Batrium WM4 sticky state?

nrm21

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Joined
Jan 4, 2018
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116
Ok so I just got a WM4 a few days ago and this is my first time as a user. So I'll admit it could be something I'm doing wrong, or just misunderstand about the unit. Here is my issue (I'll try to describe as best I can):

(using LiFePO4, WM4, Blockmon)
When a cell goes above 3.5v threshold it starts balancing... Ok so far but when all the cells start coming back down sometimes some of the cells still shows as above that limit, basically stuck at the high voltage in the toolkit and continues bypassing those cells (red light is solid and blockmon is very hot to the touch). I can (and have numerous times to check) at this moment use a multimeter to verify that the cell voltage dropped back below the 3.5v limit. Sometimes considerably like to 3.4v or so and yet still burning down energy thinking the cell is high. This does not happen to all cells (which might lead me to thinking it's normal behavior) but tends to happen to certain cells and not others. The others exhibit (what I think is) normal behavior and come back down in voltage slowly after a cloud passes over or some large load comes online, or some other thing that would lower voltage naturally to battery even if just temporary. I have kind of a small battery for my usage (1200-1600w typical day usage, but only 3KWh battery). So any wall AC unit compressor kicking in will cause at least some small but noticeable sag to my cells voltages. Especially if neat 100% SoC (around 3.6v).

Only fix I have found so far is to "device sync" which immediately fixes the issue and appears to do equivalent of "smacks the blockmons upside the head" to make them realize the real voltage and stop bypassing. At that point all cells voltages on the chart drop back instantly to the correct level that agrees with manual multi meter testing and balancing stops. Prob is... sometimes I have to do this multiple times a day and it's annoying. Worse, if I leave it for too long it can get the batt cells even more out of balance causing me issues down the road.

Have I a bug or issue with my setup to troubleshoot or do I need to flip a setting or misunderstand a timer here? I'm not using 'auto balancing' btw just regular for now. Even without a lot of knowledge of the product's natural behavior... something about this just doesn't feel like natural behavior.
 
nrm21 said:
using LiFePO4, WM4, Blockmon
Have I a bug or issue with my setup to troubleshoot or do I need to flip a setting or misunderstand a timer here? I'm not using 'auto balancing' btw just regular for now. Even without a lot of knowledge of the product's natural behavior... something about this just doesn't feel like natural behavior.

This sounds unusual, your best method forsupportis via our normal emailhelp desk so that we can investigate with you
https://www.batrium.com/pages/support-how-to-help-us-to-help-you
 
That was my first thought but TBH, they still haven't even responded since the last time I sent an email about a week ago now. I usually just post here since responses seem faster (or at all). I sort of feel like I'm not alone based on some others posts I have read here recently. I'm guessing there's growing pains at Batrium with all the recent success as a company, so I'm trying not to add to the problem too much.

I will try to reach out to them if I can't figure it out myself with further troubleshooting. I'm hoping some more tweaking can settle this bank of cells down some since they were a bit out of balance before introducing the BMS. Do you think it could have anything to do with that I needed to splice all my wires to make them longer? I had to cut and resolder every wire with nearly same gauge wire. I say "nearly" because I can't be absolutely certain the wire I had was the EXACT same gauge (no writing on it and it was small). But I did the best I could at the time.

But would that affect it? I would think there would just be no communication at all if the solders weren't done correctly? I tried my best to make sure they were done right, and pulled slightly on them after to ensure a good strong conn.

I would think:
If there were a break in blue or yelow wire (entire daisy chain would not work, or at least know about it it dev sync or network test right?)
If there were a break in red wire, no balancing would happen at all for that cell

Are these assumptions correct? If so the soldering should not be the issue, I would think.
 
Nrm you do realize it was batrium that answered you here ? :)
 
Yes I do. That is why I like using this forum, Jaron (I assume Batrium is Jaron) and others like yourself that are very knowledgeable with this stuff are on here. It seems like a good place to post issues in a community like way so in case someone has already had that issue someone already had, they might respond to help out.

It seems more efficient this way yes?
 
Some issues can be answered here but for more strange and uncommon issues its generally better to deal with directly towards Batrium support. If you dont get the response needed you can always let us know and we will try to help.

I dont have an answer on your issue itself since its not something I have come across. If all your communication leads and the power wires to the batteries are fine im not sure what else to help.

I assume you do run latest software on it?
 
Yes v2.0.7 came out the day before I turned on the unit for the first time. So I updated to that then. And as it happens today was the first full day I did not have that issue of monitor stickiness. Perhaps it was related to the battery being more out of balance than I thought and now it has settled down. I will keep monitoring it for a few days.
 
Out of balance should not cause this behaviour. The only thing i can think of is if the voltage is to low.
 
Still an issue so I have sent an email to info@batrium homing for some deeper Tshooting.
 
Mine just started doing this exact same thing too. It's claiming 3.5V and stuck in bypass, voltmeter says 3.2V. Didn't think to try a re-sync to correct them I just unplug the longmon and plug it back in.

Did you ever figure it out?
 
I'm not sure I ever figured out the underlying issue but I did figure out how to fix the symptoms. I turned down the bypass current limit from 2A to 1.5A. That made the problem go away for all my cellmons.
 
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