I have been avoiding messing with my battery firmware, “If it ain’t broke…” and all that.
Having read this post, I reckon the time has come.
@Jaco, could you please point me (and others who are in the same boat as me) to:
Much appreciated.
I can.
Please tell me first what batteries you have, 3000A or C or whatever. Year that you bought it in. Pylontech has lists and lists of firmware and we need to confirm wich one will work for you before you try and update. I would also like to be part of the process even if I can join you via AnyDesk while you do it so that I can assist in recovering your battery should the updates fail (And they often do) I have the recovery software on hand but wont distribute that online.
I have tested firmware with me for all the model. Some is not the latest because its a mess. All those I use are advanced enough to give us all the functions we need. I have access to a portal where I can download all the latest, but have tried newer versions and constantly experience upload failures. I stick to the versions that work.
Firstly you would need a USB to RS232 converter with an RJ11 or RJ45 plug depending on your model. They are pretty expensive coming in at R500 each excluding from the cheapest supplier I know. In Gauteng area I can assist with cables on a lone basis.
EDIT: Wait I have sold you a new battery not long ago. If its the master unit you should have minimum and maximum values. Whatsapp me your installation name and let me check please?
We have just seen that not all USB-Rs232 cables work on the Pylontech. I vaguely remember something about the Pinout or Chip used for the conversion that is not compatible. Manie from PowerForum as well as @CenturionSolar had their own cables specifically for Pylontech’s. I have tried standard cables before and it did not work so bought my first set from Manie and my other sets from Centurion Solar.
Johan at Centurion solar has the best prices and for those who knew Manie (From ICC), he sadly passed away a few months back. I am not sure if his online shop is still active and if we can still buy from it.
Bought my cable from Solar Assistant online store.
https://solar-assistant.io/shop/products/pylontech_usc
You can choose which connector you need based on your battery.
Thanks @JacoDeJongh
For anyone needing the cables, you can get them from my website here:
or
Also, for those left behind, we offer free upgrade assistance from the old ICC / ICM to the latest version of SMH. You can download the image for SMH free or charge here: https://centurionsolar.co.za/shop/smh-pi-image-only/.
If there are any people out there that needs help with the transition, or can’t get any support for ICC / ICM, please give us a shout and let’s see if we can be of assistance.
Hope it helps!
Does the Cerbo GX recognize this cable and can it be used for example NodeRed to publish cell voltages etc. via MQTT to HomeAssistant?
We use them on the Raspberry Pi’s with our SMH and ICC software, but I am not sure if the GX will see it. In theory though it should, as it’s got the correct pinouts for the B or C versions. I use mine to publish all my data to my HomeAssistant on MQTT, so I can only guess that it will work with the GX as well ;).
I shall be giving it a try then. 
Pylontech just shipped us a makeshift RS232->USB converter thing way back, even they don’t have an official cable it seems, they make one up just like the rest of us 
The good news is that the CerboGX recognizes the cable and I can collect serial data from the /dev/ttyUSB0 device, and send it to my Home Assistant mqtt broker. I am not getting the individual cell voltages though, but that is probably because the flow that I imported from https://github.com/juanhaywood/nodered-pylontech-console-reader does not break up the serial data to this level.
I will figure this out when I don’t have a brain that is moesh after a long week.
The USB part is converting to Rs232. Normal USB won’t work.
The cost of the cable is R450 to R500. I can ship you one, but don’t know how much cheaper it will be both ways.
Ok, I’ll get hold of one and report back
Thanks
Thanks for the detailed explanation. I was one of the people who had the high-cell voltages some time earlier this year (plenty of posts of mine here - Victron Multiplus + Pylontech high voltage alarm - #126 by ebendl).
My one Pylontech was replaced under warranty and I haven’t had the issue since, but my other two were sitting around, possibly waiting to get the same issue. So I’m glad something was done by Victron to try and prevent this!
(and thanks to @JacoDeJongh for the service and consulting during this whole process).
Quick questions: @JacoDeJongh already loaded the new firmware, but do I need to do anything else? E.g. change charging parameters?
Hi @ebendl , those values comes directly from the BMS and get send to Victron system to tell the system how it would like to be charged. Victron listens to this values when you select DVCC and in some cases when they see a specific battery’s identifier they will force DVCC on and not allow you to deselect it. In a way with their “new algorithm”, they override the CVL and will not bring the pack voltage up to the value asked by the BMS. I guess part of the success of this change is due to exactly this.
You dont need to change anything imo, just allow this “new algorithm” to do its own magic. Unless uncle @plonkster knows of a reason to change anything.
Interesting, Ive just done the 3.50 update and Ive seen the highest cell full spike that I can recall on my ETowers.
Morning, from what @plonkster said in a previous post, the algorithm will only work on 15 cell batteries. I don’t think it will work for the etowers.
The algorithm is applied only to Pylontech batteries, and only to 15-cell models (there are some 16-cell models on the market as well, eg the Pelio-L, but they appear way less fussy about voltages).
Applying this to everything out there would be way too sweeping a change
Is this related to the ~50 firmware? The change was only for 15cell Pylontech Batteries.
Thanks to Jaco for updating my battery firmware, I can now also benefit from the new algorithm.
I do have a question, I see that the CCL for the first time goes to zero, but what does it mean when there is an imbalance, is it balancing or idle or what as I see the Effective Charge voltage also changes, but the CCL remains zero:
