question

larseson avatar image
larseson asked

I want the MPPT to use the current from the shunt.

I have a MPPT that can charge 70 Amps.

The Battery can take 50 Amps.

I have an inverter to charge my electric car.

If the MPPT uses the current from the shunt I can set it to 50 Amps and on sunny days the MPPT can deliver 70 Amps. The shunt current protects so that current to battery never exceds 50 Amps.

Can I do this ? If No why not ?

MPPT SmartSolar
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5 Answers
Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

Not with just the MPPT and inverter/charger. The shunt does NOT protect the battery from excessive charging current.

You need a GX device (Cerbo, Eranko, etc.). With that, you enable DVCC and set the max charging current. It then throttles the MPPT and inverter/charger so that the 50 amps is never exceeded, but can use the additional DC power for DC and AC loads.

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seb71 avatar image
seb71 answered ·

This can be done with a GX device (such as Cerbo GX) using DVCC. But not sure if it would work with a non-Victron inverter. It might work in this case, but I can't actually test that scenario to confirm.

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seb71 avatar image seb71 commented ·
Ninja'd again.
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larseson avatar image larseson commented ·
Should be nice if you could confirm that it works with a non Victron inverter. If that is the case I will buy a Cerbo GX
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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem larseson commented ·
DVCC will NOT work with an non-Victron inverter/charger. However DVCC will detect battery current via the shunt and attempt to reduce charge current for all devices it can control. In your case, the MPPT. So I would expect the MPPT current to be throttled back to compensate for any charge current the non-Victron charger sends to the load. I have not tried this without a Victron inverter/charger so some experimentation would be needed.
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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ Kevin Windrem commented ·
The GX cannot control the non victron inverter and can't monitor it without the addition of further measuring kit.
So not likely to go the way you want it to.
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larseson avatar image
larseson answered ·

Have I understood this right?

If I control the inverter manually the Cerbo GX can throttle up and deliver max 70 Amps when the inverter takes 20 Amps or more. The Cerbo GX limits the current to the battery to 50 Amps.

If that is correct I will buy it.

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Kevin Windrem avatar image Kevin Windrem commented ·
The GX device can not control the inverter's charging current. But with DVCC enabled, it can trotted back the MPPT to avoid exceeding the maximum charging current set in the DVCC configuration. What I do not know if if this will function in the absence of a Victron inverter-charger.

Cerbo GX by itself has no display. You can access the GUI from a web browser connected to the Wi-Fi network Cerbo creates by default, or you can plug in an ethernet cable to your LAN and then connect to venus.local.

The GX Touch 50 and 70 are Cerbo's companion display. The new Eranko has in integrated display.

You can also run Venus OS on a Raspberry PI.

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ Kevin Windrem commented ·
@larseson

Cerbo will also communicate with Victron connect app on your phone using Bluetooth.

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kevgermany avatar image
kevgermany answered ·

To summarise for clarity.

Victron BMV or smart shunt needed as well as Cerbo GX. BMV and shunts measure/report.

Inverter/charger and solar charger as well as loads and earth are connected to load side of shunt. Only connection to battery neg is the battery side of shunt.

Shunt will then see all current passing through battery and report to Cerbo.

Cerbo will adjust solar charger current only.

So if you set a 70A charge limit and your non Victron charger puts out 50A, MPPT will be throttled back to 20A to limit the battery charge current to 70A. If you have a load on the system at the same time, MPPT output will be 20A plus load current.

This assumes sufficient PV output.

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d-ferdi avatar image
d-ferdi answered ·

Hello,

there are several possibilities, especially if you can program or create a small circuit yourself:

1. switch off the measured current at the shunt pv module with a relay as soon as the current gets too high and switch it on again when the current is low enough.

2. measure the current with a microcontroller/arduino/esp32 and use it to control the charge controller via vedirect so that the charging current does not reach 50A. To be on the safe side, I would stay at least 10% below the maximum value, since the controller can sometimes go higher than the set value, even if only for a few seconds.

3. use a mini-computer of the ordoid, raspberry pi or other type, but you must also be able to program for this, or get the right programs from someone. luckily i can program something like this myself and when i built my first system with victron components, there was no gx device, so i had no other choice.

4. if there is too much electricity, just burn the electricity, you only need a current-controlled relay or a circuit with power transistors to use up the excess. at 20A and approx. 50V that would be 200W and that would not be a problem for 4 suitable power transistors and with a fan you don't need such a large heatsink.

in that case you can also easily keep the maximum charging current because this regulation can be readjusted within us.

translated with google translate

goodbye

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