If you look through the forum there is a lot written about the JK active BMS. I used another highly recommended brand before and am planning on moving everything over to JK. The one Andy mentioned is being adopted by many. There is also an earlier version with a few less bells and whistles being used by many as well.
Extremely overheated BMS, fused Breaker and dead Inverter. What could be the root cause?
- Thread starter zedconnor
- Start date
If you look through the forum there is a lot written about the JK active BMS. I used another highly recommended brand before and am planning on moving everything over to JK. The one Andy mentioned is being adopted by many. There is also an earlier version with a few less bells and whistles being used by many as well.
Steve_S
Offgrid Cabineer, N.E. Ontario, Canada
Just chiming in here....
1) Make sure the AIO and everything is properly grounded and correct.
2) Never "enclose" a BMS meaning don't cover/wrap it in anything, it needs air for passive cooling. They get warm when in use, warmer with higher amp draws, so it's important that they can shed that off.
3) DALY is well known and a terrible amount of Lessons Learned have happened and those who got bitten, changed. I don't know ANYONE here who recommends Daly, seriously. That in itself says something !! Sad because tey are just Pinch away from being really good but they keep doing stupid things and cheating on bits that cause failures.
4) A reasonably good BMS for most applications is the JKBMS with 2A Active Balancing (available up to 200A). Now if you have Compatible equipment, the Inverter Edition (newest & best yet) support interconnection between packs & several brands of AIO and Victron Stack as well.
1) Make sure the AIO and everything is properly grounded and correct.
2) Never "enclose" a BMS meaning don't cover/wrap it in anything, it needs air for passive cooling. They get warm when in use, warmer with higher amp draws, so it's important that they can shed that off.
3) DALY is well known and a terrible amount of Lessons Learned have happened and those who got bitten, changed. I don't know ANYONE here who recommends Daly, seriously. That in itself says something !! Sad because tey are just Pinch away from being really good but they keep doing stupid things and cheating on bits that cause failures.
4) A reasonably good BMS for most applications is the JKBMS with 2A Active Balancing (available up to 200A). Now if you have Compatible equipment, the Inverter Edition (newest & best yet) support interconnection between packs & several brands of AIO and Victron Stack as well.
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
5. And, realize the BMS is not a fuse and can't act as a fuse since if it fails most of the time it will fail as a short. If there is sufficent current the short will get all explodey and become an open.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
Everybody on this forum jumps to whatever brand Andy and Will are trying at the moment.
All of them (brands) have stories about this problem or that. There are a few who have chimed in here that used to advocate chargery even blathered in about how tied in they were with the company
. Notice they are no longer using chargery…. It boils down to how you use it.
Lightening can take out inverters and associated electronics. Had it happen myself. Daly x 4 x three years.
Currently preparing to test 100 BMS, a new DALY offering.
edit for clarity: the lightening strike took out the inverters ac input board. one DALY acted strange and got replaced. the other three are still in service.
All of them (brands) have stories about this problem or that. There are a few who have chimed in here that used to advocate chargery even blathered in about how tied in they were with the company
. Notice they are no longer using chargery…. It boils down to how you use it.Lightening can take out inverters and associated electronics. Had it happen myself. Daly x 4 x three years.
Currently preparing to test 100 BMS, a new DALY offering.
edit for clarity: the lightening strike took out the inverters ac input board. one DALY acted strange and got replaced. the other three are still in service.
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Brucey
Solar Wizard
Are you sure it was lightning and not just standard Daly reputation for garbage reliability and failures?Everybody on this forum jumps to whatever brand Andy and Will are trying at the moment.
All of them (brands) have stories about this problem or that. There are a few who have chimed in here that used to advocate chargery even blathered in about how tied in they were with the company
Lightening can take out inverters and associated electronics. Had it happen myself. Daly x 4 x three years.
Currently preparing to test 100 BMS, a new DALY offering.
Hope no one was hurt.
The thing hate about breakers “if” trip ppl reset them right away… giving it a second or finite number of chances to cause problems. VS inspecting everything like would usually be done with fuse replacement. Breakers will fail if recycled over and over. Thermal protection helps solve some of that…breaker won’t reset until cooled off.
Ppl if you read it the OP says breaker tripped. Tripped again. Then smell from battery pack. Then read the breaker was fused melted inside when he tried it. Effective reading is critical. So no telling what really happened.
Everyone is blaming the daly bms which might not of been the problem. Lightening does weird stuff.
The temptation to just reset breakers is strong. Don’t do it without looking and smelling for smoke.
I have a fuse and breaker on my battery ….. the breaker is 120amp the fuse is 125amp. Breaker close to battery and fuse close to inverter. I am still waiting on my t class fuse to replace anl. I think the anl would work but it would depend on load when system fails.
I suspect mosfet in inverter…damaged during reported storm. ppl cycling tripped breakers over and over never leads to good things. Always inspect.
I’d remove all power - cables … remove cover and look around inside the inverter. Was inverter unit hooked to grid or generator or anything? Just battery? Sometimes you can remove from mount and shake stuff to hear pieces rattling around in the case. Good indication pieces went to something Like doing old light bulb rattle.
“1hp aircom” Assume air conditioner. Did you check out the air conditioner? Does it look good … any weird burned smells from it? Sometimes when inverters go take out appliances. Sometimes appliances feed back when hit by lightening.
Edit add: This might be better breaker. Those mini might not be so good… arc travel.
www.nsbjd.com
The thing hate about breakers “if” trip ppl reset them right away… giving it a second or finite number of chances to cause problems. VS inspecting everything like would usually be done with fuse replacement. Breakers will fail if recycled over and over. Thermal protection helps solve some of that…breaker won’t reset until cooled off.
Ppl if you read it the OP says breaker tripped. Tripped again. Then smell from battery pack. Then read the breaker was fused melted inside when he tried it. Effective reading is critical. So no telling what really happened.
Everyone is blaming the daly bms which might not of been the problem. Lightening does weird stuff.
The temptation to just reset breakers is strong. Don’t do it without looking and smelling for smoke.
I have a fuse and breaker on my battery ….. the breaker is 120amp the fuse is 125amp. Breaker close to battery and fuse close to inverter. I am still waiting on my t class fuse to replace anl. I think the anl would work but it would depend on load when system fails.
I suspect mosfet in inverter…damaged during reported storm. ppl cycling tripped breakers over and over never leads to good things. Always inspect.
I’d remove all power - cables … remove cover and look around inside the inverter. Was inverter unit hooked to grid or generator or anything? Just battery? Sometimes you can remove from mount and shake stuff to hear pieces rattling around in the case. Good indication pieces went to something Like doing old light bulb rattle.
“1hp aircom” Assume air conditioner. Did you check out the air conditioner? Does it look good … any weird burned smells from it? Sometimes when inverters go take out appliances. Sometimes appliances feed back when hit by lightening.
Edit add: This might be better breaker. Those mini might not be so good… arc travel.
DHM1B-2P Molded Case Circuit Breaker DC MCCB
www.nsbjd.com
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Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
see my edit!
I have a mechanic that I trust with my cars. It wasn’t an advertisement in a slick add that took me to his shop. It started with a face to face conversation. And then a successful repair followed by countless successful repairs over the years.
The BMS I chose is similar. I have read posts from those whose entire household depends upon their equipment, not a shop or a garage. I currently have two Overkill and two JK Active BMS in operation.
There are those who are very happy with their Overkill units. Having run them side by side for my build the JK is heads and tails above the other.
Brand loyalty is a trust relationship. Even at three years my learning process has never stopped. My post is not intended to pass judgment on one brand over another. Only to suggest to keep an open mind during the journey.
I have found my multimeter to be a good friend. At times I have been surprised to note that something as simple as a loose connection can be a factor.
Power surges of any type can be tough on electronics regardless of brand. Sometimes rotating units or plugging in a new unit can get things running again.
Having said that sometimes a thorough inspection can be beneficial to reduce the risk of a repeat performance.
The BMS I chose is similar. I have read posts from those whose entire household depends upon their equipment, not a shop or a garage. I currently have two Overkill and two JK Active BMS in operation.
There are those who are very happy with their Overkill units. Having run them side by side for my build the JK is heads and tails above the other.
Brand loyalty is a trust relationship. Even at three years my learning process has never stopped. My post is not intended to pass judgment on one brand over another. Only to suggest to keep an open mind during the journey.
I have found my multimeter to be a good friend. At times I have been surprised to note that something as simple as a loose connection can be a factor.
Power surges of any type can be tough on electronics regardless of brand. Sometimes rotating units or plugging in a new unit can get things running again.
Having said that sometimes a thorough inspection can be beneficial to reduce the risk of a repeat performance.
littleharbor2
Solar Addict
Explodey, Funny word. Must be a technical term.
Anyway, as to BMS's, My main house battery runs a daly 250 amp, "dumb" version. It seems to be working fine as I haven't had any issues so far 2 1/2 years in service now. We do get a lot of lightning down here in the summer and so far, so good.
I've built many batteries for others since and have gotten my best results from the JK BMS's
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I just wanted to share a lightning story, it will really show just how odd lightning is.
Years ago, like 30 I had setup a computer network at a John Deere dealership. Most of the computers had modems so they could fax out quotes and such as well as access Deere home office for parts and all that jazz. It was a different time.
A thunderstorm came along and lightning hit NEXT to the building. By next I mean about 30 feet away, it hit a tractor. The entire network went down.
Long story short, and after a lot of figuring it turned out that every single modem got smoked. The rest of the computer was fine. Take the modem card out of the PC and it would be fine, put it back in and it would not boot. Oddest thing I have ever seen.
When thunderstorms are around and you think it might have done something expect anything. Nothing will make sense. Those blown modems also stopped the server from booting. This is in the old days of Novell 2.2.
Years ago, like 30 I had setup a computer network at a John Deere dealership. Most of the computers had modems so they could fax out quotes and such as well as access Deere home office for parts and all that jazz. It was a different time.
A thunderstorm came along and lightning hit NEXT to the building. By next I mean about 30 feet away, it hit a tractor. The entire network went down.
Long story short, and after a lot of figuring it turned out that every single modem got smoked. The rest of the computer was fine. Take the modem card out of the PC and it would be fine, put it back in and it would not boot. Oddest thing I have ever seen.
When thunderstorms are around and you think it might have done something expect anything. Nothing will make sense. Those blown modems also stopped the server from booting. This is in the old days of Novell 2.2.
OffGridForGood
Catch, make or grow everything you can.
I wonder how many we can list:
Explodey
Self Distruct
Rapid Self Disassembly
Spontaneous Rearrangement...
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
unplanned disassembly event.
This is exactly what I am trying to figure out. I do not wish to have another similar incident. But the Inverter must've been the main culprit. (16 FETS blown and got replaced.)
The resetting of tripped breaker by the user must be the next step in overheating the BMS.
The BMS still works after I tested it with a temporary battery pack. Can connect with PC. Or Bluetooth. But I have not tried charging or discharging. And maybe i'll just put it on display.
I cannot read the Alarm History using either PC software or Bluetooth.
It also stuck on "Reading Alarm History" when i tried to read it on another exact same model in use. So it is probably a software problem.
Like others have mentioned I am thinking of switching to JK at this point.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
that is more or less how NASA described the challenger event initially.... I mean its NASA FFS... they are actually rocket scientists...
DIYrich
Solar Wizard
From the picture, I wouldn't enable charging or discharging the bms.
robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Sorry, just figured out this was just a temp install on the rebuild?
Neatness counts when it comes to wire. Make a neat bundle of the balance wires like a tree trunk and pull putbranchess to the battery posts/bus bars.
Just my opinion, take or leave it.
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robbob2112
Doing more research, mosty harmless
Of course it is, kinda like 'ka-tink'. That is defined as the sound a screw makes as it bounces out of sight into the most irretrievable possible spot.
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
yep or the infamous 10mm socket. it makes that same damn sound
littleharbor2
Solar Addict
And of course it's stainless steel which magnets won't work on.
Finding the root cause of this should be a priority. Also, put a fast acting fuse at 125A or so (Class T) at the inverter input.
