@bluetti_curichinatogmailcom Thanks for your opinion. Sorry for not being able to keep the fan running at a constant low speed. Once this is done, there is no guarantee that the internal temperature will not get too high. When the charging and discharging power increases or the temperature rises, the fan will be intelligently regulated to ensure heat dissipation.
I’m personally not buying this as a reason at all because the fan could just spool up if temp raises. The unit cycles precisely on the clock, no matter what ambient temperature it is at or what is connected as a pass through UPS load.
Also, right before the cycle starts the battery is showing 100% and somehow the team was able to figure out a way to prevent overheating where before the unit turned on every 40mins now every 140min on the clock. How? All these reasons make no sense to me from systems control perspective.
Call me paranoid but I’m starting to think this cycling of the unit is intentional. Not sure if that cycle deteriorates battery and counts towards 3,500 cycles life, but I’d see how one could design an obsolescence of the system by loading batteries to ensure the pack will need replacement every so many years.
I can see how LiFePO4 eroded market for the manufactures due to longer life and I see how this could be a way to mitigate that.
I also have noticed that the AC180 is operating poorly as a UPS (which is what I purchased it for). As a power station alone, it seems to do pretty well but I purchased one specifically to act as a UPS for a device that is only operating occasionally and only uses about 120 watts when it is on. With no load and plugged into the wall, I noticed that the battery would drop to 99% after a period of time and it would start pulling several hundred watts from the wall in order to get back to 100%. I observed this for several days and finally put a meter on the wall to see how much power was being consumed to have the AC180 operating simply as a standby UPS with no load turned on. I was pretty surprised to see that it was pulling over 800 watts for a 24 hour period just to be plugged in and have the AC inverter turned on (no load from devices plugged into it)! I plan to keep looking at it and do some additional testing but I don’t think I will be able to use this unit as a dedicated UPS if it is going to consume that much power just to be online. I am curious if anyone else has done any similar measurements. Does anyone know if the AC60 behaves the same way and how much power it consumes on standby in UPS mode?
I have two AC180’s all updated with the latest firmware and concur that your observations are the same as mine.
I also have an AC60 which operates, in regards to fan cycling and power dropping to 99% then back to 100% the same as the AC180 prior to the latest firmware upgrade.
On a side note the AC60 has a separate issue which means I am presently awaiting Bluetti to contact me to arrange its return and refund.
So in conclusion this seems to be the standard Bluetti operating mode for these units.
Thanks for confirming my observations. I never would have expected the power draw to be so high just to have a UPS for equipment that is not used very often. That is a little disappointing as I was trying to replace an older UPS with something that operated on Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries and thought the Bluetti was the answer. I will likely have to find something else that uses less power to keep things on standby. I also have an AC60 on hand and was going to try it to see how much power it consumes as a UPS. Not to stray off topic, but would you mind briefly describing the issue you are having with the AC60? Is it also related to the UPS? I might be able to look out for something similar. Thanks.
Regarding the AC60 issue please see the following link for detailed description of issue.
Bluetti Australia have agreed for me to return the AC60 and issue a full refund.
I’ve axactly the same observation and it is absurd that a UPS would need to consume so much power just to stay online, which is why I think it has jothing to with powering an inverter because this cycling interval should shorten based on what load is on inverter (due to either more heat or more battery draw).
@jakubx80 @bluetti_curichinatogmailcom Based on the discussion, the R&D team revised a new version of the software: when the machine is charging with AC, the fan will continue to rotate at a low speed, so that it will not start suddenly and cause noise after a while. Do you want to try it? If you are willing to try, you can send me the SN number and firmware version again, and we will push the firmware for you separately.
Ok, let’s try it.
SN: AC1802313000166292
BMS: v1033.06
ARM: v2074.06
DSP: v2078.06
If I don’t like the new version, can I go back to the current version?
Thank you very much!
Thank you for offering this update. I may be missing something but I don’t think this would address the particular problem of high power draw while being used as a UPS. If I am not mistaken, this might address an issue with fan noise but it will likely still cycle through and use a great deal of power to charge/discharge the battery. I am just wondering if I missed something and this update would also address the issue of power draw while operating as a UPS.
@DJR - Thanks for sharing the other thread on the AC60. I have a feeling that it will not be much better as a UPS from the power consumption side either but I have not done any testing yet.
Are you sure it consumes 0.8 kWh every 24 hours without connecting anything to it?
How many watts does it consume in standby and how many when it is charging from 99% to 100%?
Not sure about others but I am certain that the AC180 takes that much power when the devices connected to the power station (loads) draw very little or no power. This was tested by putting a meter at the wall outlet and plugging the AC180 into the meter. Although there were several devices plugged into the AC180 at the time, I ensured that none of them were powered on during the test (using the AC180 as a backup UPS). I measured 800watts over 24 hours on the meter. Regarding the amount of power consumed while recharging from 99% to 100%, I don’t have exact figures but it seems like it was pulling 200 to 300 watts. Since the cycling occurred relatively frequently, that explains the reason for such high power consumption. I hope that clarifies my observations.
I left some time to test before commenting, let’s see.
1.- The fans at the speed that you have configured it makes more noise than two PC’s that I have in the same room. Maybe the fans are of low quality, in terms of sound, or they are still at a higher RPM than I consider to be quiet.
2.- Every so often, it goes up to the maximum RPM as when it was switched on from a stopped state and then goes down to a constant and fixed speed. Why?
3.- If we don’t solve this problem by the firmware, can I change the fans for others that are quieter and have the same (or higher) air pressure? What brand/model or technical characteristics are the fans installed in the AC180?
I have to test it some more time, but I don’t think we have gained much with the previous firmware change, because this one also increases RPM every so times and on addition it makes constant noise during 24h…
Anyway, the effort to try to solve the problem is appreciated. I hope we will succeed. Thank you very much.
Well, several days later, I still have the same opinion: what’s the point of having the fan on 24h if at regular intervals it also increases the RMP generating a high fan noise as before?
I think what was searched with the 24h fan on was not to generate more noise than the fan constantly running, but now it also generates loud noise sometimes and constant moderate noise 24h a day.
I think we don’t gain much with this update. any ideas on how to improve this? Is it possible to revert to the previous firmware?
@bluetti_curichinatogmailcom We will push a firmware for you in 6 hrs, then you can revert to the previous firmware.
You will receive a version update to 2078.99 (actually 2078.06). After you complete the update, your version will actually revert to 2078.06 and will continue to prompt you to upgrade to 2078.99. At that time, please leave a message to let me know and I will delete the “2078.99” version prompt on the background server.
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Ok, I already updated it. You can delete it now. Thanks you.