question

Didn't you check that BEFORE you bought the batteries?

You should ask the seller/manufacturer about that.

Hi @Robster

I just googled the drift pro battery. What AH model did you get. Their site lists the BMS that the battery uses. The model I just opened up notes a JBD BMS sometimes referred to as Jiadbaida (very popular Chinese BMS within DIY community).

Double check the website but odds are it'll say on there. I'm not 100% sure if JBD BMS has native victron support. However given it's popularity I imagine there'll be a community made driver on github if not natively supported.

Worst case scenario you'll need to buy a smart shunt. (I personally prefer this option even if BMS coms work however i know most others do not. I especially prefer this option if you're not sure how accurate the internal BMS smart shunts are for measuring SoC).

(Just a note i dont actually have these cells but just gathered this info from their description on the website).

EDIT: did a quick google search and here's a community made driver that enables the support (again not 100% sure if this is up to date or if there's now native victron support):

GitHub - Louisvdw/dbus-serialbattery: Battery Monitor driver for serial battery in VenusOS GX systems

EDIT2: just had another look at the site. It does specify plug and play using CAN port. Give that a go. It may be a case that Fogstart have edited the JBD BMS to make sure it natively communicates with victron system.

@Robster

I have not used these batteries however...

The batteries would likely be daisy chained if they follow pylon and a few other batterymakes then they are chained using the rs485s between them, then CAN to the GX.

They will either use the Victron type A or type B cable if they are compatible. But they my need a custom cable.

There are two speeds for can. The BMS port is 500kb/s the normal can is 250kb/s. One can be changed in speed.

The terminator is usually in the GX. If you see its manual.

They say they have JBD BMS in them. There are a few guys over the forum who use JBD BMS as @matt1309 mentioned. You would probably have better luck looking up JBD BMS Victron integration.

And a video.

They do have some limitations, as everything does.

They do not follow the same idea as the 48V server pack batteries in regards to daisy chaining the RS485 for battery to battery communication, at this moment in time and this may change in the future I expect as this would be the better idea. The RS485 is for connection to the PC to view/change deep parameter settings/FW updates if you have the correct PC software.

The battery can connect to the Cerbo using a standard cat 5 cable, connecting from the CAN port on the battery to either the VE CAN set at 500 kbit/s or the BMS CAN also set at 500 kbit/s. If 2 batteries are being used then a connection from one battery CAN to VE CAN and another connection from the second battery CAN to BMS CAN (I have tired this at 12V in parallel but not 24V series connection as yet but I would expect it would just be the same) this worked without using the CAN terminators in place at the Cerbo side. This will show up on the Cerbo as 2 separate batteries and not the same as the server pack batteries that have battery to battery communication with only giving the information from each separate pack. Type A or B cable is not needed.

A third battery may be able to be added on one of the other vacant CAN terminals but not really sure at this stage. Although it may be better to use higher capacity packs rather than add more batteries to the system, especially if other CAN devices are required/being used on the system.

I hope this helps, it may be better to ask Fogstar direct if more information is needed. Looking at their website and with some of the other products that they sell such as the JBD BMS, they do state that no instructions are supplied, expecting that the end user/installer already has a reasonable amount of knowledge in what they are doing.

I don’t disagree with you in regards to some direction. It may be beneficial to feed your situation back to Fogstar, at the least that will give them feedback so that they will know where they need to make improvements. I don’t expect that you will be the only person that will encounter this situation. I am also not sure if the limitation isn’t with the Cerbo with not being able to plug multiple individual CAN batteries into it but this is outside of my knowledge range. I do expect that this will all change in the future with future FW updates both with the Cerbo and Fogstar battery. There always has to be a starting point and this seems to be quite knew to have a 12V battery with CAN communications with the Victron system Outside of the 48V server racks.

To just connect them in parallel/series connection, the internal BMS should protect the batteries no matter how they are connected, best practice would be to set your charger to suit the recommended charging algorithm for the Fogstar battery as per the battery spec sheet and maybe set some discharge cut offs in the inverter so as not to solely rely on the BMS cut off and to give the battery a better life, the downside is that you wanted them to communicate with your Cerbo, this could have been done with the cheaper Drift range.

Either way it is important to ensure that each 12V battery is fully charged as an individual 12V battery before putting into series connection. This will help prevent issues later on when in series connection.

@Robster I bought 4 epoch 12v 100Ah batteries from Fogstar.... to run as a 48V system

I really don't know about having the 4 batteries connected to a Cerbo. If you do manage to connect them. I would think they would just show up as four 12V batteries and the Cerbo won't know how you have wired them.

I just use a Shunt and a mid-point to track my batteries.
to start with, one of the cells in one of the batteries would hit a high voltage, and it would turn the Charge mosfets off in that battery. witch would stop the other three from fully charging

So a balancer is a must. I bought the ECO-WORTHY 48V Battery Equalizer and it works great
the 24V version is a 5A balancer and is only £25 https://amzn.to/46pheMF

I would suggest a shunt and a balancer,
or, the other option is buy a couple of 24V BMS's and pop the lids off, to rewire them :/

I am anticipating a response from Fogstar after the weekend.
To be honest I’m a little underwhelmed at the level of Victron integration with these batteries.
For the additional cost over the standard Drift batteries I was expecting much more.
I do appreciate it’s a new product, but I’m not convinced it’s ready for market yet.

I have a smart shunt in the system, but they’re too new & expensive have as a ‘make do ‘system and to open up to rewire would be uneconomical and will also void the 10 year warranty. ;0)

I think I’ll have to stick with my LiFePo4 prismatic cells & Electrodacus BMS for a while longer.

These batteries will probably be going back.

drift pro manual

DRIFTPROMANUAL.pdf

comm between drift pro and victron

VICTRON INTEGRATION The BMS has the ability to communicate with the Victron Cerbo GX, removing the need for a Victron BMS or SmartShunt. The BMS can communicate the following:

Voltage, State Of Charge, and Current Temperatures Cell Voltages 10 BMS Alarms including high voltage, cell imbalance, low voltage etc Current Limit Charging Voltage Limit

The package includes the necessary cable, but if you need a longer one, a standard Cat7e cable can be used instead. The Cable should go from the CAN port on the battery to the BMS-Can port on the Cerbo GX or GX-enabled inverter.

Connecting Multiple Batteries It's possible to link more than one battery and monitor them using the Cerbo GX. However, the process of adding an extra battery varies from the initial connection. Although the same cable is used, it should be connected to the CAN port on the battery, and the VE-CAN (not BMS-CAN, which was used for the first battery). Once the connection is established, the following steps should be taken on the Cerbo GX

Navigate to Settings > Services VE CAN Port > Select CAN-BUS profile and CAN-BUS 500Kbit/s.