Mode Schedule

[Hayden]

Hi, I’m very new to solar and have just had the following installed

Fox ESS K series inverter 7kw
FoxESS batteries 11.52kwh
18 x 430w solar panels

The installer hasn’t shown me how to use the app and keep putting me off to come back and show me.

As I’m a very high electrical usage household I don’t think will ever export back to the grid, I would like to charge the batteries between 02:00 - 05:00 at night and use them between 16:00 - 19:00 or when they are down to 10%, the rest of the time use any solar produced or from the grid.

I have set up mode schedule as below, but they don’t all work as I hoped, the batteries charged at night but then started to be used during the day, I stopped this by changing the battery reserve capa to 100%.
When 16:00 came I had to manually changed this to 10% to used the batteries as I had planned.

I’m not sure what I have done wrong with the programming but any help would be appreciated

Thanks Hayden

[Dave Foster]

I'm not seeing a huge amount wrong but there is a time overlap which may be causing what you are seeing.

Your are correct that you need to set a Force Charge between 2am and 5am, then set Self Use with a minsoc at 100% between 5am and 4pm, then set a Self Use with minsoc at 10% between 7pm and midnight (Note: MinSoC will stay set to whatever the last schedule set until set again)

First thing to say is your schedules are overlapping because of the way they handle the seconds - when you set 02:00 to 05:00 what you are actually setting is 02:00:00 to 05:00:59 and that will then overlap the next setting from 05:00:00 to 16:00:59 and basically overwrite what you just set.

So you should set your Force Charge from 02:00 to 04:59 with minSoC on grid to 10%, MaxSoC to 100%, FDSoC and FDPwr are not valid for charge but must be set so choose 10% and 0 for FDPwr

On the next schedule set your Self Use from 05:00 to 15:59 with minSoC on grid set to 100%, MaxSoc to 100%, again FDSoC and FDPwr are not valid but must be set so choose 10% and 0 for FDPwr

On the last schedule set your Self Use from 16:00 to 18:59 with minSoC on grid set to 10%, MaxSoc to 100%, again FD SoC and FDPwr are not valid but must be set so choose 10% and 0 for FDPwr

Make sure they are all enabled with the slider for each to the right and that should be that.

[Hayden]

Thank you, i will try this out.

just 2 other questions, do i need to add a schedule from 19;00 to 02;00 as i haven't put any thing in for that time period ?

Also do i need to change anything on the battery page, ie battery reserve cap or System Min SOC ?

[Dave Foster]

No you don't need anything else after the 4pm-7pm schedule - the inverter will follow the last minSoC setting made and as it was set to 10% it will simply run on batteries for as long as they have charge until it gets to 2am in the morning when they charge again and the cycle repeats.

And no you don't need to change any of the other battery settings - the Battery Reserve will follow the MinSoC setting you set in the schedule - it won't let you change that whilst a schedule is enabled, and the system minSoC is correct at 10%.

The Force Time Charge periods you see there cannot be used when using the scheduler, it's one or the other - when the scheduler is enabled it will reset both to 00:00 and turn them off. The scheduler is more powerful as it offers up to 8 possible actions in a day and I suspect in future these 'older' time periods will be removed as they cause confusion.

[Hayden]

Thank you Dave, it worked as it should.

sorry but 1 more question

on the app home page it should have the weather in the top left hand corner, i have filled in all details with address and postcode in the FoxESS user profile but i don't get the weather showing. is this a glitch in the app ?

[Dave Foster]

Thank you Dave, it worked as it should.

sorry but 1 more question

on the app home page it should have the weather in the top left hand corner, i have filled in all details with address and postcode in the FoxESS user profile but i don't get the weather showing. is this a glitch in the app ?

Great, glad you’ve got it working.

The weather has never worked, I think that’s one to chalk down to maybe later.

If you are looking for solar forecasts you can create a hobby ‘home user’ account at solcast.com.au - it provides a pretty good and detailed forecast - there may be other apps that do that for you as well but i’m quite happy with the data I get from Solcast.

[Hayden]

Hi Dave, hope you could help me again please.

I would like to change the schedules but not sure what I have to do, I would like the following.

All day I would like solar to charge the battery - then use solar or grid, I don’t want to charge the battery from the grid or use the battery

From 4pm onwards if no solar I would like to use the battery until its run down to 10%

Any help would be much appreciated

[Dave Foster]

Hi Dave, hope you could help me again please.

I would like to change the schedules but not sure what I have to do, I would like the following.

All day I would like solar to charge the battery - then use solar or grid, I don’t want to charge the battery from the grid or use the battery

From 4pm onwards if no solar I would like to use the battery until its run down to 10%

Any help would be much appreciated

Hi, check to see if you have workmode ‘Backup’ - if you have that it makes it easier as you can set the time period for that workmode and it will hold the battery charge, not allow discharge whilst charging from solar. Then from 4pm simply change to self use with your minsoc set to 10%

[Hayden]

Morning Dave, I’ve checked but I don’t have work mode back up, I’ve tried putting in a few scheduled but none have been successful

[Hayden]

This is the settings I’m using at present

As soon as Solar reduces the load comes from the battery, this is the bit I’m not sure what I change in the mode schedule to stop the battery from being used during this time period

[Dave Foster]

For the period where you want to charge the battery and not allow discharge, try this schedule:

Force Discharge, Min SOC 10%, max SOC 10%, FDSOC 10%, FDPwr 0w

This seems counter productive but despite being a Force discharge as the FDPwr is set to 0 it won’t allow discharge but should allow solar charge.

[Hayden]

Thank you for the reply,
I have tried this setting and it looks like pv is just charging the battery and the load is from the grid

What would need changing so I use the pv and any pv left would charge the batteries

[Dave Foster]

Without the backup work mode the only way to charge the batteries from solar is to use Self-Use but as you say when solar drops off the batteries will discharge - probably not a problem in the summer months as solar would likely always be high enough to cover the house load.

If you had home assistant and modbus control you could do it but using schedules you’ve only got self use or the force discharge method I mentioned.

The only other option is to set to self use and the minsoc to 100% which will slowly charge the batteries, and not allow discharge but you’ll need a reasonable amount of solar(2kw) to cover the slow charge and your house loads - perhaps try that and see if that suits what your trying to do but as I said it’s all a bit of a compromise.