Do I have a faulty MPPT controller?

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jonow asked Nov 19, '20

Do I have a faulty MPPT controller?

I have a new installation with 6 x 365W panels in two strings connected to a MPPT 150/70 TR, a Multiplus 1600/24v in ESS consumption mode.

It is a lovely sunny day in Cape Town, and at 6am I was generating 700W, then quite suddenly the power dropped to almost nothing although the voltage remained at about 130v. I tried reseting the MPPT controller at around 10:30 and the power spiked up to around 1400W, but dropped immediatley down to around 20 - 30W.

I've checked the wiring and fuses and breakers. All firmware is at the latest revision.

Could I have configured something wrong? It really looks to me like a faulty charge controller though.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

MPPT Controllers

screenshot-2020-11-19-jono-home-vrm-portal4.png (16.9 KiB)

screenshot-2020-11-19-jono-home-vrm-portal5.png (21.2 KiB)

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Answer 1 · 2020-11-19T10:10:23Z

jkkm answered · Nov 19, 2020 at 10:10 AM

Hello,

I have been struggling with the same issue for awhile now.

https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/66946/smartsolar-charger-15035-still-experiencing-zero-o.html

Victron is looking into the issue

Regards

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Answer 2 · 2020-11-19T10:25:48Z

nigelfxs answered · Nov 19, 2020 at 10:25 AM

This behaviour would be expected if your batteries are fully charged and there is no external load on the Multiplus.

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jonow commented · Nov 19, 2020 at 10:37 AM

This is my current usage, it seems the charge controller only wants to charge the battery and not supply power for ac - so I wonder if this is a configuration error.

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screenshot-2020-11-19-remote-console-on-lan.png (36.4 KiB)

screenshot-2020-11-19-remote-console-on-lan1.png (36.3 KiB)

Answer 3 · 2020-11-19T12:29:35Z

jonow answered · Nov 19, 2020 at 12:29 PM

UPDATE: I see that BatterLife State is Discharge Disabled, so the inverter won't supply ac until SOC reaches minimum - I have set minimum SOC at 90% and my battery is sitting at 87% but only charging from solar at 14W so charging really slowly (aborption) . So I now need to work out how to charge the batteries faster, or charge using the grid perhaps - in any case it seems a huge waste of solar to charge for hours at 17W when I could also be supplying critical loads - or am I missing something?

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