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@@FFcossag It was one hell of a challenge, had to build a new battery rack and everything but it is done now :) It is in service as we speak. Can't wait to get more of them, I did some load testing last night and oh boy, I could not get the voltage below 12.38V even with pretty decent load, for a really long time aswell! Talk about an upgrade compared to old shitty automotive style batteries! :D
I'm glad it worked out. Just remember to configure your charge controller for a pretty low bulk and float voltages. A600s seem to live longer if slightly undercharged than if slightly overcharged; you can recover from sulfation due to undercharging, but you can't recover from corrosion due to overcharging.
Me too! I am super happy that it all went well with shipping, and moving it into place here at home :) I did hurt my back a little, I found out a few days later... So definitely need to come up with a better transporting solution when I get more of these in the future. Indeed, that's what I suspected aswell. You can always recover sulphation, but never get lost electrolyte and you can't undo corrosion... The sonnenschein handbook says that a float voltage of 13.5 and a bulk charge voltage of 14.1 is recommended for a fairly wide temperature range. I've adjusted my float voltage down to 13.4, I've left the bulk and absorption voltage around 14.1 though. My charge controller is fully temperature compensated too, so I've set up a fairly aggressive temperature compensation curve since it can get a bit hot in my solar shed sometimes. Although I've been pleasantly surprised how cool the battery is staying, since I've placed it as close to the floor level as possible. It hasn't exceeded 25°C so far! So I most likely don't need such an aggressive curve. But I'd rather undercharge it slightly than over charge it accidentally like you said. My controller also has a tail current setting, (basically a amperage threshold where it switches from absorption to float charge), I decided to set that fairly high so it doesn't sit there blasting the battery with 14.1V when it's basically nearly at 95+% state of charge. I set the tail current to 3 amps, I'm unsure if I should set it even higher to make it switch to float sooner. I'm also unsure about how often I should let the charger do equalizing. I set the equalizing voltage to 14.4, as recommended by the datasheet. (Seems a bit low to me?) And one hour, every 30 days. I can't really find any good information about whether or not that's too often? Or too long in-between? Also not sure if 1 hour is too short or too long :P So I definitely have some questions left unanswered hehe.. gonna take a good moment today and read through the entire handbook, because today is finally a calm day for me. I've read 90% of it thoroughly, but there's a few pages of information left. I also have conflicting information about terminal torque, the handbook says 20nM, and the battery itself says 12nM on it. I went for 20 because 12 seems awfully loose to me, if I bump the wires or something (I have 35mm2, not super fine stranded, so a bit stiff,) they become undone with just 12nM. Nothing seemed to be flexing or anything tightening them to 20, so I highly doubt I've caused any damage to the battery. I just got a bit worried about that since you mentioned your cells having been over torqued and leaking, but I suspect yours were *severely* over torqued, such as someone using a impact driver.... Anyways hehe, this reply just became insanely long:P Also wondering if I could talk to you some where else, because RU-vid comments is incredibly glitchy and it seems to randomly delete my messages... I could email you instead, that might be easier! I also have discord which could maybe be a bit more practical, then I could show you things more interactively and show photos and video clips x3 (also I'm making a YT video about the battery, so expect to see that soon ish!)
You can find me on Discord, ff_ccsa1f 14,1 and 13,5 are good voltages. I wouldn't do 13,4 since that's basically nothing at all. Sonnenscheins don't "need" temperature compensation, but they still benefit from a gentle slope. 0,001-0,003 V/Cell/degree doesn't hurt. Install your temperature probe on the negative terminal of the battery since it'll get warm if you're overcharging. 14,4 V is a good equalising voltage, but you should run it for 6 hours or so. My experience tells me that a less frequent but more aggressive equalisation cycle is preferable. I only equalise my batteries a few times a year unless something has happened (which also happens a few times a year). 3 A is a very high float transfer voltage for such a small battery. I'd do no more than 2 A, but this also depends on how much useful charging per day you get. The less charge time per day you get, and the deeper a daily cycle you pull, the more aggressive your lower absorption current limit needs to be.
Get some old 22kW tankless water heater, should get it for free or nearly free from a plumber. Makes a good test load, is small and as said, usually free.
great job with that bms ! keep developing and sharing your progress. making it work with different cell/manufacturer buses and can would make it the swiss army knife of all bms for so many uses !
Hehe, man vet att när Ludvig laddar upp en ny video, då blir det en bra dag! Speciellt efter en tråkig dag på jobbet, såsom idag. Byta 100 brandskadade kablar i ett pannhus, både varmt och fysiskt krävande, även fast jag mest spenderar tid i ställverken med AC... Tack och lov så börjar semestern snart, då ska jag bygga ordning på min lilla buss så jag kan åka till trollstigen och sova över där :D Vem vet, jag kanske åker och hälsar på när jag ändå är ute och åker, har alltid viljat åka till Åland! english now, so that everyone will understand x3 What a beautiful generator! Also interesting that it uses the same exact engine my valmet 502 tractor uses!! Valmet 310B, it looks like! Yours has a different fuel lift pump, and yours appears to have an oil cooler or something like that connected, the tractor doesn't need that I guess because mine doesn't have it! It runs so beautifully too, my tractor sounds *exactly* like that at 1500 RPM too! The muffler you found must have very similar characteristics I guess! these engines appear rock solid. The tractor is both mine and my fathers, and none of us have needed to do any significant repairs to the engine ever. The worst thing that happened to it was that I once accidentally overfilled the oil, but that was my own fault because I was not paying attention x3 It did not care one single bit, luckily, so they appear to be pretty resilient to running away too! It runs beautifully with over 58000 hours on it by now, approaching 59000! I just change the oil once every few years, I change the oil filter once a year. I change the filter more often than the oil to remove particles, because oil diagnosis have shown that the oil is still fine after 3 years :P so it is just a expensive waste to change oil too often on it, we dont use it that much anyways. If I remember right it is a 2.7 litre or something like that, extremely reliable. I think yours has some slight modifications for stationary use, hence why the different parts. But I am really impressed by these engines, even when it is -20 degrees celsius out here in my part of sweden (which doesnt happen a lot here in the middle of the cake so to speak, but it does happen!), it fires up without any preheating! It is very interesting to hear yours being cranked by a 24V starter lol, mine sounds SO SLOW in comparison running on 12V, lol. Makes me wonder if the starter on yours is the original, but they just applied 24V to it.. xD I would not be surprised! I am very impressed by it's stability when you turned the load on :D this thing has a lot of inertia, and should have around 45HP, cant remember the torque but I know its probably pretty high on these engines! I would love to see the frequency stability and how the sinewave looks on a oscilloscope when you have gotten that far with your installation :D I hope you do hook it up to your house via a transfer switch, I would love to see your house being powered by it at some point! Solar, Sonnenschein battery bank, huge inverter, diesel genny, and electric van! You are unstoppable now! :D Oh by the way, sidenote: I notice you still have the Nissan Vanette :3 If it is still assembled in it's campervan form, I would love to see it IRL if I do come over this summer :D
Damn, 58 000 hours? And I thought mine was high hours at 22 000 ... I'm not sure if it's a 310 or 311, that might explain the differences. Also, good point about the starter ... I actually haven't verified that it's a 24 V unit, lol. There's a mysterious electrical unit that says 24 V bolted to it, and the meter bulbs are 24 V, but that could actually just be part of the automation system. The starter could be 12 V. I need to check that ... It would explain why it isn't charging, though 24 V is basically standard for stationary engines. There's hopefully a lot more to come out of this generator. You'll find out in due time, hehe. The Vanette is sadly not much of anything anymore. I started redoing it to turn it into a proper camper, but the project never got beyond putting in an insulated floor. Some day(tm).
@@FFcossag Hehe, yours is barely broken in compared to my tractor's 310B! It could indeed be a 311, I am not sure myself. But that would explain the differences, perhaps! Hehe, I suspect yours is actually a 12V starter and the battery charging alternator most likely is too, because that cranking is WAY too fast. Even with a fresh and fully charged battery in my tractor, it cranks at about half the speed, and even that is fast. but yours cranks at a ludicrous speed at 24V :P I mean... it does provide fast starts... but who knows how long that poor starter would survive with double the power shoved through it :P DC motors tend to not become too happy with double their voltage applied heheh. I think I could help you figure out if yours is indeed a 12V starter if you can still read the nameplate on the starter. It tends to be a bit difficult because people tend to spray many coats of paint over it... Mine is a Lucas something number, can't remember right now but I can go look if it becomes interesting :D Mine is a 12V and I am very sure of that, because that's what the tractor's instruction booklet tells me, and there is only enough space for 1x12V 140AH battery, or two 6 volters in series. And yeah, it would explain why it isn't charging, a 14V charge on 24V worth of batteries isn't gonna do a whole lot, hehe :P Like you mentioned, that box mounted to it could have been fed from a seperate automation system with it's own 24V system originally, I have seen weird stuff like that on other installs. I am very excited to see what you have in mind for this beauty! Also because I am curious, do you have anymore info about the model of generator set? I am nerdy and want to research it :P Aww, but hey, at least there is a plan!! I would love to see more of the vanette in the future, if you want to continue working on it at some stage! It is a really neat van, I especially like that it is mid-engine, because that is unusal on most non-K vans!
I looked around a bit and found that the starter solenoid is clearly marked 24 V, so I would be very surprised if the starter is anything else. They're clearly both fed from the starting battery. My bet is that the alternator or regulator have just failed, or are disabled since it would use a mains powered battery charger in service. The cranking speed is pretty typical for a stationary engine, they usually turn over fast to improve reliability. I sadly have absolutely no info on this thing. I got no documentation with it at all. Which is a shame, because I know that the documentation did exist when it was removed, as well as maintenance records. The 400 V alternator is a Stamford, but that's about all I know about it. There is going to be Vanette in the near future, though not what you might expect. ;)
Watching this makes me really appreciate what BMW engineers did with the i3 REx. The range extender in the i3 generates the same 25 kW (34 hp) as the diesel generators but only adds about 120 kg (265 lbs) to the car. Compare that to the maybe 400-700 kg (880-1,540 lbs) but it's also not built to survive the end of the world :P
Yeah, range extending engines are impressive in their own right, but I don't want to know what they'll look like after running continuously for over two straight years... Hehe. Also, it weighs 900 kg (or 7,5 BMW engines) ;)
@@FFcossag If you have a battery in the car you dont need any of the rotational inertia to handle current spikes, that probably helps a lot to lower the weight.
I'm curious if you checked the frequency of the output? Which I assume is adjusted by engine speed, like on the puny generators the rest of us have. I wonder how the waveform looks and what the THD is on a generator like that? The first video of yours I ever saw you were also starting an engine, it was titled "Cold-starting my Peugeot 205 in -10 °C" and I've enjoyed every video since. It's hard to believe that was 10 years ago already!
Yeah, it's mechanically governed and spot on at 50 Hz. It was part of a maintained multi-generator system, so I expected nothing less. Stability and distortion should be very good, since these old units just use so much more copper in the windings than newer units. Its size, weight and where it came from also suggest that it's built more as a grid-forming generator than a backup unit, so performance was probably weighed fairly heavily when it was built. It will definitely get tested at some point.
Just need to get a big lot of 500w halogens and have them wired up with an equal number on each phase to see how it does, but from the sound of it, it's case of Jenny don't care, she's got this... :P
Hi. I followed exactly all the steps It worked just fine, no worries, upgraded to Ver. 061. But after the update I had functionality issues like: The amplitude readings were not correct testing the calibration probe there should be someting like 3.7 Vpp- in V042 version it was correct, but in Ver.062 the readings were like 0.9Vpp. Under 1Vpp! I had to return the firmware to Ver.042.. Thank you to remind to save the original Firmware..
I am absolutely loving this project! Also, long time no see!! You need to make a general update video about how your things are doing, I miss your battery and solar videos a lot too! I need to make some update videos myself too... I may or may not have bought sonnenschein batteries myself now... :P Woops!! Heheh! //your biggest fan from sweden 😄
Thanks. Sadly, my things have been fairly stagnant lately. The Elcat project has been basically standing still while we've been working on the BMS, and the rest of my stuff has mostly just been slowly degrading. Those giant Sonnenschein cells turned out not to be so great after all ... I hope you're luckier with yours than I was with mine!
@@FFcossag I didn't see this reply until after I had watched the diesel video! Such a lovely machine! I am in the same situation right now, I have been too busy working and such so my stuff is all degrading aswell, I have not had any energy to work on my little van either, and unfortunately my electronics projects and solar projects have not been worked on in a while now... Plus there was a fire in our workshop recently, so I dont have anywhere to really do much other than my little outdoor shed x3 So I feel that a lot, I hope things get better. Exciting to hear about the BMS though!! Getting any good progress on it? I am really excited about your elcat van, if I do end up coming over this summer, I would love to see it IRL! :D And aww,, I am so sorry to hear that those big cells didn't last :( Was it the positive plate growth that killed them? Or what went wrong? I remember you made a video about them where you talked a lot about that, and that does seem to be a big problem with sonnenschein batts. I hope mine doesn't develop it too quickly, I bought a more advanced charge coontroller (victron energy something) that is fully adjustable via a app, so I can set my charge voltages and temperature compensation correctly so I don't damage it> I am really excited to get my A600 but I am worried about how it is going with my order because nothing has happened, no updates or anything, I know sonnenschein makes the batteries on demand more or less, but I have not heard anything whatsoever. Also may be able to get my hands on some of those yellow and orange powersafe batteries from work next time they go over them! I dont like those nearly as much as I like sonnenschein but if I can get them for a little more than scrap price, then hell yeah I'll roll with them. they have a VERY tight replacement schedule where I work, they change them every 3 years even if they are just fine!
The BMS is now operational at a very basic level. It might get more development, it might not. I'm not sure what's causing my big cells to fail. The failure mode is excessive self discharge in cells with significant plate growth, so I suspect that they're suffering mechanical failure of the plates. I believe these were run very warm in their original application, which is why they were replaced so young. Still, they've lived through 10 years of warm stand-by use and 4 years of cyclic use by now. You really can't complain at all, they are simply being pushed way past their useful life. Curiously, my older 6 V/300 Ah A600s are aging much better than the 2 V ones, and I often find them taking abut 80 % of the load of the entire system. I also recently got an e-mail from Exide, where they're excusing themselves for having problems migrating to some new system. I bet your order is just a victim of their internal chaos. And yes, grab all 3-year-old Powersafes that you can! They're not super reliable, but you can easily get a year or two of cyclic use out of them at such a young age.
@@FFcossag Sometimes I Hate RU-vid comments, I don't know what I did, but I was typing out my reply and suddenly, everything got deleted! So now I Am typing this up in wordpad, and will copy and paste into RU-vid afterwards :P That's very exciting that you got the BMS going!! Also I know how that is like, hehe. I have many projects that are just like that :P They work just good enough, and then it stays that way for years (or forever) haha!! That is a very interesting failure mode indeed. I'm guessing that because of their plate growth, the actual plates get ripped off of the internal busbars. I have seen that in old automotive style batteries that I have torn apart for science :P Don't worry, I have proper safety gear to do that sort of thing! And yeah, heat is no good for batteries. It can cause pretty severe internal corrosion due to overcharging too, if the temperature compensation of the charging gear is not adjusted properly. Although adding to that... Right now in my solar powered house I have 3 old starting batteries currently, which two of are approaching 8 years of age... They have a surprising amount of capacity for what they are, Obviously not anything to brag about but they have no problems running my 180 watts of fluorescent lighting for 4 hours or so! they are not even fully drained after, but that's usually as much time as I spend out there working on projects in a evening! That's about 720 watt hours used, probably a bit more since the inverter is not 100% efficient obviously. so say 800 watt hours every evening :) Plus I may use soldering irons and other stuff, so it can vary. I think I should thank my fully adjustable temperature compensated charge controller for that! It becomes 30-40C in there, when the sun hits hard. But the batteries stay relatively cool anyways, they are not very high up in the air so that helps. they rarely get above 27C. I also find it very interesting how those 6V blocks hold up so well! My guess is that they were treated perfectly in their past life, and knowing you, I know you are treating them even better now :3 They seem wonderful! Next time, you should try to only get those... They seem way better than anything else! That is interesting to know! I still have not heard a thing from them, but that could explain why! That calms my nerves a bit, as I was worried for a moment that something had gone seriously wrong with my order. It is of course also possible that my order is not very prioritized since I only bought one battery for now, since they are so expensive. I plan to buy another one a few months later, which should not be a problem with these since they last so incredibly long. I definitely will grab them if I can! I know they are not very reliable, but hey, free is free! :D If I can get 2 years of cyclic use out of them, I will be more than happy.
In Norway we used it as a field equipment to for example finding satellite signals for then analogue system MAC (D/D2-MAC) when setting up satellite dish and equipment, hence the “MAC” and “PAL” button. But could be used also on analogue PAL satellite broadcast and analogue terrestrial and analogue cable. If you have a HackRF One SDR or other ones, you could hooked that up with the free open source project HackTV which can make SDR into an analogue broadcaster in many different formats and types. The software allows also test pictures and video/streaming.
I became a sonnenschein fan thanks to your videos about them aswell :D They are the best, I am really excited to recieve my brand new OPZv 12V blocks that I bought brand new with a really good deal :O
Today is a special day :3 Not only is it sweden's national day, but today marks the day I bought my first Sonnenschein batteries... Brand new! It set me back a lot of hard earned money that I could have easily spent on more exciting things, but because I am just as big of a battery nerd like you are, I decided to finally make a almost lifetime investment into batteries for my solar panel experiments... I know it will be worth the wait. They get manufactured on order, so I will have to wait until august before I recieve my lovely sonnenschein! I got the A612-150, OPZv 12V blocks :3 And I have never been so excited about buying batteries ever before. this is a dream come true. My solar power system is going to get such an incredible upgrade. For reference, I am using old and worn our car batteries right now, and they are just horrible! :D
Nice, A600 blocks are glorious. It's silly, the best performing batteries in my entire set-up (in the year of our lord 2024), are a bunch of A606-300s from 2007. Remember not to overcharge them - My data suggests that Sonnenscheins live longer if they're kept at lower average cell voltages. They are not like most lead-acids like that.
@@FFcossag Hell yeah! They appear to be amazing. Hehe, I agree that it is a bit silly that those 6V blocks of yours still live on to this day! I would have thought that the big cells were better, but I guess a lot of that depends on how they were treated before you got them. But your 6V blocks from 2007 actually gives me lots of hope for my sonnenschein batteries that I am getting soon (I hope)! You should make a video for me with a health update on them, I am really interested to see how they are doing after all these years, batteries from 2007 still working that good is rare! I am only getting one battery for the time being, I will buy a second one later on in the year. with these batteries I do not feel very worried about waiting until I get a second one since their lifetime is so much longer. they do not degrade very fast, which means I have plenty of time to get a second one without risking them becoming unbalanced in terms of capacity. I will use them in parallell for 12V anyways, so I don't need to be too worried if one has a couple amp hours less than the other. the cost is insanely high, even though I get them from Conrad with a pretty decent deal., but I wanted to try brand new batteries at least once in my lifetime :P I really cannot justify the cost of them considering what I do with them which is just power a little off grid shed I have which used to be a old gardening house. But hey, they can be easily moved to a future home when I move one day etc! They have such a long lifespan :) But yeah haha, If I were a sane person, I would not justify the cost of them :P but I am a battery nerd so I just *have* to test a brand new sonnenschein :D I have some flourescent lamps in there, pure sine inverter, sockets, and I generally work on smaller mechanical projects, speakers, and electronics in there. I have a proper electronics lab in my father's workshop (I still live at home even though I am well into my 20's now haha) Yeahhh I am aware, I actually bought a fully adjustable charge controller for them, for that very reason, with 3 stage charging and everything, and temperature compensation too. My solar panel setup is MUCH smaller than what you have and is mostly for the fun of it, I have about 300 watts worth of panels. So I bought a little victron charge controller, and so far it has been working really good on my old and worn out vehicle batteries I have been using for now! Old scraps I got for free from junked cars. So yeah! excited!
Very interesting series of videos :) I am curious how you have those, and your aux battery hooked up. You mention in parallel but does this not limit the capacity at which you can discharge (mixing different capacities etc) or does your inverter/cc have multiple inputs for different strings and it is able to manage how much it draws from each one?
My battery bank is made up of one main 48 V bus, that various batteries hook into through appropriate breakers and fuses. My gear is configured to conform with the batteries I care most about, with any others getting to deal with the slightly unoptimised set-up. Lead-acids are thankfully very forgiving like this, so it works well, but you need to know exactly what you're doing to operate a system like this.
@@FFcossag Ah thank you for taking the time to reply, this makes sense and sounds like it works well for you! I was trying to wrap my head around it but it turned out to be very simple xD
Sorry for the comment, but I got Honda Fit 2010, I requested a report on how health the battery. There is aline that says IMA Battery Capacity 26%. It means my battery is charging only up 26%?
So i was barely able to follow along, but I understand the idea, sort of. The bottom line, besides the modifications is that your have to run it with phantom power? 20 volts subtract the 3 from the computer , so 17 volts of phantom power? Or is it 20? And if i am assuming correctly, can you advise an affordable phantom power device that can supply the correct voltage? And the mod parts? Amazon or any local electronics dealer?
@FFcossag good evening sir, your video is amazing, my question on dis MORNINGSTAR TRISTAR TS-60A SOLAR CHARGE CONTROLLER, can it change li-on lithium batterys? thanks for the answer.
Hey! I fixed up a braindead TX-NR616, problem is that the injected audio signal results in low volume output on the speakers, instead of the high output you had. My volume control does nothing (because of braindeadness), and I'm kind of stuck. Any suggestions on getting some more volume out?
As someone that owns one of these laptops. I really miss when laptops were designed like this. I'm not a huge fan of how thin/fragile laptops have gotten as of late. This laptop, though old, has met all my needs with Linux Mint. If you don't want to switch with Linux because of the terminal, get over yourself, you barely need to use it LOL. I'd argue, something like this for an older person would be perfect.
I have this ECU in my 2004 focus. I’ve replaced every sensor but it still won’t spark on cylinders 2/3. So Ive traced it back to the ECU having a problem. Hopefully I can find something that is replaceable on the board.
just bought a used workstation of an IT company from next to nothing. The pc was full of dust, but the f12 by arctic were still so insanely quiet and efficient. I just cleaned the dust out and left them in.
