Soldering fuse holder

[jazzboypro]

Hm, then it's about 90% charged. Should have a resting voltage of 13.6 at full charge. Is the battery charger made for that particular battery chemistry?

Yes it is.

Battery: Expion e360 Extreme density 120 Ah lithium battery
Monitor kit: Expion360 Monitor kit
Charger: Progressive Dynamics Lithium charger model 9130L

The 3 items can be bought at: Expion360: Premium Lithium Power Anywhere, Anytime

I have an email confirming that all 3 work together.

Since lunch time i am powering my radio from the battery. The charger is unplugged and the Astron is off. I will let the battery drain to 60% just to be sure that the charger has something to charge and i will see what happens.

Before powering the radio i measured the voltage at the battery with no load and no charge and the voltage was at 13.8V so i assumed that the battery was fully charged but the monitor indicated that the battery was 78% full. The battery, charger and monitor have been bought new.

Maybe the BMS in the battery is defective ? i just can't identify the defective component.

 

[jazzboypro]

Ok i let the battery drain for about 12 hours. These were the working parameters at 1:10 this morning:

Charger unplugged from wall outlet
Astron off
Radio On
Voltage at battery= 13.25 volts
Voltage on monitor= 13.22
%charge on monitor= 62%
Ah on monitor= 74.1Ah
A on monitor= 1.4A

After writing down the measurements i decided to charge the battery ant the working parameters were:

Radio off
Astron off
Charger plugged in
Voltage at Battery= 13.7V
Voltage on monitor= 13.69
%Charge on monitor= 62%
Ah on monitor= 74 Ah
A on monitor =0.03

The fan on the charger started cycling on and off and the charger was quite warm and i assumed it was delivering the intended current. This went on for 45 minutes after which the fan stopped and the charger started to cool down. After 45 minutes the working parameters were:

Radio off
Astron off
Charger plugged in
Voltage at Battery= 14.06V
Voltage on monitor= 14.04
%Charge on monitor= 62%
Ah on monitor= 74 Ah
A on monitor = 0.039

It was then 2:00 and i went to bed a bit puzzled and frustrated.

This morning when i got up i went and checked the battery:

Radio off
Astron off
Charger plugged in
Voltage at Battery= 13.52
Voltage on monitor= 13.52
%Charge on monitor= 62%
Ah on monitor= 74 Ah
A on monitor = 0.039

The charger was barely warm and the 13.52V reading led me to believe that the battery was fully charged and the charger was just floating the battery. As you can see the monitor still indicates that the battery is 62% charged and at 74Ah. I have unplugged/plugged the monitor several times but the readings stay the same. Do you think that 45 minutes is enough time for the battery to go from 62% to fully chaged ?

Unless someone has an idea i think that i will let the battery drain completely and charge it again to see what happens.

 

[slicerwizard]

LiFePO4 can charge very fast - zero to 100% in 1.5 hours, so 38% in 45 minutes is doable.

Looks like your battery and charger are working fine. Monitor is borked.

 

[jazzboypro]

I will send and email to the company i bought it from. At the moment the monitor indicates that the batterie is charged at 33% but if the battery and charger are ok the batterie should way above 33% charged. I'll what happens when the monitor indicates that the battery is supposedly discharged (in about 28 hours according to the monitor)

 

[DougG]

It looks like your battery monitor is not registering any charging at all. Is your charger ground hooked directly to the battery, or is it connected to the load side of the shunt?

 

[jazzboypro]

It looks like your battery monitor is not registering any charging at all. Is your charger ground hooked directly to the battery, or is it connected to the load side of the shunt?

The ground log on the charger is directly on the negative post on the battery

 

[jazzboypro]

This is the wiring diagram for the monitor.

In the monitor manual just before this diagram there's this paragraph:

"Shunt: Attach the shunt B-terminal to the negative (black -) terminal on the battery(s). Attach all negative cables to the P- terminal on the shunt. The shunt can be mounted right side up or up side down for a better fit. It is very important to make sure all negative cables are attached to the P-terminal on the shunt so power can be calculated across the bridge of the shunt to accurately monitor the battery(s) SOC."

Does that mean that the negative wire of the charger should be connected to the P- side of the shunt ? The negative wire of the radio is connected to the P- side of the radio thru a switching circuit but at the present the negative wire of the charger is directly connected to the battery negative post.

 

[mmckenna]

Does that mean that the negative wire of the charger should be connected to the P- side of the shunt ? The negative wire of the radio is connected to the P- side of the radio thru a switching circuit but at the present the negative wire of the charger is directly connected to the battery negative post.

Yes. It needs to be able to see how much current is being put back into the battery by the charger.

 

[jazzboypro]

Yes. It needs to be able to see how much current is being put back into the battery by the charger.

Ok thanks, i put the negative wire of the charger on the other side of the shunt. I can now see the progress on the monitor as the battery is being charged. one thing i don't get is that according to the documentation, the charging voltage should be between 14.2V to 14.6V but the monitor indicates 13.5V and this is also what i measure at the battery. Is this normal ?

 

[mmckenna]

Ok thanks, i put the negative wire of the charger on the other side of the shunt. I can now see the progress on the monitor as the battery is being charged. one thing i don't get is that according to the documentation, the charging voltage should be between 14.2V to 14.6V but the monitor indicates 13.5V and this is also what i measure at the battery. Is this normal ?

I don't know.

Usually you need to adjust the voltage on your power source to charge the battery correctly. Sounds like 13.5 volts might be the factory setting as that's what is used for most gel cell batteries. You may have to open up your power supply and turn up the voltage a bit to keep the battery happy.

 

[mmckenna]

Looking at your previous posts, it looks like you have a separate battery charger and power supply?

Not sure how you have this wired up. The stuff I use at work uses the same power supply to power the equipment and float charge the battery plant. I can program voltage levels based on battery chemistry, temperature compensation settings, float versus equalize voltage settings for the specific battery.

Running a separate power supply and charger might confuse things.

The large gel cell plants I use get float charged at about 2.27 volts per cell, or in the case of my 48 volt plants, 54.5 volts. The battery you are using will have different specifications for float voltage/charge voltage. You would need to match your system to that to get 100% charge on your battery.

 

[jazzboypro]

I don't know.

Usually you need to adjust the voltage on your power source to charge the battery correctly. Sounds like 13.5 volts might be the factory setting as that's what is used for most gel cell batteries. You may have to open up your power supply and turn up the voltage a bit to keep the battery happy.

I looked again at the charger user manual. The output is 14.6V and no mention of it being adjustable. I thought everything was fine when i saw on the monitor that the battery was charging. I had to leave for about 2 hours while the battery was charging and when i got back, the charger was no longer charging and the monitor indicated that the battery is only 63% full. I read 13.65V on the monitor and at the battery which should be an indication that the battery is 100% charged. I unplugged the charger and plugged it back again. I read 14.5V on the monitor but the current draw is diminishing, it is less than 1A. %Charge and Ah number are not going up.

Looking at your previous posts, it looks like you have a separate battery charger and power supply?

Not sure how you have this wired up. The stuff I use at work uses the same power supply to power the equipment and float charge the battery plant. I can program voltage levels based on battery chemistry, temperature compensation settings, float versus equalize voltage settings for the specific battery.

Running a separate power supply and charger might confuse things.

The large gel cell plants I use get float charged at about 2.27 volts per cell, or in the case of my 48 volt plants, 54.5 volts. The battery you are using will have different specifications for float voltage/charge voltage. You would need to match your system to that to get 100% charge on your battery.

You are correct i have both the battery charger and a power supply. The battery and the power supply are connected to a switching device. I have another thread somewhere here about it. Here is what it looks like. The components are not exactly laid out this way but the wiring is the same.



This is the actual switching circuit.



On the right side of the pictures, the 2 upper posts are for the battery and the 2 lower posts are for the power supply. The left side of the picture is the output to the radio. When the power supply is on it powers the radio and the battery is in standby. when i turn off the power supply the battery kicks in and powers the radio. I don't know if this circuit has an impact on the charging process but for this discussion, the problems i'm having now is with the power supply off.

The circuit is doing it's job properly.

These are the specifics for my battery


13.6V is what was on the monitor at the end of the charging cycle and no load on the battery. So the charger was floating the battery even though it appears to be not fully charged. I can easily removed the battery from the switching circuit but i don't see how it would make a difference.

 

[slicerwizard]

So the charger was floating the battery even though it appears to be not fully charged.

No, it appears to be fully charged.

I suppose the battery monitor doesn't show a full charge because it hasn't seen 100 Ah go into the battery. Run the battery down 50% without the monitor connected, then do a full recharge with the charger and monitor properly connected.

 

[jazzboypro]

No, it appears to be fully charged.

I suppose the battery monitor doesn't show a full charge because it hasn't seen 100 Ah go into the battery. Run the battery down 50% without the monitor connected, then do a full recharge with the charger and monitor properly connected.

Will try that. This afternoon when i plugged in the charger the battery was a 2% and the charging stopped at 63% and started floating the battery. The only time the monitor indicated 100% full is when i hooked up everything for the first time last monday. Since i've been using only the battery to power the radio i never saw 100% on the monitor after three charge attemps.

 

[mmckenna]

Thanks for posting the specs, that helps me visualize things.

I agree with slicer, I think it's just confused about things. Might need a few discharge/charge cycles to figure things out. Usually I run a test on my stuff that essentially cranks down the rectifier output to a bit above the safe voltage/above the low voltage disconnect. It runs the load on the battery and watches the discharge rate/voltage and using maths, it determines the battery capacity. After 8 hours, or if the battery voltage drops to a trigger point, the rectifiers ramp up their voltage to the equalize voltage (about 55 volts on my stuff) and runs there for about 8 hours. Your batteries probably don't need that, so I think just letting it run a few cycles will sort things out.

Looks like the way you are set up, the Astron won't ever see the battery. That's fine. If it does via a diode or some other isolation means, then make sure it's running at 13.6 to float the battery. Ideally it would keep it charged up.

Not sure what you are using as a battery charger, but if it's putting out what the battery wants to see, then you should be OK.

 

[ramal121]

Ok you had the charger negative connected directly to the battery which is a huge Bozo No No. Moving it to the load side of the shunt is the correct way to measure exactly what current goes into and out of the battery. Nothing should be connected between the shunt and the battery. You now need to calibrate your charge parameters in relation to the size of the battery bank you are using. Bust out the instructions for your battery monitor and follow them to the 'T'.

 

[jazzboypro]

@mmckenna The batterie charger is a Progressive Dynamics Lithium charger model 9130L. It is a 2 stages charger. i have confirmation by the manufacturer of the battery that this a good charger for my battery. Eventually the charger and the power supply will be on at the same time so everything will be powered by the power supply and the charger will float the battery.

@ramal121 yesterday i did finally connect the negative wire of the charger to the load side of the shunt. As for the calibration these are the exact parameters to configure for my specific battery according to the monitor user guide.



I did puit in the recommended 11.2V

I'll do what @slicerwizard suggest and report back. It will take at least 2 more days before the battery hits 50% or less

 

[DougG]

You need to reset your battery monitor.

It works by measuring current in to and out of the battery. But it needs a correct initial state to make those measurements. When the charger was hooked up incorrectly, the battery monitor lost track of what the actual state of charge of the battery was because it was counting current coming out of the battery, but not counting the current going back in. So now it’s count of how much charge there is in the battery is off. To fix that, you will need to reset the monitor.

So disconnect all your loads, and then run the charger until it shuts off / goes to float mode. At that point, the battery will be fully charged, regardless of what the monitor says. Then, you need to reset the monitor. You will need to go through the manual to figure out how to do that. As part of that process the monitor will reset it’s state, so that it understands the battery is fully charged. After reset, the monitor should show that the battery is 100% charged, and then accurately measure both discharge and charge from then on.

Based on the comments on this thread, a lot of people seem to be expecting the battery monitor to be able to determine state of charge from battery voltage. While that works OK for lead acid batteries, it doesn’t work for Lithium. This is because of the difference in discharge curves (voltage vs time under constant current). A lead acid battery has an almost constant discharge curve, so there’s a simple relationship between charge remaining and voltage. Lithium batteries however have an essentially flat discharge curve between 95% and 10% of life, so by just looking at voltage, it’s impossible to tell what the state of charge of the battery is. So in order to accurately measure the state of charge of a lithium cell, you end up having to use a current counting (technically called a “coulomb counter” ) to know the state. But you can’t just plug in to a battery and get state. You need to have the battery in a known state of charge, and then tell the monitor what that state of charge is so it knows where to start counting. Practically, the only way to get the battery in to a known state is to either fully charge it, or fully discharge it, and fully charging is easier. Once it’s fully charged, and the battery monitor is reset, you should get good numbers going forward.

 

[jazzboypro]

You need to reset your battery monitor.

It works by measuring current in to and out of the battery. But it needs a correct initial state to make those measurements. When the charger was hooked up incorrectly, the battery monitor lost track of what the actual state of charge of the battery was because it was counting current coming out of the battery, but not counting the current going back in. So now it’s count of how much charge there is in the battery is off. To fix that, you will need to reset the monitor.

So disconnect all your loads, and then run the charger until it shuts off / goes to float mode. At that point, the battery will be fully charged, regardless of what the monitor says. Then, you need to reset the monitor. You will need to go through the manual to figure out how to do that. As part of that process the monitor will reset it’s state, so that it understands the battery is fully charged. After reset, the monitor should show that the battery is 100% charged, and then accurately measure both discharge and charge from then on.

Based on the comments on this thread, a lot of people seem to be expecting the battery monitor to be able to determine state of charge from battery voltage. While that works OK for lead acid batteries, it doesn’t work for Lithium. This is because of the difference in discharge curves (voltage vs time under constant current). A lead acid battery has an almost constant discharge curve, so there’s a simple relationship between charge remaining and voltage. Lithium batteries however have an essentially flat discharge curve between 95% and 10% of life, so by just looking at voltage, it’s impossible to tell what the state of charge of the battery is. So in order to accurately measure the state of charge of a lithium cell, you end up having to use a current counting (technically called a “coulomb counter” ) to know the state. But you can’t just plug in to a battery and get state. You need to have the battery in a known state of charge, and then tell the monitor what that state of charge is so it knows where to start counting. Practically, the only way to get the battery in to a known state is to either fully charge it, or fully discharge it, and fully charging is easier. Once it’s fully charged, and the battery monitor is reset, you should get good numbers going forward.

You need to reset your battery monitor.

It works by measuring current in to and out of the battery. But it needs a correct initial state to make those measurements. When the charger was hooked up incorrectly, the battery monitor lost track of what the actual state of charge of the battery was because it was counting current coming out of the battery, but not counting the current going back in. So now it’s count of how much charge there is in the battery is off. To fix that, you will need to reset the monitor.

So disconnect all your loads, and then run the charger until it shuts off / goes to float mode. At that point, the battery will be fully charged, regardless of what the monitor says. Then, you need to reset the monitor. You will need to go through the manual to figure out how to do that. As part of that process the monitor will reset it’s state, so that it understands the battery is fully charged. After reset, the monitor should show that the battery is 100% charged, and then accurately measure both discharge and charge from then on.

Based on the comments on this thread, a lot of people seem to be expecting the battery monitor to be able to determine state of charge from battery voltage. While that works OK for lead acid batteries, it doesn’t work for Lithium. This is because of the difference in discharge curves (voltage vs time under constant current). A lead acid battery has an almost constant discharge curve, so there’s a simple relationship between charge remaining and voltage. Lithium batteries however have an essentially flat discharge curve between 95% and 10% of life, so by just looking at voltage, it’s impossible to tell what the state of charge of the battery is. So in order to accurately measure the state of charge of a lithium cell, you end up having to use a current counting (technically called a “coulomb counter” ) to know the state. But you can’t just plug in to a battery and get state. You need to have the battery in a known state of charge, and then tell the monitor what that state of charge is so it knows where to start counting. Practically, the only way to get the battery in to a known state is to either fully charge it, or fully discharge it, and fully charging is easier. Once it’s fully charged, and the battery monitor is reset, you should get good numbers going forward.

Thanks for the explanation. However there is no reset button on the monitor and the manual does not give any information about resetting it. There is only a setup screen to enter the values shown on post #57 which i have done.

 

[mmckenna]

Thanks for the explanation. However there is no reset button on the monitor and the manual does not give any information about resetting it. There is only a setup screen to enter the values shown on post #57 which i have done.

If you can reset it by unplugging it for a while, that might do the trick.
Or, go in and reprogram it all after the battery has fully charged. That may trick it into thinking it's back to 100% and start giving you accurate info.