EP11 with heater

[MaterialBarracuda48]

Suggest it is not heating, since the temperature keeps dropping. My battery is outside, and currently it's around 0 degrees, looks like my charging kicked in around 16:08 today and it took 30 minutes to get BMS Cell Temp Low from 9 to 14 degrees

I agree, the logs are showing a lack of heating.

I am still on v1.009, yesterday temp was 6C for many hours, my heater min is 9C. The odd thing was, my phone was showing the heater animation, refreshing the screen, opening and closing the app it was same... perfect you would have thought.

Reality was, the battery didn't heat at all for me, flatlined at 6C. This was why I asked for the new v1.011, hoping it fixes the flakey heating. I know now that the new version is still broken, maybe there is a 1.012+ in pipeline as I suspect there are loads of tickets hitting them.

Your heater taking 30 mins was really fast, mine takes approx 55 mins from starting to end point in garage 9C to 15C. You probably have a very good battery heater, maybe the contact pad is making better contact.

[maccoylton]

Bottom line is battery charging algorithm is flakey, BTW I am on 1.09

For me, my Issue is sometime when it needs to heat, the inverter goes into a reboot loop and doesn't recover until I manually power down and power back up my battery/inverter and solar. I believe this happens when it needs to move from using the solar/battery to using the grid,

Workarounds mentioned elsewhere are turn off PV or only heat during a force charge schedule, both of which kind of defeat the purpose.

Waiting to hear back from Fox...been a few days now.

[danielk]

I'm still waiting on an upgrade too.

While I wait, I've been on 1.009 for a while and haven't got it to work.

I've just noticed, when the heater has tried to activate, I'm getting hit with this error:

Error Code: 45
Description: The isolation resistance of the PV (photovoltaic) plant is abnormal.

This only appears when the heater is activated and does not come back when it's deactivated.

Anyone else seen this?

[Starshots]

I've posted much of this on FB today but then found this topic on the forum.

So in Nov 25 I upgraded from 2 x EP11 to 4 x EP11 batteries. All good. Didn't actually check what charge performance was as assumed would be OK.

Noticed a couple of days back I was only charging overnight (00.00 to 07.00) to 60%. Spoke to installer and they contacted Fox who did a Firmware update to bring the old (6 months old) and new ones to the same level.

Didn't make any difference except to make my over charge go only to 28%. Spoke to installer again who turned on battery heating but did half a job as didn't set the parameters for heating. Been chasing all day as battery stuck on 28% and all power coming from grid. Next they set the battery parameters temps and ask me to set the schedule. Battery was at 5.4 degrees and with heating on slowly dropped to 5 degrees. Still no battery discharge.

To save me going bankrupt I've turned of the heating and now discharging the 28% I have. I hope the batteries charge overnight as set to force charge. Have copied the link to this post to the installer for them to speak to Fox again. I'm told it will be fixed but I'm ready to invoke Sale of Goods and have the extra batteries removed and get a refund.

[philt1808]

Just to add to the number of issues currently with the heating...

My firmware was updated yesterday to 1.11. My 2 EP11s discharged yesterday from around 60% to 10%. I've always had the mode scheduler set to charge at cheap rate from 11.30pm to 5.30am so this was left as normal. I added in the battery warm up timings to match this and set 2 slots as suggested: 11:31 to 11:59 and 00:01 to 05:30. When I got up this morning, the battery was at 20% charge but around 10C when it was 1C outside.

From this point, until there's better firmware, I'm not going to schedule any heating times and just turn off the heating function prior to the overnight charge. If it looks like it's going to be particularly cold then I'll heat the batteries for the hour or so before the charging period and when they drop too low through the day.

[jonathanb48]

Would love to know where I can find those lovely temperature graphs in the fox app or do I need to go to the desk top version ?

[albie999]

Would love to know where I can find those lovely temperature graphs in the fox app or do I need to go to the desk top version ?

Which temperature graphs are you talking about?

[maccoylton]

You can see these in HomeAssistant if you have it and a modbus connected to your inverter or you can also now see them online in latest version of the foxcloud.

Will did a video recently here:-

[jonathanb48]

I see don’t have home assistant and have not ventured beyond the app so far - much tech investigation to do !

[albie999]

I see don’t have home assistant and have not ventured beyond the app so far - much tech investigation to do !

Home Assistant is powerful ... but needs a lot of care and attention ...... and to get the most potential out of it .. need to be a bit of a geek

[MaterialBarracuda48]

You can see these in HomeAssistant if you have it and a modbus connected to your inverter or you can also now see them online in latest version of the foxcloud.

Hat's off to you in "Today I Learned" I was just taking a look at the latest v2 site a moment ago, and see your post.

[maccoylton]

I had another occurrence of the reboot loop today with the Over-current Fault. Using the new graphing on FOX Cloud here is what I see.

The issue happened when:-

• I am in self use mode
  The battery temp has reached the trigger temperature, its' set to heat for 9 to 13
  The SOC is at 40% or lower and therefore heating from battery power is no longer possible
  Heating is enabled 7x24 - 00:00-23:59

The heating cycle can be seen in the morning when the SOC is >40%, then around 13:03 ( reported by modbus) or (13:30 in the Fox app/cloud) the issue happens

There is some PV, but possibly not enough to heat and when the fault happens the PV power drops to zero ?

And the voltage on the PV strings jumps, I assume they have gone open circuit due to the fault.

You can also see it looks like the battery starts to charge very briefly (-ve) and the stops

On days where I have good PV production it runs all day ok, it;s there is low or no solar, and it's cold i.e. heating is required I see issues.

Today to get my system back up and running I switched off PV strings using the DC isolators, waited until I saw the inverter was back on the grid and saw it heating, presumable at this stage using grid power (its difficult to tell charging vs house load) , and then I turned the PV string back on.

Interestingly another user suggested they have tested as a workaround to only heat when mode is force charge. So it really does seem like this is related to the switch of heating sources in self use mode.

[albie999]

Not seen any recent posts on this heater issue lately, wondered if people still having the issue .. I know I am and just chased Fox up again ... as after they pushed 1.11 to the battery the other week .... have ben testing, and still not good .... I have chased them 2-3 times saying issue still remains .. but no repsonse

[jonathanb48]

Mine now seem to be working on EP12 batteries but definitely throttling back as it is now only getting 87% charge with tapering of the charge rate starting around 45 mins from the end of charge period

[albie999]

Mine now seem to be working on EP12 batteries but definitely throttling back as it is now only getting 87% charge with tapering of the charge rate starting around 45 mins from the end of charge period

It will still throttle when the battery is cold, my issue is still not the throttling .... but when the heater element kicks in, the battery will not discharge to cover house load, and goes in some sort of "reboot" loop (as shown on my screenshots)

[albie999]

So ... quick update after my previous post, as I escalated it .. I then got a response. They have updated the firmware on my battery to 0.013 .. and I have turned on the heater .. so will now monitor. Interesting as you can see from screenshots, the min and max temps have increased

[MaterialBarracuda48]

Look at @albie999 the beta tester.

Fingers crossed that this sorts things out.
Since putting the blanket over my battery, my heater has not kicked in once since the 7th Jan 00:50. It did actually drop under the 9°C threshold just once, but the heater did not turn on.

[philt1808]

Look at @albie999 the beta tester.

Fingers crossed that this sorts things out.
Since putting the blanket over my battery, my heater has not kicked in once since the 7th Jan 00:50. It did actually drop under the 9°C threshold just once, but the heater did not turn on.

Morning MB - which blanket are you using for the battery? Any pics?

[philt1808]

So since getting the firmware update last week to 1.11 I'm having the following issues and think I need to raise a new ticket:

1. Can't get Mode Scheduler to work at all. My charge timings that I've used since last March are being ignored. The only way I can charge is to use the two force time charge settings. I've not checked whether discharge timings work yet as I haven't had enough power to do this.

2. If the heater kicks in then the discharge stops and I draw from the grid no matter how much I have in the batteries.

3. Some nights I'm not getting anywhere near a full charge. Last night batteries were charging at around 1.34kwh so only got around 50% when I checked this morning. It was very cold outside though so is this what 'throttling' is? If so, then that's probably my issue as I'd not enabled the heater.

There still appears to be a lot of bugs with the new firmware. Is there anything else I should be doing before raising a new ticket with Fox?

Thanks

[albie999]

So since getting the firmware update last week to 1.11 I'm having the following issues and think I need to raise a new ticket:

1. Can't get Mode Scheduler to work at all. My charge timings that I've used since last March are being ignored. The only way I can charge is to use the two force time charge settings. I've not checked whether discharge timings work yet as I haven't had enough power to do this.

2. If the heater kicks in then the discharge stops and I draw from the grid no matter how much I have in the batteries.

3. Some nights I'm not getting anywhere near a full charge. Last night batteries were charging at around 1.34kwh so only got around 50% when I checked this morning. It was very cold outside though so is this what 'throttling' is? If so, then that's probably my issue as I'd not enabled the heater.

There still appears to be a lot of bugs with the new firmware. Is there anything else I should be doing before raising a new ticket with Fox?

Thanks

You seem to be having exactly the same issues that I have been posting about for weeks on this thread. I had an update from Fox today .. from v1.009 to v0.013 (which seems to have a wierd naming convention) ... and will be seeing what happens with regard to heating and discharging

[philt1808]

So since getting the firmware update last week to 1.11 I'm having the following issues and think I need to raise a new ticket:

1. Can't get Mode Scheduler to work at all. My charge timings that I've used since last March are being ignored. The only way I can charge is to use the two force time charge settings. I've not checked whether discharge timings work yet as I haven't had enough power to do this.

2. If the heater kicks in then the discharge stops and I draw from the grid no matter how much I have in the batteries.

3. Some nights I'm not getting anywhere near a full charge. Last night batteries were charging at around 1.34kwh so only got around 50% when I checked this morning. It was very cold outside though so is this what 'throttling' is? If so, then that's probably my issue as I'd not enabled the heater.

There still appears to be a lot of bugs with the new firmware. Is there anything else I should be doing before raising a new ticket with Fox?

Thanks

You seem to be having exactly the same issues that I have been posting about for weeks on this thread. I had an update from Fox today .. from v1.009 to v0.013 (which seems to have a wierd naming convention) ... and will be seeing what happens with regard to heating and discharging

I'm glad it's not just me! Pleased you've got the update. I'll hang on to see how you get on with v0.013. Let us know how it goes if that's ok?

[MaterialBarracuda48]

Morning MB - which blanket are you using for the battery? Any pics?

Mentioned here, and the next two posts down.
viewtopic.php?p=12015#p12015

It is one I found in my garage when moving in, a removal van looking one, I doubled it over and kept it away from the wiring. As it get's mild, I can open it up, and make it into a single layer if I cut the blanket (which I will do)

It has now been over 7 days and the heater has not had to come on once, saved a few kWh of heating... but most importantly, it has allowed the battery to charge and discharge for 100% up time.

[albie999]

Mad, that a zero tech solution has to be engineered lol .... instead of how the battery is supposed to work ...... I am gonna have to find myself some sort of blanket

[philt1808]

Morning MB - which blanket are you using for the battery? Any pics?

Mentioned here, and the next two posts down.
viewtopic.php?p=12015#p12015

It is one I found in my garage when moving in, a removal van looking one, I doubled it over and kept it away from the wiring. As it get's mild, I can open it up, and make it into a single layer if I cut the blanket (which I will do)

It has now been over 7 days and the heater has not had to come on once, saved a few kWh of heating... but most importantly, it has allowed the battery to charge and discharge for 100% up time.

Blanket.png
Blanket Left.png
Blanket Right.png

Nice one. I was considering getting some foil insulation for my batteries as they're outside but don't really want to spend any more money given that the heaters should be sorting this! Your solution is obviously working well for you.

[MaterialBarracuda48]

Mad, that a zero tech solution has to be engineered lol .... instead of how the battery is supposed to work ...... I am gonna have to find myself some sort of blanket

Yup it is a shame that the low tech solution wins.

It did once drop to under my 9°C starting point, to 8.7°C but the bugger didn't heat up (1.011) I have not bothered to reboot the system since getting a raft of firmware updates done, so it might have heated had I done this.


As a guesstimate, let's say it's 190 Watt of heating for 30mins (often longer) for 3x per day, over 7 days it adds up.
0.190kW x0.5hr (heating time) x 3 (times per day) x 7 (days) = 2kWh used or 4kWh if it heats for 1hr each time.

I am not concerned about this cost, but the real cost comes from having to buy peak price energy as it cannot heat up and charge/discharge at the same time. If our cars stopped working when we put the heaters on, we would be mad, it makes no sense that the heater pad stops charge or discharge.

Nice one. I was considering getting some foil insulation for my batteries as they're outside but don't really want to spend any more money given that the heaters should be sorting this! Your solution is obviously working well for you.

I think if you have it outside, a box enclosure is more suited.
Wyndstryke has a little heater pad under his, but a simple blanket or maybe the foil could work for free.

No matter the choice, it is important to measure the temperature in any solution used.


And as a futher bonus, the additional warmth has made the battery charge and discharge rates improve. I was able to charge at the full KH7 7kW (6.72kW after losses) and discharge improved of course the same. Summer speeds!