Older Xantrex Inv, New Lithium Battery-problems

Rootdigger · November 2021

Hi all, I have and 2005ish Xantrex 4024 inverter with Xantrex C60 charge controllers. I am running hydro and solar and there are separate charge controllers for each. When my latest round of lead acid batts died I looked into Lithium Ion to run on my system. The battery manufacturer was OK with an older inverter as long as I could customize the settings to their specs, which I could. I contacted Xantrex and they said yes. Contacted Xantrex again before purchase of the new batt with questions and no problem. Contacted them again with issues that popped up pre install, no problem. I did the install, the battery sat for around a month as I got all the info, specialty cables, etc, so it was at 26.8v when I hooked it up. All charging specs were to be set at 29.4v according to the battery spec sheet, batt high Voltage shutoff was set at 29.5V, EQ off, disabled the temp comp by simply unplugging the cat 5 cables. Great to have power again!

3:30 in the morning I went out to relieve myself and heard a horrible racket in the shed went out and saw on both the new battery and the inverter meters menu a voltage reading on both of 47.2V!!! The racket was the hydrogenerator stressing to pump that out. I turned down the flow of the hydro and the amps dropped from 19A down to around 15A and the battery voltage dropped instantly from 47.2V to 27.2V. I monitored for an hour and went back to bed. Woke up at 8am and went out to the same noise and the voltage was back up to 47.2V, turned the hydro down again and it instantly dropped to 27.2V. I did some additional checking all day and the slave inverter did not have everything set so got that matched with Inv1 and hoped that was it. This morning my wife and I were awoken by the alarm clock, not by the alarm but a loud electrical buzzing noise and I ran out and founf the voltage on both the batt and meters menu at 58V!!! Turned the hydro down and it instantly fell to 27.2, but before I even left the shed it started ramping up again and I turned the hydro down and the voltage dropped to 27.2V. I think 27.2V is the magic number where this happens so I turned on a toaster for a while, dropped the V to well under 27V and adjusted the hydro amps to where we are running break even for the house and it has been fine all day.

Xantrex got bought by Schneider around 2011 and later they split Xantrex off as a mobile application unit and in all those transitions they completely dropped the ball on legacy customer support. They lost all the manuals, no one is trained in them. I have been working with them for 2 days and am now in the hands of the engineers who are just guessing. While I am waiting to hear from them I thought I would try here and see if I can find some legacy knowledge. I can post all the specs, wanted to see if there is any bites first. Kinda up against a wall as we will get snowed in for 6 months at any time and the last couple months in the dark with a 7 and 4 year old was pretty trying to say the least. Thanks!

Rootdigger · November 2021

I guess I should post my questions, First why is this happening? What is happening? The highest voltage the Xantrex is capable of programming to is 33V. I have the High Battery Voltage Cutoff set at 29.5V and it is blowing way past that and not triggering it, what is up with that?

Dave Angelini · November 2021

You can google the manuals for the old SW 4024. They have been on this website, so look here also. Which model? SW or SW+
Offgrid is a challenge! Back-ups and spares are required for a place that gets snowed in for 6 months, especially with children!
Good Luck!

Rootdigger · November 2021

Dave Angelini said:

You can google the manuals for the old SW 4024. They have been on this website, so look here also. Which model? SW or SW+
Offgrid is a challenge! Back-ups and spares are required for a place that gets snowed in for 6 months, especially with children!
Good Luck!

SW Plus 4024, sorry. I have a manual, Schneider Tech support doesn't, from what I understand they lost everything technical. They didn't even know what it looked like till I sent them a pic! There is nothing in the manual that can account for this at all. Thanks!

mike95490 · November 2021

Your hydro plant & charge controller need to have a "DUMP LOAD" as a place for excess power at 3am when batteries are full and loads are low. The dump load should be at least 2x the wattage the hydro can produce. Check the dump load and the settings for it. You cannot let the hydro "free run" or you will ruin the bearings in it.

littleharbor2 · November 2021

What do your batteries look like now? I had a high voltage event with a lithium battery bank and they got hideously bloated.

Photowhit · November 2021

I think Mike has the likely problem, but you had lead acid in the past...

The inverter doesn't charge batteries unless it is attached to a generator, which hasn't been discussed.

Perhaps when you setup the C60 to charge lithium batteries, you changed it back to it's standard solar charging mode?

Unlike solar hydro electric MUST make energy and must have a place for the energy to go when the batteries are fully charged. That is what a dump load is...

Rootdigger · November 2021

Thanks all for the thoughts. First as far as damage to the batteries according to the battery co chief engineer there is a BMS unit that would prevent any Voltages over 29.4V from damaging the battery. He said that he doesn't doubt that I saw those huge 50V+ surges but he said if there was damage the BMS would be the first to go before the battery. One theory and why it didn't trip the threshold high voltage circuit breakers in the inverter was that there was a corresponding drop in Amps to something insignificant.

As far as it being a dump load, that is interesting and for sure something I will check to make sure I didn't jostle something loose on install. The system was engineered and installed by one of the best in 2008, unfortunately he has moved up to massive commercial projects with 20 employees and I am from another life so he is no help. The system was designed to have hot water, like a 4600W 80gal water heater and the rest of the time, outside of using the toaster or microwave, pretty much with the batteries topped off and dumping the load. Don't focus on the water heater, it is long gone, a good inverter salesman would have asked not if I can do it but rather should I do it. Been running smooth since 2008. Generating 19A @24v we had no ideas the batteries had any issues till we had to dial back the draw from the creek in this once in 1200yr drought and needed to rely on the solar backup for the first time. To give you an idea how bad my wife used the toaster after the sun was off the panels and in 2 minutes she dropped the battery voltage from 29V to 19V on 6 of those 300lb industrial batteries...sorry, I cannot find the amp hour rating on the batteries or their website. So, the dump system is robust and solid. I will still take a looksee.

The other thing about the dump load theory is that the max voltage for the battery is 29.4V and I get the extreme over voltage kick in at what I suspect is 27.2V. I can't prove that 27.2V yet, it is just that every time I correct the extreme voltage it always kicks down to the same 27.2V. So, as far as I know I have never gotten on these batteries to the point where I would need to dump. Again, we have balanced the hydro to cover our daily loads and maintained the batts at 26.5V to keep below that 27.2V theoretical kick in and have had no issues for over 24 hours but I can't do this forever.

Aside from setting the values for charging to 29.4 across the board per the batt manufacturers directions and unplugging the leads to the temperature sensors to disable the temperature compensation function for lead acid, nothing else was fiddled with, I just disconnected the old batteries and connected the new Li batt.

Rootdigger · November 2021

Breaker for the diversion control was on and all connections looked solid.

mike95490 · November 2021

Another issue, it the BMS may sense too much voltage for battery safety and disconnect the battery. This leaves no load on the system except for the standby loads of the inverter, which might be 150W. But if your hydro is cranking 300W with no appreciable load or even the dump load, your voltage will skyrocket, inverter will complain and chaos ensue.

You want the BMS to shut down the charging sources & alert you, not save the battery and fry the rest of the system

Rootdigger · November 2021

mike95490 said:

Another issue, it the BMS may sense too much voltage for battery safety and disconnect the battery. This leaves no load on the system except for the standby loads of the inverter, which might be 150W. But if your hydro is cranking 300W with no appreciable load or even the dump load, your voltage will skyrocket, inverter will complain and chaos ensue.

You want the BMS to shut down the charging sources & alert you, not save the battery and fry the rest of the system

I was reading through manuals when you sent this and the combo gave me an AHA! moment. I think you are barking up the right tree with the BMS. I think it is some legacy settings for the lead acid batteries, specifically from bulk to float, specifically the setting for Bulk Done Amps AC which can be set from 0 to 30 but is set at 4. If the Xantrex is reading that 27.2V as being the end of the bulk charge I am over 4 amps. There are a lot of questions I have about the legacy lead acid settings the battery company never addressed. If anyone is feeling kind, these are the settings I have under the battery charging menu, if anyone sees anything that would trigger what Mike says could be happening with the battery BMS that would be huge as it appears Schneider Electric has scraped me off their shoe!

The only custom configuration that I did on my own was to unplug the CAT5 temperature sensors from the charge controlers and inverter to disable the temp comp feature for lead acid and to set the temp comp setting to NiCad as that is the lesser comp just in case it still functioned. The following values were programmed in: 11A High Battery Cut Oout 29.5, 11B Low Batt Cut In, the lowest it would allow was 22.0, 11C Low Batt Cut Out 19.6, 11D LBCO Delay 15min, 11E Search Watts (Set by original installer) 32, 12A Finish stage SILENT(set by me, then set back to float after problems), 12B Bulk V 29.4, 12C Float 29.4, 12D Equalize 29.4, 12E Max charge Amps (set by original installer) 20, 12F Bulk Done Amps (set by original installer) 4, 12G EQ Vdc Done Timer 0:00, 12H Max Bulk/ EQ Timer 0:00, 12I Temp Comp NiCad.

Dave Angelini · November 2021

If you still think this is a problem for Schneider Electric you really need to move on.
Xantrex put SW+ on their end of life list long before Schneider was involved.
At some point you could blame Trace engineering for not supporting their design that they sold to Xantrex.

I would lower bulk, absorb, and float by 1V or more, and just watch the Soc from the BMS. It may take longer to charge but you can slowly raise the voltage until you get to 90% or so Soc. Hopefully the battery is savable!

softdown · November 2021

2021 has seen a couple phenomenon that we are not accustomed to:

1) A large number of the "old pros" chose early retirement over tolerating the bullshit that the covid agenda has ushered in.

2) Almost all service centers are simply swamped. Quality goes down with that.

This might all go back to the assurance "contacted Xantrex and they said yes. Contacted Xantrex again before purchase of the new batt with questions and no problem." There appears to be a problem related to the lithium batteries. Worked fine with the lead acids.

Seems to be a shortage of knowledge about using old inverters with lithium batteries. Have not got an answer regarding if replacing the Ouback 3648 control board would update the inverters settings for lithium batteries.

Rootdigger · November 2021

Thanks all for repeating about the dump load, especially Mike with the runaway voltage. The dump was the last thing I was thinking about because it is a foolproof air heater design by AEE that was advertised as absolutely reliable and worked full time all these years up to the new Li hookup. I went through the entire dump system and everything was fine, the only thing left was old reliable. When I popped the hood, not only was it destroyed but it was also full of paper wasp nests, like years worth, so I guess that explains what happened to the old battery bank. It was a pretty massive bank, 6 of those forklift batteries, so it just took it and masked the problem.

Again, thanks! I wasn't just barking up the wrong tree, I wasn't even in the right forest! Picked up other gems in the discussion. I'll try and check in to see if I can contribute to pay me dues but that is kind of like a 12W 1970's chandelier incandescent hanging out with the halogens and LEDs

softdown · November 2021

^^^^This could be the origin of the phrase "Bug in the system." ? Anybody know?

BB. · November 2021

Here is the history:

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/thisday/sep9/worlds-first-computer-bug/

On September 9, 1947, a team of computer scientists and engineers reported the world’s first computer bug. A bug is a flaw or glitch in a system. Thomas Edison reported “bugs” in his designs as early as the 1800s, but this was the first bug identified in a computer. Today, software bugs can impact the functioning, safety, and security of computer operating systems. “Debugging” and bug management are important parts of the computer science industry.

This bug, however, was literally a bug. “First actual case of bug being found,” one of the team members wrote in the logbook. The team at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found that their computer, the Mark II, was delivering consistent errors. When they opened the computer’s hardware, they found ... a moth. The trapped insect had disrupted the electronics of the computer.

-Bill

softdown · November 2021

I'd say that moth was quite possibly responsible for the choice of the word "bug" over error, glitch, problem, flaw etc.

BB. · November 2021

Sort of--Bug was a "generic" term from the 1800's (at least) when working on machinery/inventions (Edison).

I would guess this is from finding bugs in flour/food/structural wood/etc. Something that you don't want and that you find when going through it (sifting out bugs, etc.).

-Bill

Older Xantrex Inv, New Lithium Battery-problems

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