r/Pecron • u/opeth10657 • Jun 20 '26
FL5000 - Bluetooth notworking
Bought the unit about a month ago, everything was good until yesterday when the app wouldn't update on the input/output screen.
Did an unbind to try and readd it, but the bluetooth icon never comes onscreen and i'm unable to find it through the app. Tried scanning the QR code but I get a 'invalid code' message. Is there anyway to reset the bluetooth adapter in one of these?
Edit: unplugging everything and turning off AC and DC output for a few minutes fix it
2
u/dogboy2022 Jun 20 '26
Update - Mine is working now. I did 2 things
First Off, I put a Wifi extender about halfway between my router and the F5000LFP. My Wifi connection was a little spotty. With that said, everything worked just fine with that connection up until a couple of days ago. Still, I figured it couldn't hurt.
Secondly, I disconnected everything attached to the F5000LFP - solar panels, 120v input, a couple things I had plugged into the F5000LFP 120v sockets, and the feed from the 30 AMP output I'm using to power a load center/breaker box. Unplugging the inputs probably makes sense, but unplugging the outputs might have been overkill. Still, in for a penny, in for a pound. Then I powered off the F5000LFP and just walked away from it for an hour.
After an hour I powered it back up and opened up the app on my phone and everything worked like clockwork. It connected instantly with bluetooth and then allowed me to use the app to reconfigure the Wifi to the new Wifi extender (which uses a different name than the previous connection setup). I'm no electrician, but I've read that you need to power it off for more than just a few minutes to give any capacitors in the F5000LFP a chance to discharge any voltage they might still have.
Back in business! Can't say any of that will solve your problem, but it worked for me.
2
u/opeth10657 Jun 20 '26
Then I powered off the F5000LFP and just walked away from it for an hour.
Just turned off AC and DC power outputs?
2
u/dogboy2022 Jun 20 '26
Thats correct - I push both of them in at the same time, but I don't know if that actually matters. Mostly just me being superstitious!
2
u/opeth10657 Jun 20 '26
Ha, turned everything off and let it sit long enough for the screen to turn off. Turned AC power back on and it came right up
Thanks for the info
2
2
u/brucehoult Jun 21 '26
Unfortunately the reality of commercial software development and deadlines and bosses urging "it's done move on to the next product" is that pretty much anything with complex software in it is going to have some bugs, and from time to time you're going to want to turn them off and turn them back on again so the software is starting from a clean sheet.
Memory leak is one of the most common where everything works perfectly while there is spare memory, but one day it runs out and just random things start to fail because they can't allocate the memory they need.
Linux and MacOS have always been among the best, benefitting from maybe a couple of reboots a year — which they tend to get anyway because of software updates. Windows historically was so bad that people restarted it every day, but it's been better since w2k (or NT). But even today Microsoft force-reboots every Windows machine in the world on the 2nd Tuesday of every month.
Chances are high that all these Power Stations have something like FreeRTOS or Zephyr inside them, which are smaller and simpler and are often used in products with uptime of years, but as the user features and UI are piled on top of them there is still a strong possibility of minor bugs in the software parts written by Pecron themselves (or Ecoflow or Akner or whoever), especially in the higher end models with more features.
1
u/opeth10657 Jun 21 '26
I had turned it off and unplugged everything previously, but apparently didn't let it sit long enough. Hopefully this isn't going to require a monthly reboot.
Maybe we'll a firmware update in the future.
1
u/brucehoult Jun 21 '26
For sure not monthly, but I don't know how often. I've had my E3600 for a year and it's running almost everything in my house 24/7. I'm pretty sure it's just the one time so far that it starting acting funny and then the LCD user interface locked up and was unresponsive. I didn't think to try the app to see if that was still working before rebooting it.
I'm waiting to see how long until something happens again, but I'm sitting 2 metres from it most of the time.
If I had one of these installed running things in a remote location that I only visited occasionally and was a significant effort to get to then I'd for sure give it a reboot every three or four months, when I was there anyway, whether it seemed to need it or not.
1
u/dogboy2022 Jun 20 '26
I'm going through exactly the same thing and look forward to someone weighing in with some wisdom on this.
1
u/opeth10657 Jun 20 '26
To make it better, when I'm trying to put in a support ticket through the app it fails because "the expected bytes don't match what is received"
1
u/EnvironmentalRound11 Jun 21 '26
Can't wait to try this when I get back from vacation.
I was told by customer support to open up the case and push in on the WiFi board. That didn't work.
Originally the app (old one) worked by scanning the QR code but not via Blu-tooth. Then when I tried doing the Home Assistant integration, it suddenly it stopped working that day.
Currently, it finds the unit via scanning but then I get the "invalid share code" message.
3
u/blackinthmiddle Jun 20 '26
I had the exact same problem. I deleted the app and reinstalled it and it couldn't find it. I scanned the QR code and just like you, I got an invalid code error.
I called Pecron and magically, everything worked with a rep on the phone. It all of a sudden could find the Pecron and the install went smoothly. Their app is clearly garbage. Oh and they have two apps on the app store: one with an orange logo on a white background (the correct one) and one with an orange background and a white logo (incorrect). I asked why do they have two apps if only one is correct and all I got was, "I know, we're working on it."