SmartSolar not using VE.Smart current sense

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Edouard Lafargue asked Sep 25, '21

SmartSolar not using VE.Smart current sense

I have a setup where a SmartSolar 150|70 is connected to a BMV-712 on a VE.Smart network. The BMV-712 monitors the battery bank.

As shown on the pictures below, the SmartSolar is taking external battery voltage and temperature from the VE.Smart network, but not external battery current, which mean the SmartSolar is not able to detect the tail current during absorption if any load is present on the DC circuit causing the current at the SmartSolar sensor to be much higher than actual charge current in the battery.

Is this a known issue, is there a reason why the SmartSolar does not use external current sense? Is Victron planning to add this as a feature in the future? That would be really helpful to help the charge controller manage end of charge much more accurately...

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Images:

Smartsolar view of VE.Smart network: it uses external battery voltage and temp as expected, but not external current sense

BMV-712 view: as expected, BMV-712 does send current sense, but it is not being used by SmartSolar:

MPPT SmartSolar

screen-shot-2021-09-25-at-22634-pm.png (166.2 KiB)

screen-shot-2021-09-25-at-23327-pm.png (168.1 KiB)

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Modifications Space

Node Red Space

Answer 1 · 2021-09-27T08:29:47Z

mkuiken answered · Sep 27, 2021 at 08:29 AM

Hi,

The SmartSolar should be using the current sense as this functionality is already supported. I think it might be a "reporting" issue in which VictronConnect is not correctly showing current sense being used, while in reality the solar actually is using the current sense.

A few questions:

1. What SmartSolar Bluetooth Interface version are you using (can be found at the Product info page where you also initiate an update of the firmware)?

2. In case the SmartSolar is charging and you don't see current sense being used, can you restart VictronConnect, reconnect to the SmartSolar and check if that makes a difference?

3. Can you create a service report? See https://www.victronenergy.com/media/pg/VictronConnect_Manual/en/troubleshooting.html?utm_source=offline&utm_medium=qr&utm_campaign=qr%20code%20products#UUID-98bc9211-902b-01a0-96b9-1f314c4d63c5

/Martijn

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Answer 2 · 2021-09-27T21:02:09Z

Edouard Lafargue answered · Sep 27, 2021 at 09:02 PM

Thanks for your response, Martijn! SmartSolar Bluetooth interface firmware is v2.25. SmartSolar is 1.56

Looked further this morning while the SmartSolar was charging, and as you suspected, in bulk state the charger does show it is using current sense. I'll wait for tonight to check whether the display changes once the SmartSolar is not charging anymore.

The main VictronConnect display for SmartSolar is a bit confusing because "Battery Current" is the current measured at the "Battery" output of the charger - which includes both battery and DC loads - , not the actual battery current as reported by the BMV-712 (in the case below, the BMV-712 reported about 25A). Maybe you could update that display in situations when the SmartSolar is using current sense to make it clearer what current is being displayed?

screen-shot-2021-09-27-at-11613-pm.png (83.2 KiB)

screen-shot-2021-09-27-at-15415-pm.png (42.7 KiB)

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Answer 3 · 2021-09-28T22:41:15Z

Edouard Lafargue answered · Sep 28, 2021 at 10:41 PM

After more monitoring, it looks like SmartSolar reports using current sense in every mode (Bulk/Absorption/Float), so the initial error I was getting must have been transient...

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