Fogstar Battery Issue (1 Viewer)

[Kayak Kid]

Recently fitted a Fogstar Drift 230ah lithium battery, a Victron IP22 charger and Victron B2B charger. Haven’t used Motorhome since fitting. No solar fitted (as yet). Also Battery Master fitted between Lithium and Cab battery. Lithium battery arrived around 50% charged.

Charged Lithium up to 100% via Victron Charger on Hook up, and then disconnected hook up. Decided to see how long full charge would last on Lithium given cab battery has a tracker and alarm connected drawing small current - expecting that cab battery would eventually top up via the Battery Master from the Lithium. Been checking periodically over last 3 months. Yesterday to my surprise the Lithium was at zero capacity and my cab battery was well down too. I expect that the cab battery has perhaps drained the lithium over the period.

Yesterday, I disconnected the Battery Master and charged up the cab battery with a separate trickle charger. All good with Cab battery this morning. However, overnight the Fogstar has not charged via my hook up through the Victron Charger (set to Lithium profile as before). The Victron app is showing the charger in Storage mode despite the Lithium battery at near zero.

I attach a screen shots of the Victron and Fogstar app screens from this morning - after some 12 hours charging.


Can anyone advise why my Lithium is not charging, and my Victron is showing in Storage status please?

Thanks in advance.
Jim

 

[MisterB]

Have you tried your separate trickle charger on the lithium ? Can't help with the victron 'issue' but at least you get a bump to the top of the threads!!

 

[Kayak Kid]

Thanks - haven’t tried anything else as yet - just awaiting on advice here.

Jim

 

[Lenny HB]

If a Lithium shutdown due to over discharge they won't always start charging from a smart charger. Try a standard old fashion charger on it or another trick is to connect a lead battery parallel. It's not just Fogstar it happens with a lot of brands.

 

[monzer]

If the van was sitting for a long time with no solar, would the battery master still charge cab battery via the leisure battery? I thought it only sent power if the leisure battery was getting a regular charge itself.

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[Lenny HB]

If the van was sitting for a long time with no solar, would the battery master still charge cab battery via the leisure battery? I thought it only sent power if the leisure battery was getting a regular charge itself.

Battermaster works on differential voltage I think it's 0.75v so all the time the starter battery is .75v lower than the Lithium it will get charged.

 

[bigtwin]

If the van was sitting for a long time with no solar, would the battery master still charge cab battery via the leisure battery? I thought it only sent power if the leisure battery was getting a regular charge itself.

Yes, it would still receive a charge. It operates on a voltage difference (circa 0.7 - 0.8V) not on an absolute voltage (e.g. 13.4V).

Ian

 

[BouncyBoatFolk]

If a Lithium shutdown due to over discharge they won't always start charging from a smart charger. Try a standard old fashion charger on it or another trick is to connect a lead battery parallel. It's not just Fogstar it happens with a lot of brands.

On different vein, but the same principal I've done that a few times on lithium tool batteries that have discharged so much the charger no longer sees the connection as a battery. As you say, the fix was to attached a good battery to the discharged one for a couple of minutes and hey presto, away it goes charging, with no discernible negative affects.
Mike.

 

[Kayak Kid]

Thanks for these points. By coincidence before reading these, I went out again to have a look and noticed that the Hab control panel was switched off. I guess it did that when the lithium was flat. Turned it back on and the Victron charger is showing on bulk charge now and my Fogstar app is showing a charge going into the battery. Hopefully this is on the road to recovery now but will monitor over the day and report back!
The cab battery remains on a separate trickle charger and is charging up well after period of no top up from the Lithium via the Battery Master and ongoing drain by my tracker and alarm. The Battery Master is temporarily disconnected between the two batteries until normality resumes!

 

[LostInSpace]

Some mains chargers (like the Sterling Power Pro Charge Ultra) have a power supply mode which nicely gets round this problem.

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[Kayak Kid]

So far so good! Just checked and Fogstar Lithium now - gone from near zero stored charge around 3 hours ago to around 62aph (230aph is max) now. The Victron charger though has changed from ‘Bulk’ charge initially to ‘Storage’ status. Would this be normal at this stage?

 

[autorouter]

My Victron IP65 15A charger, charging a 100Ah lead-acid battery, doesn't go into storage mode unless the battery is full, and it's been in float mode for a week or more. Something wrong somewhere with your setup, I think.

 

[Kayak Kid]

My Victron IP65 15A charger, charging a 100Ah lead-acid battery, doesn't go into storage mode unless the battery is full, and it's been in float mode for a week or more. Something wrong somewhere with your setup, I think.

Hi,

Thanks for that. I got the following response on a Facebook group.

“The Victron can only work based on voltage as it has no idea how many amps are in the battery. It will deliver the bulk/boost voltage for a predetermined amount of time and then drop to storage or float voltage. The battery BMS dictates whether it will accept the charge or not. It can take several charge cycles for the BMS to accurately sync to the battery and properly reflect the aph status of the cells. I would suggest that you keep using the battery and try to discharge/charge a few times to ensure the BMS is properly calibrated. If you still aren’t seeing the capacity you expect you might need to reach out to Fogstar.”

 

[Cush]

Sounds like you are all sorted. My understanding is that it takes several cycles for the bms to be able to get anywhere near accurate with the SOC based on voltage. I would question that your LiFePO4 was actually at 100% full when you disconnected the charger. It’s such a flat charge curve. The best way to know that it’s full is for it to do a high voltage disconnect. I think Fogstar set that quite high! 14.7v? When your battery emptied and turns off then a smart charger won’t see enough voltage to indicate that a battery is actually attached. Turning on your control panel may have caused a load that gave the terminals a recognizable voltage across them. The bms is probably not sensitive enough to detect and register the slow bleed of power to the hab battery so it will look like it has dropped like a stone too.

 

[Kayak Kid]

Sounds like you are all sorted. My understanding is that it takes several cycles for the bms to be able to get anywhere near accurate with the SOC based on voltage. I would question that your LiFePO4 was actually at 100% full when you disconnected the charger. It’s such a flat charge curve. The best way to know that it’s full is for it to do a high voltage disconnect. I think Fogstar set that quite high! 14.7v? When your battery emptied and turns off then a smart charger won’t see enough voltage to indicate that a battery is actually attached. Turning on your control panel may have caused a load that gave the terminals a recognizable voltage across them. The bms is probably not sensitive enough to detect and register the slow bleed of power to the hab battery so it will look like it has dropped like a stone too.

Hi

Thanks for that - most helpful. Yes, hopefully all is well now!

I said it was 100% full - as on the Fogstar app it was showing 229ah under the Capicity tab so presumed that was it full.

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[Ray-Vic]

If you charge and discharge (to empty) a few times you may well see your capacity jump up. I believe this is when it's all synchronised and ready. Mine jumped from showing 300Ah and showing fully charged, to 318.8Ah after a few cycles. It now charges to full at that level and everything works perfectly.

 

[Kayak Kid]

If you charge and discharge (to empty) a few times you may well see your capacity jump up. I believe this is when it's all synchronised and ready. Mine jumped from showing 300Ah and showing fully charged, to 318.8Ah after a few cycles. It now charges to full at that level and everything works perfectly.

Cheers for that!
Jim

 

[TrudeandDall]

On different vein, but the same principal I've done that a few times on lithium tool batteries that have discharged so much the charger no longer sees the connection as a battery. As you say, the fix was to attached a good battery to the discharged one for a couple of minutes and hey presto, away it goes charging, with no discernible negative affects.
Mike.

I am currently looking to change from AGM to Lithium. I still think there are great benefits from Lithium, but I read with interest all of the woes of going Lithium.
It seems that this post is talking about a problem with Lithium that should not be there! Lithium lesiure battery makers are full of how much better than LA technology their products are and can be used down to the bottom of the capacity, as opposed to 50% for LA. But when you do go to low or 0% - it can and seems often is the case that the battery does go belly up and sulks.
The lesiure battery manufacturer also expects you to complete part of their manufacturing process, by running lots of charge/discharge cycles to get their BMS to correctly show the SOC! The BMS is part of their battery and not part of your van - it should be fully tested and working correctly as part of the manufacturing process. It should show correct SOC when you buy it........ I know lots of people buy shunts to show correct SOC, but come on - you have just spent a lot of money buying Lithium and the BMS is not giving you accurate information and you have to buy and fit another piece of kit to do the job of the BMS......
By contrast my Ebike has an SOC monitor which works straight out of the box and the battery can be run to completely flat and I just connect the charger and it charges up - no problems at all. And keeps on doing this for year after year of hard use....

 

[AdrianChen]

I am currently looking to change from AGM to Lithium. I still think there are great benefits from Lithium, but I read with interest all of the woes of going Lithium.
It seems that this post is talking about a problem with Lithium that should not be there! Lithium lesiure battery makers are full of how much better than LA technology their products are and can be used down to the bottom of the capacity, as opposed to 50% for LA. But when you do go to low or 0% - it can and seems often is the case that the battery does go belly up and sulks.
The lesiure battery manufacturer also expects you to complete part of their manufacturing process, by running lots of charge/discharge cycles to get their BMS to correctly show the SOC! The BMS is part of their battery and not part of your van - it should be fully tested and working correctly as part of the manufacturing process. It should show correct SOC when you buy it........ I know lots of people buy shunts to show correct SOC, but come on - you have just spent a lot of money buying Lithium and the BMS is not giving you accurate information and you have to buy and fit another piece of kit to do the job of the BMS......
By contrast my Ebike has an SOC monitor which works straight out of the box and the battery can be run to completely flat and I just connect the charger and it charges up - no problems at all. And keeps on doing this for year after year of hard use....

To contrast we bought batteries with a simple bms set to cut off discharge or charging and monitor temperature issues before there is any cell damage (a feature that would benefit LA batteries) and no heaters or bluetooth app, so we didn't pay for those features. We installed the batteries as they came (around 60% SOC), and then used them. We have the correct charge profiles on all charge sources, and a shunt. The batteries have provided what we need so we're happy! We know no more with these LiFePo4's than we did our last LA bank which had a decent battery monitoring system however they failed after 18months badly (AGM).

I'm not fussed if we have missed out on a few AH's capacity, or loose some potential cycles when they are end of life, they will still have been cheaper overall. The only downside is I have to estimate their decline in capacity over time to reset the shunt......

 

[Lenny HB]

The only downside is I have to estimate their decline in capacity over time to reset the shunt......

I thought there was very little decline in the capacity of Lithium until they get towards end of life.
By contrast with Lead batteries you need to recalibrate your shunt every year.

last LA bank which had a decent battery monitoring system however they failed after 18months badly (AGM).

Same on our last van, AGM's failed in 18 months buy far the worst tyre of battery for leisure use.

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[Cush]

I am currently looking to change from AGM to Lithium. I still think there are great benefits from Lithium, but I read with interest all of the woes of going Lithium.
It seems that this post is talking about a problem with Lithium that should not be there! Lithium lesiure battery makers are full of how much better than LA technology their products are and can be used down to the bottom of the capacity, as opposed to 50% for LA. But when you do go to low or 0% - it can and seems often is the case that the battery does go belly up and sulks.
The lesiure battery manufacturer also expects you to complete part of their manufacturing process, by running lots of charge/discharge cycles to get their BMS to correctly show the SOC! The BMS is part of their battery and not part of your van - it should be fully tested and working correctly as part of the manufacturing process. It should show correct SOC when you buy it........ I know lots of people buy shunts to show correct SOC, but come on - you have just spent a lot of money buying Lithium and the BMS is not giving you accurate information and you have to buy and fit another piece of kit to do the job of the BMS......
By contrast my Ebike has an SOC monitor which works straight out of the box and the battery can be run to completely flat and I just connect the charger and it charges up - no problems at all. And keeps on doing this for year after year of hard use....

The bms is simply there to protect the battery. No LiFePO4 should be taken to empty. It’s sales BS that it should be. That’s why the bms shuts it down, to protect the cells. A well set up bms should protect the battery from being static both ends of the SOC spectrum. They are excellent, just don’t empty it or leave it stored at 100% (edited to change “out” to “or” flipping auto correct!,!!!,! ).

 

[headlight]

The bms is simply there to protect the battery. No LiFePO4 should be taken to empty. It’s sales BS that it should be. That’s why the bms shuts it down, to protect the cells. A well set up bms should protect the battery from being static both ends of the SOC spectrum. They are excellent, just don’t empty it out leave it stored at 100%.

Leave it stored at 100% ???

 

[Cush]

Leave it stored at 100% ???

Good spot. Have edited it. Meant to type “or”, not “out”

 

[MichaelT]

I am currently looking to change from AGM to Lithium. I still think there are great benefits from Lithium, but I read with interest all of the woes of going Lithium.
It seems that this post is talking about a problem with Lithium that should not be there! Lithium lesiure battery makers are full of how much better than LA technology their products are and can be used down to the bottom of the capacity, as opposed to 50% for LA. But when you do go to low or 0% - it can and seems often is the case that the battery does go belly up and sulks.
The lesiure battery manufacturer also expects you to complete part of their manufacturing process, by running lots of charge/discharge cycles to get their BMS to correctly show the SOC! The BMS is part of their battery and not part of your van - it should be fully tested and working correctly as part of the manufacturing process. It should show correct SOC when you buy it........ I know lots of people buy shunts to show correct SOC, but come on - you have just spent a lot of money buying Lithium and the BMS is not giving you accurate information and you have to buy and fit another piece of kit to do the job of the BMS......
By contrast my Ebike has an SOC monitor which works straight out of the box and the battery can be run to completely flat and I just connect the charger and it charges up - no problems at all. And keeps on doing this for year after year of hard use....

Seems only fogstar have these issues

 

[TrudeandDall]

Seems only fogstar have these issues

It certainly does seem to be mainly Fogstar! Maybe it is also connected to the amount of funsters who have bought Fogstar Vs other brands. A bit like Ducatos having the loins share of MH problems
I am currently researching and have one foot in the (non Fogstar) lithium camp and the other in lead carbon gel.. LC Gel would be a true drop in replacement for me, lithium with a tweak or two.
We can run okay on our current set up of 190 ah AGM and 280w solar, but can get a bit stretched when pulling 40ah charging ebikes and the sun is no where to be seen. A bit like now in Cornwall.....

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[Chossy]

I bought Fogstar and it was a disaster my battery had several faults, so I have returned mine for a refund and have bought Renogy, with a little smart shunt bluetooth monitor. Hopefully this will be a success, but unfortunately for me Fogstar was a bad experience.

 

[Lenny HB]

Seems only fogstar have these issues

Nope, quite a common fault on various makes.

 

[Lenny HB]

I bought Fogstar and it was a disaster my battery had several faults, so I have returned mine for a refund and have bought Renogy, with a little smart shunt bluetooth monitor. Hopefully this will be a success, but unfortunately for me Fogstar was a bad experience.

At least Fogstar have a UK presence none for Renogy.

 

[Chossy]

Unfortuntely that didn't really help to be fair, they took a long time to answer their courier didn;t show up, I had to chase them for any updates and any replacement would arrive after the 30th of May. So there were no real positives at all to take from my experience.

 

[AdrianChen]

I thought there was very little decline in the capacity of Lithium until they get towards end of life.
By contrast with Lead batteries you need to recalibrate your shunt every year.

Ah well I was going on EV cars that do seem to decline over time - more so when frequently fast charged. So I thought I would check on the interweb - It seems it's a very very small reduction assuming other factors like high temperature storage don't occur - Unlikely in my van. So after around 2500 cycles one test found at 1c charge/discharge around 6% reduction. At 0.2c which is more realistic about 2.5% - so you're right and I need not bother!

Always nice to cross something off the todo list!

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