I've had three separate cases of the shutter failing to close because of what appears to be the BMS shutting off today. Every occurrence has resulted in the battery management system (BMS) triggering and having zero volts displayed on the Beaver hub page and my digital meter attached directly to the battery on the shutter.
I did figure out a way to reset the BMS without removing the shutter motor case and performing the reset at noted https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Cd-86MrP3c I take regular jumper cables and attach them to the motor housing power dongles and take the other end to the respective terminals on a second 12 volt battery and touch them and that resets the battery.
The first occurrence of COMMS DOWN! ERROR today was as the shutter was closing from full open to about halfway closed. My volt meter was at 11.7 volts at the start of closing, but once the BMS shuts down, the display was blank. After I j umped the shutter motor terminals, the volt meter indicated 11.1 volts and the shutter started to close again, and the volt meter was dropping 0.1 volts with every tooth movement. It shut down 2 more times, and I jumped it each time, before I turned off the power of the shutter motor, which stopped the motor from trying to auto close. After the 3rd reboot, the volt meter was reading 10.4 volts. I hooked up a charger and the battery started to charge. When I went in 2 hours later, the battery was reading 11.9 volts. I disconnected the charger and closed the shutter all the way, by the time it closed the battery was at 11.5 volts. Once closed, the dome charger connected and the battery started to charge again, yippee. I tuned off the shutter motor power button before I left. When I went in to check, another couple hours later, the volt meter was dark again, my neighbors ears are still ringing. I unplugged the dome charger and jumped the battery as described above, and the volt meter was reading 10.4 volts. I connect the battery charger and hoping that overnight the battery will get back to 13.5 volts, which is its full state.
I have no idea why the battery is draining and triggering the BMS to shut down the battery, especially when the power switch is off.
Any suggestions other than changing out a brand-new battery for another 12 volt 10 amp LiFePhos4 unit I have on a trickle charger in my garage.
Steven
So the problem with the arduino system wrt links probably wasn't xbee at all - it was either the dakota bms and/or the bms charger. I got a noco genius 2 + new dakota and suddenly my battery acts like a champ without further events like the disconnecting/discharge. The included charger is best avoided and I'm guessing nexdome just never picked up on it. You probably should buy a new battery too since you only get a few dozen dead batteries before they become runaway bad IMO, but maybe mine was worse than others - left it dead for too long perhaps. I also had the dakota charger - which is advertised and not recommended to be the long term charger. Dakota actually recommended you use their charger but dont' charge it all the time. Interestingly with wifi remote control power strips this is possible - you could skip the bms entirely and just turn on and off the power manually or scripted theoreticaly. But I haven't had problems with the noco genius 2...
So I left the shutter charging overnight and when I went in to check its status the unit had no power. I've swapped out the battery at 8 am PDST and checked on it now at 2:45 pm PDST and found the battery voltage at 13.4 volts. It seems it was the battery, and I've left a message for Dakota Lithium to call me back.
I will report back if I continue to have this issue going forward.
Steven
Here is a photo of what the COMMS DOWN! Error looks like: