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Firmware 1.34.2 issues

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NinjaVece

NinjaVece

Member
Aug 22, 2018
208
193
Santa Clarita, CA
#1
Sometime late last week, my PW2 was updated to the 1.34.2 release. I found out within a day that the Cost Savings setting I had the PW2 since last July is now on Balanced Mode even as the iOS app still states it is on Cost Savings mode.

The reserve level is honored (I have mine at 50%) but the unit no longer charges the battery in the morning and until filled prior to the Peak Period - I'm under SCE in CA with weekday Peak Period from 2-8pm. It now expends the battery at what are odd hours to me (probably because I never used Balanced or other modes).

Additionally, my setup is such that the Weekends have NO peak period so the PW2 should not expend any battery during that time (there is a bug in the PW2 firmware which requires a very short period of shoulder peak to work properly on the weekends - but that is another thread I've provided previously). Suffice it to say that the battery should be at least at 95% on a Sunday morning. I woke up today to it at 52% (back down to my Reserve level).

Something is VERY wrong with my firmware at this point. Currently as I write this at 9am, the PW2 is simply shunting solar power to my house and not charging the PW2 battery. Additionally, when looking at the Customize area, the Storm Watch icon (the circle with the cloud and lightening within it) is orange with a hazard / exclamation point at the bottom in orange.

Does this mean that the unit thinks it is in Storm watch mode? Its sunny and 59 degrees F here at this time and forecasts show no possible rain showers till Wednesday (none of which should trigger StormWatch anyway). Is this an indicator of the bug in the firmware?

I have a call into Tesla PW2 support today (again) but was shunted over to Solar support. I'm interested if others are having this issue as a firmware bug or if the new firmware just came into my PW2 incorrectly. If the support lines are filled, maybe the former...
 
#3
Cost savings is all messed up right now, especially if you have part-peak periods. Try Balanced, and use only off-peak and peak time periods. I have a 30 minute "peak" on weekends at 11:30pm-12:00am just to force charging on weekends, as you know. ;)
 
#4
power.saver said:
Cost savings is all messed up right now, especially if you have part-peak periods. Try Balanced, and use only off-peak and peak time periods. I have a 30 minute "peak" on weekends at 11:30pm-12:00am just to force charging on weekends, as you know. ;)
Click to expand...

Power.saver, thanks. My system, while acting up this weekend, looks to be charging the battery this morning under Cost Savings mode. What I found out is that the app, when you are into the 'Customize' portion, will sometimes trip over to 'Balanced' mode (or other way around) as you are scrolling down to see the Reserve level and / or look at the custom Weekday and Weekend settings. If you trip 'Balanced' mode and don't notice it, Tesla will flip you over and when you find out the next day the system is working different than you expected, check the app and switch it back to 'Cost Savings', it takes a whole day for it to switch back.

I've spoken to tech support about the app folks making the switch from Cost Savings to Balanced (or vice-versa) more difficult - like going to a sub-screen to change - so that accidental changes can't happen, as they have long term (multi-day) implications. They confirmed, however, that Reserve level changes occur within and hour but Cost Savings / Balanced adjustments take at least 24 hours (or past the weekend).

Finally, yes, we went through this last year for the weekends where you and I found that to actuate charging we have to have a 'dummy' half-hour where the battery discharges. My next door neighbor has a PW2 and I adjusted his to work properly with the fix. The things we do for the community....
 
#5
Well it has been a couple of weeks with 1.34.2 and I have seen the same error on Fridays for both weeks. I'm on Advanced Cost Saving mode and both Fridays so far my PW2 has ignored that setting and failed to charge the battery starting in the morning what my panels begin producing energy (around 7:30-8:00am) but instead began around 11:00am. The battery did fully charge by 2:00pm when my Peak period begins under TOU but the system did not begin using the battery at that time.

The battery ended up staying at 97-100% through the Peak period and the only coverage I had was from the solar panels until they petered out due to lack of sun around 5:30-6:00pm. At that point, my power simply came from the grid at the higher prices as the battery never kicked it.

This is different from all the other weekdays since I've had the 1.34.2 release and I have been in contact numerous times with Tesla Powerwall Tech Support as to this issue. They have identified it is a bug so hopefully it will be fixed soon. I wonder if anyone else has seen this error or if I'm the odd duck here...
 
#8
Relatively new (2-ish weeks) Powerwall owner here, with 3 Powerwalls and an existing (8-ish years) 5 kW Solar City installed PV system, PG&E territory on NEM-1. Configured with 30% reserve, Cost-Saving mode.

Sometime during my first week of ownership, the gateway updated itself from 1.33 to 1.34.2. But unlike some of you, it seems like mine is charging correctly on weekends, even though I don't have any partial-peak times configured then. In other words, it starts charging the battery as soon as the sun shines on the panels, during off-peak. As the batteries get full near the end of off-peak it starts also sending power into the house and back to the grid. Then when on-peak starts, the house runs off the batteries, and all the solar production goes to the grid. When we go back to off-peak in the evening, the house runs off the grid (the sun's already down, so no solar production). Not trying to gloat, but I think that's what's supposed to happen, right?

Still learning about this stuff...

Bruce.
 
#9
bmah said:
But unlike some of you, it seems like mine is charging correctly on weekends, even though I don't have any partial-peak times configured then.

Still learning about this stuff...

Bruce.
Click to expand...

The bug actually is that the Powerwalls won't charge if the whole weekend is off-peak. The workaround of adding a partial peak is not necessary if you have a peak period on weekend days. It's just most common to add a partial-peak period to get the Powerwalls to charge. Based on the way they behave, I think adding a peak period would actually be exactly the same.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: bmah
#10
cwied said:
The bug actually is that the Powerwalls won't charge if the whole weekend is off-peak. The workaround of adding a partial peak is not necessary if you have a peak period on weekend days. It's just most common to add a partial-peak period to get the Powerwalls to charge. Based on the way they behave, I think adding a peak period would actually be exactly the same.
Click to expand...

Ah thanks for the explanation. Still coming up to speed on this stuff works (or doesn’t work).

Bruce.
 
#11
Well folks, there we have it. My PW2 is functioning properly today Monday. The solar panels are feeding the PW2 from inception and I expect the battery will feed the house during Peak periods. The bug for 1.34.2 - at least on my system - is that the PW2 loses the Advanced Cost Savings status each Friday morning (and through the weekend) such that it does not charge the battery in the morning nor use the battery during Peak period on Friday and it charges and discharges at odd hours over the weekend.

I will be following up with Tesla support again this morning as they have a ticket out on my situation. I'd be interested to find out if anyone else has had 1.34.2 for more than a week and if they have had any issues like mine...
 
#12
Third week with 1.34.2 and same result for Friday thru Sunday (see my previous posts). Jesse at Powerwall support is well aware of the the issue and Level 2 support has been working it for awhile. Very interested if anyone else is on 1.34.2 at this time with Advsnced Cost Savings in effect...
 
#17
NinjaVece said:
Sometime late last week, my PW2 was updated to the 1.34.2 release. I found out within a day that the Cost Savings setting I had the PW2 since last July is now on Balanced Mode even as the iOS app still states it is on Cost Savings mode.

The reserve level is honored (I have mine at 50%) but the unit no longer charges the battery in the morning and until filled prior to the Peak Period - I'm under SCE in CA with weekday Peak Period from 2-8pm. It now expends the battery at what are odd hours to me (probably because I never used Balanced or other modes).

Additionally, my setup is such that the Weekends have NO peak period so the PW2 should not expend any battery during that time (there is a bug in the PW2 firmware which requires a very short period of shoulder peak to work properly on the weekends - but that is another thread I've provided previously). Suffice it to say that the battery should be at least at 95% on a Sunday morning. I woke up today to it at 52% (back down to my Reserve level).

Something is VERY wrong with my firmware at this point. Currently as I write this at 9am, the PW2 is simply shunting solar power to my house and not charging the PW2 battery. Additionally, when looking at the Customize area, the Storm Watch icon (the circle with the cloud and lightening within it) is orange with a hazard / exclamation point at the bottom in orange.

Does this mean that the unit thinks it is in Storm watch mode? Its sunny and 59 degrees F here at this time and forecasts show no possible rain showers till Wednesday (none of which should trigger StormWatch anyway). Is this an indicator of the bug in the firmware?

I have a call into Tesla PW2 support today (again) but was shunted over to Solar support. I'm interested if others are having this issue as a firmware bug or if the new firmware just came into my PW2 incorrectly. If the support lines are filled, maybe the former...
Click to expand...
If you have the whole weekend as off-peak, PW should charge on Sunday to reduce the time at high SOE.
 
#18
ucizhangli said:
If you have the whole weekend as off-peak, PW should charge on Sunday to reduce the time at high SOE.
Click to expand...

ucizhangli, I employ a trick we have found where we set up the weekends with one half hour of off-peak (shoulder-peak) against 23.5 hours of super off-peak (off-peak). That guarantees that the PW2 will be fully recharged on Saturday then used for only a half hour (I set mine for 8:30pm to 9:00pm) and then fully recharged on Sunday then only used for the half hour again.

Then Monday rolls around and the battery is at 96-99% ready for the Peak period for that week. The PW2 does not charge up the battery on its own over the weekend if you don't put in that dummy half hour period - a but in their system that they have yet to acknowledge.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: NuShrike
#19
NinjaVece said:
ucizhangli, I employ a trick we have found where we set up the weekends with one half hour of off-peak (shoulder-peak) against 23.5 hours of super off-peak (off-peak). That guarantees that the PW2 will be fully recharged on Saturday then used for only a half hour (I set mine for 8:30pm to 9:00pm) and then fully recharged on Sunday then only used for the half hour again.

Then Monday rolls around and the battery is at 96-99% ready for the Peak period for that week. The PW2 does not charge up the battery on its own over the weekend if you don't put in that dummy half hour period - a but in their system that they have yet to acknowledge.
Click to expand...
The small partial peak would make it charge on Saturday. Did you try to wait until Sunday and see if it would charge up if you have all weekend as off-peak?
 
#20
ucizhangli said:
The small partial peak would make it charge on Saturday. Did you try to wait until Sunday and see if it would charge up if you have all weekend as off-peak?
Click to expand...

It's a known bug that Tesla does not consider a bug. Their argument is that if it is all Super Off-Peak (Off-Peak using Shoulder Peak parlance) during the Weekend then the battery should not be refilled during that time.

However, since Advanced Cost Savings leaves the Battery at your Reserve level on Friday evening, that means that the the Reserve level is where the battery stays all weekend (without the trick). This is not good if you have a power outage event on Saturday or Sunday as the battery can only respond from the Reserve level you left it at. Using the trick, you get up to 100% of the battery to respond to outage events over the weekend, especially on Sunday.
 
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