Realistically its gonna be a bit hard to add new batteries to 2021 batteries. If I recall from FreedomWon documentation they said that any additions should happen within 1 year and less than 500 cycles to prevent issues.
Not according to their catalogue and manual. This was one of the deciding factors when I bought it because I couldn’t afford to buy the capacity I wanted all at once…
This screenshot has just been taken off a freshly downloaded Manual from FW’s website.
I bought mine December 2021 and at the time the one failed, the good one had done 731 cycles and the bad one only 366. Up to now no one could provide me with a proper explanation of how one battery only done half the cycles of one that was bought from the same supplier and installed and commissioned on the same day…
I’ve got questions…but answers seem to sparkle in it’s absence.
Methinks, once you have had your warranty replacements, and the issue/s persists, you could be “forced” to have to resort to “butchering” without “completely destroying” their value. 
Till that moment, “los alles uit!”.
My memory didn’t serve correctly.
Thank you for the correction.
My gut also points in that direction. I’m not sure how accurate the statement was but I heard a birdie sing that once you’ve had a repair done under warranty, the warranty is done with. If that’s the case, manufacturers’s warranties are not worth the paper it’s printed on. When deciding on which batteries to buy, this is the kind of smallprint one can never find in the brochures. I’m not badmouthing FW here. They’ve got brilliant products all over the world, but I am pointing fingers at companies making the smallprint extra small and even bending it for marketings sake. Unfortunately most of the Lithium batteries on the market today cannot provide you with a proper 10 year + track record because they simply haven’t been available that long. So with a 5000Cycle “warranty” and one cycle per day that equates to almost 14 years. I would pay for someone’s review who have been using the same LiFePo4 bank daily for that period of time. I cannot seem to find details on Google but I think LiFePo4 cells have only been flooding the market in the last 6 or so years? correct? So even if a manufacturer gives you a 50,000 cycle warranty, and repairs it only once, the cycle warranty is irrelevant and is only used for marketing purposes 'cause the technology has not been used in renewable energy systems that long. Even FW launched their first LiTe range less than 10 years ago.
Sorry. Off topic!!
Jip, you see what I see … and I’m pretty sure that once that bank has been replaced, that’s it. Warranty done.
Not even Victron will keep on replacing your inverter under warranty.
Happy to be corrected though … if I got it wrong.
EDIT:
Me, with the DIY bank, I’m betting on having to replace cells within the “10 years”.
Dang, IF they last ±20 years, dang man, that would be super cool!
Also, if I want to upgrade the BMS when a new super cooler one comes out, why not?
And I can see, the cells do need TLC every few months/once a year, to help them get balanced again.
I mean, the BMS hardware/software is new too …
When i decided to replace my Pb bank with LiFePo4 i was too stupid to go the DIY route. If I knew then what I know now I would’ve had a much bigger bank now, probably without issues, simply because I would be monitoring ths cells closely. With the eTowers i only got the diagnostic cable close to 2 years after I bought it and I only acquired the cable because VRM started showing cell imbalances of up to 30mV, which worried me.
Maar nou ja. Ons betaal mos maar almal ons eie skoolgeld…
I might just cell them and start from scratch with a DIY bank. All depends on the warranty terms that follows. Butchering might commence🫢
Okay. FW support confirmed this morning that my older battery cannot be upgraded past V1.10 firmware while the later models are dispatched with V5.07 and it’s not advisable to use different firmwares in parallel. So in other words they will be sending me a new replacement battery that is not compatible with my existing battery.
Now the fun starts!!
Would have thought they’d at least offer to put in a new BMS for you which is compatible with the firmware of your other batteries, even if at a fee.
Another update. FW updated my old battery’s firmware to v1.10 last week, which, according to them, is 100% with v5.07 of the newer Pace BMS’s in the newer batteries. The SOC% problem however, still persists. I’ve given up on getting the problem sorted with the loan battery. According to PBMS the loan battery, which was built 08/2023, have 1270 log entries, which, as I understand, is fault entries.
My 2021 battery, only has 143 entries. So what I’m thinking is that the loan battery from Herholdts might be another DUDD battery and I’m not wasting more time and energy to get it to work properly with my old one.
Freedom Won advised me on the 27th of March that they will be replacing my faulty battery. I’ve struggled since then to get it here. After failing to get it back through Herholdts I requested the Courier guy to colelct it from FW’s headoffice last week. I phoned to make sure about the address before I booked the collection because they are moving apparently and I didn’t want the courier to try and collect from the wrong address. It’s however still been one headache after the other. 1st attempt they were closed already (before 3am on a weekday), 2nd attempt they couldn’t fine anyone aware of the battery they should collect and now the third attempt, I apparently used the wrong ticket number as reference on the waybill. Jeez there’s been 5 ticket numbers on this battery since the problem started and I used the one they used on their email when they advised me to collect the replacement. Surely 5 tickets regarding one battery’s serial number should be linked on their system and either one of the ticket numbers would reference back to the one instructing me to collect the replacement???
I’m sorry but I’m done with FW. Their bigger batteries might be a huge success but the eTower range seem to be a failure and their reputation for after sales support seems to have gone down the drain since the merge with Electromecha.
I would NOT buy any more FW products or recommend them to anyone, escpecially the eTowers.
I suspect my woes will continue once I get my replacement battery so watch this space. I really hope they prove me wrong!!!
Bugger. That is so sad to read.
As one of the most expensive stackable batteries on the market, this is kak.
Get a full refund and threaten to take it further if they don’t help…
I’ll wait for the replacement battery to arrive (whenever that will be) and then check if the issue has been resolved. Everytime I walk past these batteries I throw up in my mouth thinking of the R56k I’ve spent to so much shit!!
Not to add insult to injury, but this “formula” has been my go-to since Amy was introduced to the scene way back.
BMS, I see that as a “replaceable”. Get the best one today, if a better one comes around, get it, and keep the old one as a spare.
EDIT: Lately, an idea popped to mind. Just add new BMS balancing wires, that one can swap and change BMS at a drop of a hat. Or do what Andy did, and build an interesting easily BMS swappable connector. 
If it was me I would have tried for a refund, reset, and started again. Done it plenty of times on other equipment. The “damage is done”. You will “never” trust them batts again.
… the warranty for that one batt is “done and dusted”.
I guess it’s time for an update on the eTowers. The new replacement battery arrived about 3 days ago.
At first I replaced the loan battery with the replacment one and monitored it for a few days and as expected, same issue. SOC% difference increases to up to 35% at the lower SOC limit. I theen ran the replacement battery and the loan battery together for a few days and they play nice together with SOC% differences of max 4%. I then connected all 3 and have been monitoring them together. Same shit. The differencce in SOC% between the old one and new ones is huge.
Heck I’ve even done capacity tests on each individual battery with results of 89Ah to 91Ah between the three, with the best capacity on my old battery. I’ve done this with an inductive load on the inverter discharging the batteries at 70Amps until the inverter or battery switches off, and then checking data on the smartshunt.
With all 3 connected I only get abour 220Ah out of the 300Ah bank, same test. Obviously the inverter wil switch of at a preset SOC% of 10% but when the bank gets there, the 2 new batteries have already been blocked by the BMS’s and the old one still has around 32% SOC.
I am still conviced that it’s a communication issue between the BMS’s. FW, as always, have been very slow to respond to emails. I have recieved an email 11:40pm last night (yes, Sunday night) that they want to remotely log in today at 12:30pm. They want the batteries to be fully charged so they can check the delta voltage of the cells.
They’ve been giving me the run around for months now and I’m sorry, I’m not returning the loan battery until the issue has been sorted.
I’m also hearing more and more horror stories about eTowers giving problems so I’ve got an itch I want to start scratching by demanding a refund. What would be chances of that happening without legal aid?
Asking is free, as is the No.
That’s the thing I would do… Tell them to upgrade the BMS in the old box for you…
I suggested that to Herholdts and FW but FW insists that the V1.10 and V5.07 firmware is 100% compatible. Hell they even insisted that 30% difference in SOC levels are not a problem.