Batteries not charging

Since about a week ago my batteries have refused to charge, either from the grid or from solar. I have a Gen3 hybrid with 2 5.4Kw batteries. I think there may have been a dongle firmware upgrade at about that time, but I can't remember.

I've verified all the settings via the normal dashboard and the Remote Control page, and everything looks fine. I also run HA (GivTCP V3) which doesn't show any errors. Both HA and the portal show that my batteries have been at 6% for days now.

I've tried contacting GE, but their WhatsApp robot hung up on me. Any ideas of other things I can try? I have contacted my installer, but he is away until next week.

GrahamAnstey I've verified all the settings via the normal dashboard and the Remote Control page

On the remote control page, do you force the portal to read the live value from the inverter, or merely inspect the values? It seems that the portal displays a cached value, and that can get out of sync with value on the inverter. Since the portal won't send a value that it thinks is already on the inverter, one option is to deliberately set a value away from the one you want, then set it to the one you do want - that ensures it actually gets sent.

Is the charging power actually 0, or just very small? My inverter typically charges at about 200W even when power is set to 0. Using timed pause gets the power down to about 28W. Turning off eco mode does actually get it down to 0, but that should affect grid charging.

Some people suggest using a reset-to-defaults, but I'm not sure this works reliably - again, it may only reset registers it thinks have changed, rather than actually setting every register to a known value. Not really something I've ever really experimented with.

I did a "Read all unread registers", and I've tried toggling a few, such as Eco Mode, back and forth. The banner on my GE dashboard shows that the battery is "0W Idle - 7%" and has been for a few days, except that yesterday it went from the 6% it had been to 7%. I've just enabled RTC, but none of the values have noticibly changed and are all how I would expect them to be.

There is a procedure somewhere. turn everything to do with panels, batteries and inverter off and let power drain for 30s or so. Then turn back on and hopefully everything will reboot

GrahamAnstey If there was a Dongle Firmware update you should have received a notification of it starting and whether it completed or failed.
Check the Notifications either on the app or cloud. Note on the cloud it is the bell icon on the toolbar on the left (not notifications under My Inverter).

You could try doing a total shutdown of your system. The correct sequence should be in the Handover Pack your installer gave you. It may also be on a sticker on your equipment. Hopefully this may clear everything.

After doing an upgrade I have found that I need to renew all the settings I had previously on the inverter as it had reset them to defaults. Even though the cloud was still showing them as being set.

As DD says, try resetting ALL the values in Remote Control, not just reading unread registers. I have read of cases where a cached (incorrect) value on one register (maybe even one of the charge schedule slots you never use) can affect the whole lot. If you go through each register individually, reading the value and -if necessary - changing it back to what it should be, you might find eg, AC Charge 3 Upper SOC % Limit is set to zero (but showing 100%), or eg, Battery Charge Power is showing 2611kWh but is actually set at a level much lower.
HTH

There was some sort of firmware update 2 weeks ago according to the notifications (thanks NormC). According to the log it failed twice, then succeded. I'll try going through all of the settings, and see what happens overnight (It should charge to 100% on cheap rate 02:00-05:00).

I had a similar experience & found my battery to inverter isolator switch had tripped.

I manually reset all the settings by switching them away from what was shown, making sure it claimed success, and then changed them back, again waiting for success. I've shutdown HA just to make sure it wasn't some strange interraction. It's still stubbornly showing 7% on the portal (in the battery data history log).

Thanks Watts123, makes sense. It's a bit of a pain to get to my inverter (in the loft), but I'll try and find time to check the isolators/breakers up there later.

Gold star goes to Watts123! That's exactly what it was. Reset the isolator and the batteries are already at 10% and charging.

If anyone stumbles across this thread in the future... The LED + on the inverter was only showing an inverted T. Reset the isolator and after about 10s it went back to a +

Many thanks to all for your help.

GrahamAnstey Just in case this is helpful I copied the following from the WonderWatt forum...

Is this the DC breaker between the batteries and the inverter or the AC breaker between the inverter and the distribution board?

If it's the DC breaker then it is possible that the terminal screws need tightening. If slightly loose they warm up causing the breaker to trip prematurely. I have had this twice now in 2.5 years of use and each time I could tighten the screws a bit. Be careful to make sure it is all de-energised if you want to do this yourself or ask your installer to come back (or any electrician should be able to help).

In the meantime change the charge and discharge powers from/to the batteries to see if it helps.

Originally I thought this was a poor installation where cables were not terminated correctly but I understand that GE have changed the method and now include the DC breaker in the cabinet and use a different connection method. Apparently DC breakers tripping is a common problem.

PS There's a thread on the GE forum with more advice (but you have to wade through a lot of mis-information).

https://community.givenergy.cloud/d/4826-100a-battery-circuit-breaker