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We are nearly ready to wire up the first array on the shed/woodstore to the inverter and batteries but a thought occurred to me. We picked up 3 pylon 2000s from Mr Ceasium and these are paralleled up with 2 new Pylon 3000s, obviously I have no idea about the SOC of any of these so is it ok to just plug them in and switch on? or should they be balanced first? or will the inbuilt BMS take care of it all?

I don't fancy a big meltdown in the bedroom TBH

Ta everso

Desp

spread-tee wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:56 pm We are nearly ready to wire up the first array on the shed/woodstore to the inverter and batteries but a thought occurred to me. We picked up 3 pylon 2000s from Mr Ceasium and these are paralleled up with 2 new Pylon 3000s, obviously I have no idea about the SOC of any of these so is it ok to just plug them in and switch on? or should they be balanced first? or will the inbuilt BMS take care of it all?

I don't fancy a big meltdown in the bedroom TBH

Ta everso

Desp

It would be an idea to voltage match the two sets before hooking up together. So bring the grid connected set up or down to match the voltage of the new additions.

I would then take the time to balance the combined stack, have you done that before? Easy enough and worth doing.

The BMS on the Pylon's should take care of it but don't bill me if it goes bang.

And the "intra trading" of batteries within the "secret list" is giving my spreadsheet a headache.

Joeboy wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:58 pm

spread-tee wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 6:56 pm We are nearly ready to wire up the first array on the shed/woodstore to the inverter and batteries but a thought occurred to me. We picked up 3 pylon 2000s from Mr Ceasium and these are paralleled up with 2 new Pylon 3000s, obviously I have no idea about the SOC of any of these so is it ok to just plug them in and switch on? or should they be balanced first? or will the inbuilt BMS take care of it all?

I don't fancy a big meltdown in the bedroom TBH

Ta everso

Desp

It would be an idea to voltage match the two sets before hooking up together. So bring the grid connected set up or down to match the voltage of the new additions.

I would then take the time to balance the combined stack, have you done that before? Easy enough and worth doing.

Nope, this is all new to me Joe, so either I connect the three second hand batts to the inverter and adjust them to match the 2 new ones or vice-versa?, not done any balancing before either, other than on ladders and stuff.

nowty wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:00 pm The BMS on the Pylon's should take care of it but don't bill me if it goes bang.

And the "intra trading" of batteries within the "secret list" is giving my spreadsheet a headache.

I was rather hoping this would be the case as there is no mention of any voltage adjustment or balancing in the pylon manuals I have.

Sorry about the spreadsheet, I have to fess up I have my eye on yet more second hand pylons

spread-tee wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 6:36 pm

nowty wrote: ↑Tue Jan 10, 2023 7:00 pm The BMS on the Pylon's should take care of it but don't bill me if it goes bang.

And the "intra trading" of batteries within the "secret list" is giving my spreadsheet a headache.

I was rather hoping this would be the case as there is no mention of any voltage adjustment or balancing in the pylon manuals I have.

Sorry about the spreadsheet, I have to fess up I have my eye on yet more second hand pylons

I have added more Pylon's twice and just connected them up to the existing stack, no drama. They may take a few days of cycling for the LEDs to fully match up.

If the two new ones are already connected to your inverter you might have a battery voltage reading on your inverter display? If not you can use multimeter on the spare pos& neg terminals?

If the secondhand ones are off the system (not connected to your two new ones then I would interlink those three and take a voltage reading.

Once you have that voltage reading, compare it to the voltage reading ftom the interlinked two new ones and using your inverter & grid or home power equipment to charge or discharge so both sets of batteries match voltages. Then connect together so you have a stack of five with low current flow between to equalise.

Does that make sense? You don't have to do this but it's a good practice as is balancing the batteries every now and then.

I do the above once per year as I'll sometimes have one in six batteries trailing a charge light so I don't mind doing it. They aren't out by much and are generally done in about 15 mins. TBH, I enjoy watching the flow between units communicated through the soc lights. Hey, what can I say?

That makes perfect sense, even to a numpty like me

We are not far off going live, just got to bring the DC cabling from the shed to the loft and the AC cables from loft to the CU. Then my sparky mate will come over to check it all out and we will switch on.

Thanks in no small part to you Joe and Nowty, I wouldn't have had the confidence to do this without your back-up. And I doubt many commercial firms would have been willing to take this on, .......too tight to pay them anyways .

Desp

spread-tee wrote: ↑Wed Jan 11, 2023 7:08 pm That makes perfect sense, even to a numpty like me

We are not far off going live, just got to bring the DC cabling from the shed to the loft and the AC cables from loft to the CU. Then my sparky mate will come over to check it all out and we will switch on.

Thanks in no small part to you Joe and Nowty, I wouldn't have had the confidence to do this without your back-up. And I doubt many commercial firms would have been willing to take this on, .......too tight to pay them anyways .

Desp

Good for you pal, congratulations .