3 Calibrations in 3 weeks (predbat)

11 comments started 2025-01-20 last 2025-01-20
Home AutomationHome Assistant
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#1 pacemaker

Hi all,

Would appreciate some advice

Been a year on Predbat almost, been fine, though I've had 3 calibrations triggered in the past 3 weeks (one a week), after having none for so long. I am a bit worried about what is going on, today's was the worst - started in PEAK prices.

Any suggestions on what I might do or what might have changed that is now causing this? Anyone else suffering? (9.5kWh battery, AC3)

R
#2 Rbor

pacemaker Similar setup: AC3.0 daisy chained to two 8.2 kWh batteries running predbat.
No calibrations triggered.
Set up in stable environments at 20C minimum so no temp considerations.

Rob

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#3 pacemaker

Rbor I have mine in my garage - didn't suffer last year and it seems warmer this year tbh... what can I look for temperature wise that might be culprit?

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#4 geoffreycoan

pacemaker Its worth highlighting that Predbat doesn’t trigger the calibrations, it only recognises that they are happening and pauses battery operations whilst the calibration is happening. Without Predbat highlighting that a calibration is happening you might well have had them in the past but never known about it.

It has been suggested that potentially givtcp can corrupt inverter register values as there is insufficient error checking of the modbus interface, and that in turn can cause the inverter to do a calibration. This is difficult of course to prove.
One guard against this is to be on the latest inverter firmware, the versions that introduce battery pause (in givtcp2 you could turn the ‘old firmware’ switch off) as this firmware introduced CRC error checking so should be less prone to transmission corruptions.

Other than that, no real advice. I’ve never had a random calibration on either of my inverters in 15 months of Predbat.

If a calibration does occur you can’t stop it but you can change the charge and discharge rates so the calibration is done when the rates are favourable. I did this with my last calibration, I dropped the discharge rate to a trickle to see me through the peak and then turned the charge rate to zero until the cheaper overnight rates

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#5 pacemaker

geoffreycoan pacemaker Its worth highlighting that Predbat doesn’t trigger the calibrations, it only recognises that they are happening and pauses battery operations whilst the calibration is happening. Without Predbat highlighting that a calibration is happening you might well have had them in the past but never known about it.

The GE app is telling me they are happening (I realise they aren't predbat initiated, but maybe 3 in 3 weeks is caused by how I / predbat are using the battery?) or could be unrelated. Either way 3 in 3 weeks seems a lot... ? I don't know what else would cause them because this time last year I didn't have this happen, and wasn't using predbat...

am using givtcp 3 now, but these happened on 2.x and 3 (upgraded about 2 weeks ago)

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#6 TX200

If it is a collision of data - e.g. PredBat and/or App traffic and/or portal traffic, then perhaps changing the HA cycle to something less aggressive might help?

E.g. if home assistant (or givtcp to be precise I guess!) is connecting every 10 seconds, try setting it to 30 seconds.

Edit - oh and swipe close the mobile app when you're not using it.

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#7 geoffreycoan

TX200 agreed you don't want to run the givtcp inverter poll too frequently. Too often can overload the inverter and result in it not responding to portal commands either

I used to use a poll frequency of 20 seconds but after moving to givtcp 3 I am now using 30 seconds

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#8 SteveCook

geoffreycoan
Geoffrey. Where do I change the poll settings to 30 seconds please?

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#9 geoffreycoan

SteveCook its the self run loop timer in the givenergy config

this is givtcp3 but same config name in v2

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#10 SteveCook

Thanks. I thought it was that and had set that to 30s, but was not sure.

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#11 pacemaker

TX200

Aaaah thank you for pointing this out. After my first calibration I upgraded to givtcp 3.0 and changed the run loop timer to 15 secs from 30. Since then I had 2 calibrations.

I’ve put it back to 30s… hope it sorts it! Thanks again for the tip