the battery voltage say?

My recollection is that the 2-pin connector from the SCC is just as an alternative way to start the machine. So I don't think that should stop the inverter from displaying anything.
Use the rocker switch under the machine to start it.