Trouble setting discharge and charge

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zingfharn
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jun 27, 2024 10:48 am

So I'm at a bit of a loss. This is sort of app related and sort of just general help.

For background, I'm on octopus flux export.

I tested the basic "force time charge", and it worked great (to charge my battery off peak). I have a 9kw inverter, and in 90 mins, it charged at 13kwH, so pretty awesome results.
I then switched it off, and tested the mode scheduler to force discharge to the grid between 4 and 6pm, which also worked great, although I had to do this through the website, because the app mode scheduler appears totally broken. It pushed out 12 kwH at 6 per hour for 2 hours, so again, great result.

When I tried to combine these, I kept getting weird errors, but I guess it's just either basic "force time charge" or "mode scheduler", which is fine. However...

I set forced charge in the mode scheduler on the website last night, and instead of charging, it discharged (see attachment)

I've been playing around with different settings this morning, and while I've managed to get the battery to charge a bit from the grid, I can't seem to get it to charge at max like it does from the basic "force time charge"

What settings do I need to enable the mode scheduler to force charge at max capacity please?
Attachments
fdis.png
Dave Foster
Posts: 1111
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm

I’m assuming you have a KH9 ?, the first thing to say is to get your firmware updated to the latest version if you haven’t already as there have been a number of changes and bug fixes with this being such a new inverter.

The app scheduler is having problems at the moment as Fox have added the ability to schedule a force charge to a specific MaxSoC - the problem being that only the very latest firmware for the H1 works with this, which means you have to set it on either the V1 app, the website or using Energy Stats. There have been a number of releases which profess to fix the app, but i’m still hearing some people report it doesn’t work for them.

You are correct in that you cannot use the older charge periods at the same time as the scheduler - it is one or the other. If you try and set a charge period when a schedule is set you’ll get an error in the app.

The scheduler force charge and the old charge period ‘should’ be the same but they measure the load and charge differently so there are small differences of charge rate between them - earlier firmware versions didn’t allow scheduled force charge to use solar power in combination with grid either but that has been corrected on latest firmware.

The scheduler for force charge only needs the time set and minSoC, FDSoC and FDpwr are ignored but they must be set to the defaults of 10,10 and 0 - if it gives you the maxSoC option set it to 100.

Personally I don’t use the scheduler for anything, I use the old charge periods as they ‘just work’ - plus if there is a cloud outage (not unknown for Fox), you can set or unset charge periods through the inverter menus, you cannot do that with the scheduler once running it is locked in unless you have cloud access to disable.

So I think to summarise make sure you have the latest version of firmware, and where at all possible use the older ‘charge periods’ with charge from grid enabled.
zingfharn
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jun 27, 2024 10:48 am

Thank you so much for this!

I do have a KH9. I've emailed support to see if I'm on the latest firmware (currently: Master : 1.29, Slave : 1.01, Manager : 1.21, but no idea how to check if that's latest myself)

I don't see a MaxSOC option anywhere on the website, and energy stats tends to time out a lot (and also doesn't have a maxsoc setting that I can see).

I think the issue is that when I leave MinSOC, FDSoC and FDPwr at 10/10/0 with "Force Charge", the battery just force discharges. I've played around with setting those values to 100 and the FDPwr to 7000, and it starts charging, but only at very low levels (like 1500).

I would love to just use the old charge periods but the main reason I have a big battery is to dump back to the grid at peak, thereby earning money (charge a little offpeak, fill the rest from panels during the day, dump most at peak, repeat).

If I'm not discharging at peak, then I have enough charge to see me through the night (and I'm not taking advantage of flux, which helps offset the cost of the install).
Dave Foster
Posts: 1111
Joined: Thu Oct 13, 2022 7:21 pm

The latest is -
Master 1.34
Manager 1.28

I’m pretty sure that getting this updated will resolve your force charge power problems 👍
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