FoxESS Community - Owners & Installers Forum

Hi. On my Foxess app, both on phone and laptop I can see "Enable charge from grid "buttons, but not "Enable charge from grid". I ask because I read somewhere on this forum that both buttons need to be switched to blue. I have noticed that even if my battery is fully charged my system is still using power from the grid, which I did not expect.

Hi Pam

The user interface for charging the battery from the grid is not very clear, I will attempt to clarify:

- if you set the start and end time to 00:00, that is "off" ie the battery will only charge from any excess solar PV and will discharge at any time, subject to having remaining charge.
- if you set a real start and end time, but don't activate the "enable charge from grid" switch, the battery will not discharge to supply house loads during that time, but neither will it charge from the grid.
- if you set a start and end time and activate the "enable charge from grid" switch, the battery will charge from the grid (subject to any MaxSOC parameter you may have set)

Separately, bear in mind that depending on the size of your inverter, your system may not be able to supply all your house's power at all times. For instance, my inverter is a 3.6kW model, if (for instance) I turn on my oven it will draw that much power (at least when warming up) all by itself. If I am separately using my electric hob (can be 2-3kW if using high heat under multiple pans), or boiling a kettle (2-3kW), or drying my hair (2.5kW), or whatever else, you can exceed the capability of even a large 6kW inverter. In this instance it's not about how much energy you've got stored in the battery, but how much power the inverter can deliver (ie how quickly it can convert the energy in the battery into power your house can use).

Also, depending on the size and state of charge of your battery bank, it may not always be able to provide enough DC power to the inverter for it to convert into AC power at its maximum capacity.

Calum
I think you have answered my question
Especially this bit was helpful "if you set a real start and end time, but don't activate the "enable charge from grid" switch, the battery will not discharge to supply house loads during that time, but neither will it charge from the grid." I think I need to remember to set the timers to zero
Many thanks
Pam

Hello

I’m just getting to grips the FoxESS software also.
I have been fiddling around with different setting seeing what happens too.

This was explained very well thanks


The user interface for charging the battery from the grid is not very clear, I will attempt to clarify:

- if you set the start and end time to 00:00, that is "off" ie the battery will only charge from any excess solar PV and will discharge at any time, subject to having remaining charge.
- if you set a real start and end time, but don't activate the "enable charge from grid" switch, the battery will not discharge to supply house loads during that time, but neither will it charge from the grid.
- if you set a start and end time and activate the "enable charge from grid" switch, the battery will charge from the grid (subject to any MaxSOC parameter you may have set)

Separately, bear in mind that depending on the size of your inverter, your system may not be able to supply all your house's power at all times. For instance, my inverter is a 3.6kW model, if (for instance) I turn on my oven it will draw that much power (at least when warming up) all by itself. If I am separately using my electric hob (can be 2-3kW if using high heat under multiple pans), or boiling a kettle (2-3kW), or drying my hair (2.5kW), or whatever else, you can exceed the capability of even a large 6kW inverter. In this instance it's not about how much energy you've got stored in the battery, but how much power the inverter can deliver (ie how quickly it can convert the energy in the battery into power your house can use).

Also, depending on the size and state of charge of your battery bank, it may not always be able to provide enough DC power to the inverter for it to convert into AC power at its maximum capacity.
[/quote]

Well explained…. Thanks

It is clearly a bug that if a charging period is disabled the battery isn't used to power the house load.
If it's not a bug then they need some serious user interface redesign to explain it!

I've reported it, but they haven't sent a sensible response yet.

Tom Beckmann wrote: ↑Sat Nov 11, 2023 2:26 pm It is clearly a bug that if a charging period is disabled the battery isn't used to power the house load.
If it's not a bug then they need some serious user interface redesign to explain it!

I've reported it, but they haven't sent a sensible response yet.

I don't think it's a bug, this is a very useful feature!
I agree that the user interface needs a redesign to explain this better. I only discovered this by playing around with it. I'm really hoping they don't remove this feature, because there is no other way to set a time period that the batteries are not used. However if you don't want this one only needs to set the start and end time to 00:00