It may seem like a ridiculous question, but there is much discussion about BlueTTI units depleting energy capacity far too quickly, including my own AC200MAX, which a replacement to the previous faulty unit. I can understand suggesting to those who experience fast deception with no load, to make sure they fully turn their units off…but this is not possible if the inverter/battery is being used as a backup for power outages. The power obviously has to be on.
In my case, my unit dropped to 38% from a full charge, no load, room temperature, power on, AC output on, no charger connected…in 3 days. Is it wrong of me to expect this battery to stay fully charged with no more than a minor daily depletion?
Note: all firmware was up to date except for the DSP 4005.08, which is done now. Was that the potential fix?
@Murray
First of all, please do a full cycle of charge and discharge to correct the SOC. Secondly, Is the BMS firmware 1017.03 or 1010.08?
For the power consumption, attached for your reference
It is very normal to see that amount of depletion with the power on, ac inverter on and no charger connected. The machine uses power just to be powered on and more with the inverter on and idled. Generally the larger the inverter, the greater the idle load. To stop the energy drain the unit must be completely off.
As an analogy…If you leave your vehicle idling in the driveway for 3 days but are not driving the vehicle anywhere, significant fuel is consumed with no work being performed. The larger the vehicle engine, generally the greater the idle fuel consumption will be.
I use my portable power stations as backup for power outages. I keep them fully charged, completely turned off and stored in a closet ready for use. I can come back after several months and still have 100% capacity displayed upon start up.
I am aware that the unit will consume a small amount of energy while in a standby emergency, power on mode, but never expected it to use one percent of my capacity per hour.
If I want my BLUETTI to power my sump pump, while I am away, it most definitely has to be in a ‘power on’ mode, via a pass-through Emergency solution. I have no choice, it has to be in a state to do the job it was purchased to do.
And in my particular case, I am most definitely losing 1% of my energy capacity each and every hour……with no load on it. That is an extra 24% loss per day, as it tries to powers my sump pump during a power outage. I was not expecting this when I sized my Emergency energy capacity needs.
I am extremely disappointed. My $4,000 BlueTTI purchase should be giving me greater peace of mind as an emergency backup solution!
My BMS version is 1017.03 - I understand this is the latest?
Yes I have done a full discharge and recharge. And that brings me to another point….some users have experienced the inability to recharge after discharging their battery to 0%. So I called customer support to verify if this is a real concern, and he said it is best not discharge below 10%.
The 3 immediate problems that come to mind with this disappointing advice, 1) I will be away on holidays when my BlueTTI is supposed to be powering my sump pump in case of a power outage…… and I will not be available to sit in front of it and shut it down once it reaches 10% capacity. 2) It appears I now only have 90% of useable energy storage space.
And 3), If I am away and there is indeed a power outage, and my battery is indeed depleted to 0%, then my DC backup pump will kick in on a marine battery. And if I am blessed enough to have the power come back on before that battery is depleted, I am then at risk of the main sump pump not coming back on, for it is plugged into the BlueTTI as a pass-through solution and at risk of possibly not being able to recharge.
I was not aware of all these risk factors when I bought my BlueTTI emergency backup solution. I am leaving on a two month trip in two days and very fearful of a possible flooded finished basement, should we indeed have a lengthy power outage. Especially with loosing 24% energy capacity per day (1% per hour)….as originally stated.
Just to clarify, isn’t there a configuration where you could leave the AC charging brick on with the unit in standby? in other words, the unit would be on and always connected to grid power and therefore 100% SOC, and if the power did go out at least you would be starting with a full battery.
Good day doecliff. I have seen this “standby” terminology used by many members on various BlueTTI forums, and for the life of me, I can’t find a definition of it in the User Manual.
To me, standby means…Power on, AC output on, charger connect or not. In other words, ready to power an AC device when called upon. In may case and as a great example…a sump pump.
To me, there is only one Power button…it’s either on or off. And therefore, I don’t understand the comments stated to make you are truly powered down and not in standby mode. Unless of course they are referring to the AC output setting.
And yes, I totally agree with you, in that while the charger is connected, the unit will always be fully top up at 100% capacity…assuming of course that the grid is not down. But all my issues concern the scenario of a power outage. :)
I am a little confused about why you feel the unit will not perform the desired task of back up in the event of a power outage. You simply keep the charger plugged in and if the power goes out, the batteries will take over. I don’t understand the need to keep the charger unplugged.
I am mimicking a “power outage” scenario/test. Therefore, the charger cannot be plugged in.
I have no problem with the BlueTTI “pass through” setup with the charger plugged in, which indeed keeps the batteries topped up until there is indeed a power outage.
My issue is with the amount of internal inverter energy draw on the batteries during a power outage…over and above any load I may put on it. And after numerous tests, I find it extremely excessive. To the tune of almost one percent loss per hour with a B230 attached to it.
At that rate, I will have 4 to 5 days of power outage usage with no extra load from me placed on it…… Before the batteries are completely depleted. I find this unacceptable.
I think the issue revolves around your understanding of the term “standby” refers to or as you want it to mean. Standby simply mean the unit is ready to supply power in the event of a power outage. Your system as you describe will be able to have a power outage of from 4 to 5 days (without running the pump) before the batteries are exhausted. If you are going to have a power outage numbering in days and need the pump to run on and off you are going to need a very large system. At this point are wanting a definite system when you do not know how much electrical demand will be required. (how long will the pump run, how wet will your environment be etc) To feel that your current system is unacceptable without knowing your needs does not seem logical.
Wow Scott, that is very presumptuous of you to draw those conclusions.
I am a residential builder/renovator and have been for 45 years. I know electricity, I know electrical demand, I know my water table flow throughout various times of the year, and I know my pump and what it needs when I am away for various periods of time. Do you?
To accommodate the vast majority of power outages in my area, the $4,000 and the 4,000Wh from the AC200MAX and B230 should be more than enough. What I was not informed of in all of BlueTTI’s literature and data sheets was a 4,000Wh internal loss of energy over four or five days! Nor this issue I read on several sites that warn you not to deplete your battery to 0%, for you may risk not being able to recharge again. Any comment on that Scott?
Up until now, I thought I had a defective unit and was looking for help, but I feel you are trying to convince me that this is BlueTTi’s norm. Sad! I pray Tech Support will still come through and turn this disappointed user in a believer again with a fix.
Of course I can comment:
1-I have no idea with regards to your pump, what it needs power wise when you are away the same as you and could only make an educated guess with regards to which model may be appropriate.
2-It seems that you are very knowledgeable with regards to electrical power but somehow “forgot” to inquire about the standby power drain (which any electrical device has) of the device you purchased. Going by the Bluetti supplied standby loss numbers above I would think that you could expect around (4,000 wh hrs X 90% efficiency rate divided by 22 watt hours of the AC on) 6.8 24 hours days at room temperature with no internal fans coming on. Not sure what sites you have been reading up on but over the past several years I see many discussions regarding standby power losses. In fact…the chart supplied by Bluetti above was made and published as a direct results of customer questions regarding standby losses.
3-With regards to not being able to charge again when 0% state of charge is met…This applies to customers who deplete their unit to 0% and do not recharge right away. As in days, weeks or months sitting with 0 SOC. The unit at 0% state of charge continues to operate in the standby mode which depletes the battery to a point where the battery mgt. system (which requires power to operate) can no longer operate and start up to recharge the battery. I personally run my portable units to 0 frequently and have never had an issue with recharging but I do understand that I need to recharge without days or weeks of delays. (Try running an automotive battery to 0%, let it sit a month and try to recharge) Proper battery care is well known and discussed on many forums from all manufacturers. This is not a brand specific issue but general battery care.
With regard to your last paragraph, again these are not brand specific issues as physics are again at play. I am not sure what you expect Bluetti to do to come up with a fix. No matter which model or which brand, there are limits of operation and run time that apply. You can certainly add additional battery capacity but the overlying issues you bring up will still be there but your expected run times will increase.
Before I even contemplated buying a BlueTTI, I was well aware of internal energy drain to power various electrical components, including a BMS. But BlueTTI did NOT provide me (the market) with their actual drain figures, when I bought my original 200MAX early last year. Now, many months later, BlutTTI says 20 watts per hour is an acceptable figure, four times as high as I would have expected to be. I don’t buy the notion of a power fan need with no external load on it, and I don’t buy the notion that the inverter is converting DC energy into AC when there is no AC load on it. See my point?
And having said that… my unit is running over 40 watts/h, with no external load on it. Thus causing the simple request for BlueTTi to provide a fix. The drain is too high.
With respect to BlueTTI support, Mods and users telling us not to discharge our batteries to 0%…how does one prevent their inverter from performing such a feat during a power outage and you are out of the country? And if you are indeed home during a discharge…does one have to babysit the unit for countless hours to make sure it doesn’t fall below the critical level of 10%, but hopefully low enough to recalibrate?
But you are the first person to provide feed back on this dilemma, and suggest that it is a non issue if you recharge the 0% battery in short order. In may case…that would be the case. For if my sump pump for example, does completely discharge the battery during a power outage, the inverter/battery will attempt to recharge immediately upon the grid going back up. So this is good news…if true…and I thank you for stating that. (btw, I will have another DC backup pump in the pit on a double marine battery and trickle charger) The BlueTTI was to give me the peace of mind I was missing the previous years of use.
And now I complain as to why BlueTTI does not provide an automatic fail safe at lower battery discharges, as whole home Power Walls do and similar larger scale home products. And call it a 1,800Wh battery instead of a 2,000Wh battery. That I can live with. Not scaring us into trying to figure out how to stop our load discharges at 10% to prevent product damage…whether we are at home or away! See my point? It’s crazy to put this onus on the user.
And which model would that be? Physics have not changed in the past couple of years. Perhaps you know of a competitive make and model which possesses the idle efficiency you think exists. By the way, I understand your point but not necessarily agree with the statements. The fact is that the performance you think should exist is not out there with current technology or at a price that is marketable. Should BLUetti post idle consumption and real world battery capacity in its specifications and documents??? Sure that would be an improvement. As one of the non BLUetti employee moderators on this forum I see a significant qty of lack of capability and understanding about power stations and electrical concepts to a large degree (not saying that is you) and this is the primary cause of issues and dissatisfaction. There are a huge qty of users that purchase and have no issues and make up the vast majority of users. I was mostly ignorant regarding specs and capabilities a few years ago but I find the more I know, the more useful the equipment is to me. The models offered today vs just two years ago have major improvements in features and usability and I am thankful for that. My wallet less so.
According to the data mentioned above, if you keep the AC output on, the no-load consumption will be 22W, which means it will be 1584 Wh loss for 3 days. 1584 Wh/2048Wh=77%. So the consumption is normal.
As you would expect, the loss when the AC output is on is 5-6W. We are sorry that there is currently no product with such a small loss for AC200MAX level inverters.
As always, thanks for the replies. But I don’t think you understand that I didn’t loose 38% in 3 days, but 62%. The batteries drained from a full charge of 100% down to 38%. And that is with a B230 connected.
So in other words, 2,480 watts were used by the unit in idle mode. (62% of 4,000w). Or 827 watts per day. Far higher than your suggested acceptable levels.
Hello
As you are leaving soon, I believe we have given you very good advice, a simple and quick solution to implement: keep the charger plugged into the AC200MAX.
You are right to point out that this solution is not perfect, because if the power outage lasts too long, and the AC200MAX turns off because it is empty, then it will not turn back on to recharge even if power to your network is restored (and you have to be able to put AC “on” to be able to do “pass through” again)
For this, there is a possible solution (a bit complex though) : an AC-DC power supply connected to the solar input of the AC200MAX: when the electricity in your network is restored, the AC-DC power supply provides a voltage (and if it is high enough) to the DC Solar input of AC200max, which can wake it up to recharge. If you have a second (old) phone that has Bluetooth and connected to your WIFI or telephone network, you can install an application such as “teamviewer” to be able to take control of this phone next to the AC200max remotely (with your smartphone, to be able to put AC on ON -via the bluetti app on the old android phone - to rearm your backup ).
And if you want to be able to automatically turn the AC ON without needing to intervene manually remotely (teamviewer) when it turns back on when the network is restored: it’s possible. I can give you a piece of code/macro that runs on an automation application “Macrodroid”, to be installed on an old android phone with bluetooth. This application can automatically turn AC on when the AC200MAX wakes up.
I just wanted to clarify a point in your post here, regarding the battery state of charge for the AC200Max (and all of the Bluetti power stations). There is a built-in safety capacity for the batteries, so when the charge displayed is 0%, the batteries still have a capacity of about 10% left, and the BMS makes sure we can’t use that safety buffer (it turns off). Having said that, this is the reason the unit needs to be charged within a period of time so that the batteries don’t actually drain down to 0%. There is a similar safety buffer for the batteries at the 100% charge level.
And regarding the inverter converting DC to AC when there’s no load, well, yes it actually has to. Sure, there’s no power/current to a load, but the AC voltage needs to exist or a load cannot turn on. That conversion process is what takes up a large portion of the idle power drain of the inverter (22 watts), vs having the inverter off (5.8 watts). The inverter itself is a load on the batteries when it is on, in the same way a stand-alone inverter would be a load on a battery it was wired to.
