Pylontech Battery Firmware Upgrade How To US2000C / US3000C

Overview of how I created a Pylontech programming cable to diagnose a battery fault and flash a new firmware.
USB to RS232 Cable: amzn.to/3YY0skB
Drivers: ftdichip.com/drivers/vcp-driv...
Interesting forum post
energytalk.co.za/t/pylontech-...
If you're considering signing up to Octopus Energy use this link to get a £50 account credit (I get one as well) share.octopus.energy/gray-wre...
00:00 Into
02:27 Create a Pylontech battery cable
09:57 BatteryView and firmware files
14:23 Connect to battery and flash firmware
18:43 Download battery logs
Ask Rufus by Audionautix is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Artist: audionautix.com/

[@RodMcBain]

Are Pylontech batteries and Victron inverters the best battery system you can buy,? Let's find out kzbin.info/www/bejne/nZ_Zhah3mtOMfqs 😀

[@Michael-xs5ef]

Pylontech UK initially said I wouldn't need to load new firmware to add the US2000 mentioned below to the US3000C. But after sending them the BatteryView logs they decided a firmware update was required, and they sent me the file to load. So this video has again been very useful to me.

[@RodMcBain]

Happy to hear the video was useful to you!

[@Michael-xs5ef]

A simpler, less elegant alternative, to buying a RJ plug and a crimper: Carefully slit 50mm of the outer of the cable. Tease out the unwanted wires and cut off at both ends of the slit. Cut 5 at one end of the slit, 8 at the other end, leaving wires 5 and 8 overlapping. Strip 5 and 8, twist together, and solder. Lay 5 and 8 back in the slit and close the slit. Wrap the slitted section with insulation tape. Great video Rod, carefully explaining where mistakes could be made.

[@RodMcBain]

I did consider mentioning some of the other ways this could be achieved, but didn't want to complicate the video further. I'm sure this will be helpful to anyone who doesn't have a crimper handy, just got to be careful with all that slicing and cutting, easy to make a mistake. Thanks.

[@tiredofeverythingnew]

Rod, great video, pls do a full video on your setup, more and more people are interested in this and you go into great details. Cheers

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, I've got more pylontech / victron videos coming soon.

[@chrisshave7129]

Thank you Rob for a very informative video!

[@RodMcBain]

Thanks, glad it was helpful.

[@JOXVOX]

Great vid,making it easier to follow you, I have subscribed, thanks for sharing your knowledge.

[@RodMcBain]

Thanks, it's always good to know a video has been helpful, thanks for the sub, much appreciated.

[@Michael-xs5ef]

Found that the Console Socket on a US2000 I wanted to add to my US3000C has a 4-pin RJ10 socket ! So I bought a RJ45 Female Breakout Module, and attached a short cable with a RJ10 plug on it. Pin 2 RJ10 to Pin 6 RJ45. Pin 3 RJ10 to Pin 3 RJ45. Pin 4 RJ10 to pin 8 RJ45. Glued a bit of an old credit card onto the base of the module, extending toward the outer of the RJ10 cable. Drilled two holes in that extended section for a thin cable-tie around the outer, to stop those flimsy data wires being pulled out of the module.

[@RodMcBain]

Yes. it's a bit of a pain that the older modules use an RJ10 socket, fortunately I only have US300Cs so have never had to deal with this. Sounds like you found a workable solution 👍

[@ahamadshah7666]

I merely decreased the volts, and it sorted out the alarm issue, regardless very good video thank you.

[@RodMcBain]

Thanks for watching, different alarms will have different solutions, I think the only way to fix the random cell voltage spike alarm coming from the BMS can only be fixed with a firmware update or a new BMS board.

[@atoma1972]

Very clear and precise instructions.Once you selected the zip file firmware in the Battery view, the application will check if the selected zip file contains the right version of the firmware for your battery and only after that is starting to flash it? Thank you!

[@RodMcBain]

I'm not sure exactly how much sanity checking it's doing, I'd imagine it's limited to looking at the battery serial number and selecting the correct .bin file from the zip for the battery BMS.

[@markrobinson2983]

Oh ok thanks for your reply. Regards Mark

[@RodMcBain]

No worries, sorry I couldn't be of more help.

[@csa4564]

Hi Rod, I have watched your video so many times that I now know by heart every detail you mention on it; I even purchased the exact same cable Wfortune (even the same colour, pale blue), cut the RJ45 and placed a new terminal making sure I had the yellow, orange and black wires on the correct place. Also downloaded the latest BatteryView 3028, but I can't link the laptop with any of the batteries; I have one US5000, 3 US3000C a year old and 3 more US3000C which are just two months old. Right now I had no intention to flash the firmware, but just to see what each batteries firmware was and have some idea on what each cell condition on every battery was, but seems it is not going to be... : ( To make things even worse, it seems that my Pylontech US5000 received an overcharge (even though all 7 batteries were being charged by the same Inverter) and now it just blinks green every 3 seconds and can't wake it up.... Thanks for your great video.

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, Sorry to hear you've not got it working, as much as I'd like to, I can't provide one to one support over KZbin comments, these things are hard enough to debug in person. A few things I'd double check: 1. Are you definitely seeing a new com port appear in device manager when you plug the cable into the laptop? 2. Make sure you're taking note of the new com port and selecting that in device battery view. 3. Do you have the original RJ45 connector you cut off? Check it was wired as expected in the video, if not you'd have to use whatever colour was wired in position 3 & 6 to position 3 & 6 in the new RJ54 and move whatever was in 5 to 8. 4. Looking end on, check you can see the 3 wires are well seed in the RJ45 and it won't hurt to put it back in a crimper and press down once more to ensure all the pins are embedded in the cables. 5. Sorry to state the obvious, battery needs to be fully powered on when connecting, with a blinking green light and the green status lights lit up. 6. Make sure you're plugging the cable into the port marked "console". If none of that helps it's always possible the cable you have is faulty, but seems unlikely. If you're getting any error message in battery view when you try to connect other than the generic timeout message, it might be helpful to know. Not sure about your US5000 problem, if the green run light is blinking every 3 seconds, that normally means the battery is on and running normally. In an idle state none of the other lights are on, if you quickly press the red button it should light up the SOC LEDs to show the state of charge. If they don't light up it implies the battery is not charged. Probably need to get a multimeter out and check if there is any voltage on the battery terminals. Connected in a stack with 6 US3000Cs it would be odd for the US5000C alone to be discharged. Hope something above helps and good luck getting it sorted.

[@csa4564]

@@RodMcBain OK, I managed to correct my mistake and managed to place the three needed wires in the correct place and what do you know!! I have managed to connect to all my seven Pylontech batteries and all thanks to you.. My US5000 has all cells at 3.324 V with a capacity of 94.51Ah so I now have to find a way to "revive" the battery some way or other. Waiting for Pylontech CN to come back with the latest firmwares, latest BatteryView and the way to get the US5000 back to running condition. Thank you Señor.. Best regards

[@ThePeatoire]

Hi Rod, thanks for the vid. Just to clarify, if I buy the cable below and connect up as instructed I won't need to download additional virtual COM port drivers?

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, The cable I used and linked to did require that I install the virtual COM port drivers, also linked in the description.

[@andrewpeat8710]

@@RodMcBain thanks Rod. Missed that.

[@tujuprojects]

Good stuff. Put the links also where to download the management software.

[@RodMcBain]

As I said in the video I'd suggest you get it directly from Pylontech I don't think it's available on their website to link to, that said if you have a look in the video description I link to an interesting forum post which probably contains what you're looking for.

[@illbeback2YT]

What were they thinking at Pylontech? Why make it easy if we can make it really hard for the users... But most important, thanks for this extremely helpful video. I am about to buy a PVsystem with battery here in the Netherlands.

[@RodMcBain]

I don't really understand it, would have been much simpler to use same pinout as Cisco router so lots of existing cables would just work.

[@illbeback2YT]

@@RodMcBain Smart people could make a a business out of this by making prepared cables and sell them to Pylontech users.

[@dr6124]

Hi. What other info can i get from BatteryView? Can i see how many cycles the battery has done for instance or see if it's been left discharged for an extended period? Thanks

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, I don't think those details are available in the UI, but you can get the number of times the battery has been charged and discharged from the event log. I don't see any simple way to find out if the battery has been left discharged for an extended period but I think all the data you need exists in the history log. You'd probably have to write some sort of script to parse the log and look for prolonged discharge periods. I've never left my batteries discharged so it's also possible they will log an event to the event log when this happens, but I don't know for sure.

[@GreenEverAfter]

Hi Rob, any chance I could buy one already done from you? I am in the uk too.

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, Sorry I don't have any spare and don't really want to get into the business of making and selling them, just not enough hours in the day.

[@ramsan2043]

Hi Rob I like your very nicely explained videos, keep up the good work. I have 6 US2000C batteries that have firmware 1.3, 1.4, 1.7 and 2.6. I have the batteryview software and would like to have the 1.3. and 1.4 at lesast brought up to 1.7. Is there a change you can send me a copy of the firmware ZIP file you have? Thank you.

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, I'm very reluctant to get into sharing files, especially publicly, I feel strongly that you should contact PylonTech and they should give you the required files, it's by far the safest source. I've found the UK support email to be very helpful ( service.uk AT pylontech.com.cn ). If you're still struggling to get hold of the firmware let me know via email (you'll find it here: www.youtube.com/@RodMcBain/about )

[@ollierea5885]

HI Rod, very informative, I'm going to see if I can sort an issue out with a battery of mine, Where may I ask is the best place to get the legitimate software and not he dodgy stuff please?

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, Sorry, the link I used was in the forum post in the video description, but it's now returning a 404. I'd suggest your best bet is to ask Pylontech directly, make sure to explain what's wrong and why you need the BatteryView software. One of my batteries was going into an alarm state and I needed the battery view software to connect to the battery and find out what the error was. You can email them using either "service.uk" or "service" @pylontech.com.cn.

[@ollierea5885]

@@RodMcBain thanks Rod. ill give it a go, regards

[@Muppetkeeper]

My batteries work, like the clever man said, I’m not touching mine.

[@RodMcBain]

👍

[@georgelza]

rob. do you maybe have the pin connect on usb side connecting to RG45 position. I'm trying to recycle a old mouse, cut the mouse off and use the usb cable.

[@RodMcBain]

Hi George, I don't think that's going to work, you'll have a cable with the correct connections but you'll be missing the required electronics to convert the USB signal from the computer into the serial signal the pylons are talking. You're best bet is to get a cheap USB to RS232 cable that will contain the required electronics to create a virtual serial device over USB.

[@georgelza]

@@RodMcBain ye figured out I need to go from USB into a FTDi board and from there to the RJ11/45... G

[@oscardebaets330]

Clear EEPROM, does it harm when checkbox is on at a firmware update ?

[@RodMcBain]

I've never selected it, I suggest you don't unless you're trying to achieve something specific, usually not needed.

[@DanFree7]

I have searched for 2 hours and cant find the batterview 3.0.28 for download at all :( (I could find the 3.0.24 but its highly advice to use the newer one) Do you have a link or can share the program?

[@RodMcBain]

Looks like it's not available from that forum post anymore. I'd suggest you drop Pylontech an email, they should be able to provide it, make sure to give a legitimate reason for wanting to update the firmware or their response is sensibly going to be that you should leave a working battery alone and not touch the firmware.

[@DanFree7]

@@RodMcBain Thx Rod. I could update the firmware (thx for your video) successfully. But still, they continue to fall into protection mode (US3000C). Maybe it has to to with the inverter. Batteryview shows me an alert "SC" - do you know what SC stands for? Cheers

[@RodMcBain]

@@DanFree7 Hi, Not 100% sure but I think SC stands for Short Circuit, I know I sound like a broken record, but you really should contact Pylontech, my experience was they were very helpful.

[@markrobinson2983]

Hi Rob, my friend made up a cable as to your directions. We sent the data to pylontech but because warranty has expired they are not interested in helping. Do you have any idea where I can get firmware for my pylontech extra 2000 as I believe I need to update as batteries not been used for a few years and am getting can com fail on solis inverter.. I should add that I have managed to get some charge into the batteries by setting inverter to lead acid.. regards Mark

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, I'm afraid the only non pylontech source I know about doesn't have firmware for the extras.

[@shaunhawkes7268]

Where did you get the new firmware from? Thanks.

[@RodMcBain]

I was sent it directly by Pylontech but if you have a look at the forum post in the video description, there is a google drive link in there titled "New BatteryView(3.0.28)", in that folder there is a file called 'st2.8+e21.7.zip', I've checked and that is identical to the file Pylontech sent me ( MD5 eb2be30d57a110ad1f654e1600a72cbe )

[@shaunhawkes7268]

Thank you, as looks as the same issue as you I have one of the battery alarm goes off when it gets down to roughly 50%. Turn it off and back on and it’s fine for a while again.

[@RodMcBain]

@@shaunhawkes7268 It's been just over 2 weeks since I flashed 1.7 and so far no more battery alarms, hope it helps solve your problem.

[@shaunhawkes7268]

@@RodMcBain Thank you, me to. Your video is a huge help 👍🏻

[@shaunhawkes7268]

Updated all my batteries to 1.7 it went ok and so far 🤞🏻 they have behaved. Hopefully yours have too?

[@ClaudiusThur]

Hi rob. Or anyone else. My firmware update failed at 83%. Now it is not possible to repeat the update because the battery does not start up again. Is there any possibility to wake au the battery manualy or to do a total reset to wake it up again?

[@RodMcBain]

I've never had to use it but I believe there's a tool available from Pylontech to help recover a failed update, there might be some helpful detail in the most recent posts in energytalk.co.za/t/pylontech-firmware-updates-we-take-no-responsibility-for-any-firmware-posted-here-choose-correct-firmware-for-your-battery/1007/248

[@tujuprojects]

So the correct cable does not come with the battery?

[@tujuprojects]

I ordered us5000 but still waiting it.

[@RodMcBain]

The USB to RS232 cable required to connect to the battery view app doesn't come with the battery, I don't think Pylontech even sell them. If you need one, you either need to make one or buy one from someone else who makes them. All that comes with a battery is an earth cable, comms link cable and the short DC cables for connecting multiple batteries together.

[@vaclavvondracek1999]

Hello, sorry I tried to connect the Pylontech US300C battery with PC (Batteryview V3.0.28) via Waveshare USB to RS232 adapter, but I am not able to read the battery data. Please could someone help?

[@RodMcBain]

I'm sorry there are so many variables it's really hard to pin point what the problem could be, I have offered some debugging advice in other comments that might be worth looking at.

[@MrHonjim]

How do I get battery view software from Pylontech. Who to contact?

[@RodMcBain]

[e-mail] or if you're in the UK you could try [e-mail]

[@MrHonjim]

Thanks for the quick response and good video

[@ErDuca21]

No COM port added when I connect the USB on my PC. Why?

[@RodMcBain]

To get the COM port to appear I had to install the virtual com port drivers, for the cable I used the drivers are in the description, for another cable you'll need to check the manufactures website.

[@ErDuca21]

@@RodMcBain mine is plug and play and it works to convert ethernet in USB. Is it ok?

[@asmaeTanouti-ld5et]

How can we set up the batteries' IDs?

[@RodMcBain]

I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, I don't think the batteries have a settable ID or why you'd want one. The serial number is usually all you need to identify a battery.

[@tyronvs]

Hi please can you send me the links for battery view and firmware for us3000c

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, If you email Pylontech and let them know what problem you have with the batteries they will be able to provide the Battery View app and an appropriate firmware. It's really the only "safe" way to do it, sorry.

[@franciscofernandes4527]

can you please tell me how to re-wire the PIN OUT on RJ11.

[@RodMcBain]

Hi, I've never needed to make up and RJ11 cable so don't know for sure, looks like pin 1 and 4 are ground pin 2 is TX and pin 3 is RX, check out this forum post for some pictures that should help energytalk.co.za/t/pylontech-firmware-updates-we-take-no-responsibility-for-any-firmware-posted-here-choose-correct-firmware-for-your-battery/1007/9

[@franciscofernandes4527]

@@RodMcBain thanks for the reply .I had a looked but I still don’t understand if it just to cut cable 1 from rj11 and DB-9 or if I need to do anything on the usb-rs232 too,my batteries are us2000

[@sam1ewis]

​@@franciscofernandes4527Hi, did you figure it out? Trying to wire up an RJ11 myself too. Just waiting for the connector to arrive. Thanks!

[@franciscofernandes4527]

@@sam1ewis I did,I used the multimeter to check the right pins

[@sam1ewis]

@@franciscofernandes4527 thanks! I've wired up the RJ11 but failing to connect in BatteryView. I've wired it up with the same cable Rod uses in this video, and followed that same diagram from the forum. So, the pins: 1. GND (Black) - 2. TXD (Orange) - 3. RXD (Yellow) - 4. GND (Red). Was that the same for you? I'm going to try and re-wire it back up tonight.

[@user-wg5tr5of6w]

Longest video ever 😊

[@RodMcBain]

I think it has some way to go to be the longest ever, but I get it's so boring it might feel that way 😀 Just not an exciting topic but hopefully a useful one.

[@olly31d13]

rx receive tx transmit

[@RodMcBain]

Indeed