question

adam-dobbs avatar image
adam-dobbs asked

Voltage spikes with MPPT near absorbtion. DC to DC also having issues at absorbtion.

In my van I have a 100W solar panel feeding a Victron MPPT 75/15 which feeds a 100A SOK lithium battery. Also wired to the same battery I have a Victron 12/12 30A DC DC isolated charge controller, not grounded to chasis, just wired + and - to my car battery.

I don't seem to ever have problems when the battery is lower and it's in bulk charge. Sometimes when the battery is near or in absorption stage, usually in full sun, and oftentimes right after starting up my engine which kicks on the charge controller I will hear my inverter beep every few seconds over and over and it will say HI, meaning high voltage. This also sometimes happens with the engine off in full sun. The Victron app will log spikes up around 17-18 volts. In the app it will show watts bouncing from the low digits to over 50W along with the beeps. If I turn my MPPT off the voltage spikes stop. This is always in full sun with no clouds.

3 screenshots of the same instance, zooming in

screenshot-20220221-123428.pngscreenshot-20220221-123352.pngscreenshot-20220221-123408.png

another couple of instances

screenshot-20220220-140611.pngscreenshot-20220220-135043.pngscreenshot-20220220-135102.png

The other issue I notice is that when my DC DC charger hits absorption the AMPs feeding my battery constantly fluctuate dramatically. This corresponds with my engine revving up and down at idle. If I turn the DC DC charger off the revving stops.


Could it be that I have both a bad MPPT charger and a bad DC to DC charger? the DC DC charger was purchased as being already opened box but the MPPT was new. I'm suspecting maybe it could have something to do with my SOK battery since I'm having issues with both charge controllers, but I'm hoping someone with more expertise could chime in and enlighten me. I have settings for both set to the standard lithium settings. Thanks for reading!

MPPT Controllersbattery chargingvictron products
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4 Answers
wkirby avatar image
wkirby answered ·

I think you are on the right track with the battery being the cause of the problem as it is common to both chargers and both chargers are exhibiting similar symptoms.

The chargers are displaying classic symptoms of their output being suddenly disconnected from the battery. The BMS inside the battery would be doing this sudden disconnection as it deems the battery to be full or more likely it deems the charge current too high near the top of its charge. Hence the reason why you only see this happening in your absorb phase.

You could try to reduce your absorb Voltage setting a bit so that the charge current will be less close to the top of the charge and the current will be within the bounds that the BMS has reduced it to at that point.

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JohnC avatar image
JohnC answered ·

@Adam Dobbs

I agree with wkirby. But there's one other issue that shows in your first screen. The pv Voltage spikes are the mppt tracking every 10 min, and that's normal. But then the tracked V settles down way too close to Vbat. You'll forever have trouble with the mppt cutting out when this happens. Doesn't appear to be charging much anyway, and the panel may be faulty too.

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adam-dobbs avatar image
adam-dobbs answered ·

I appreciate both of your inputs. I emailed SOK about my battery since they have a 7 year warranty. Hopefully it's not too much hassle to get it resolved. I did try lowering the absorb voltage at varying stages and I couldn't seem to get the spikes to stop unless I lowered it dramatically enough (below battery voltage) then it seems to skip absorb and go straight to float. I may tinker with it again.

JohnC, I'm a little confused on the voltage settling too low. Do you mean it's settling too low between the spikes every 10 minutes (~16-17v)? The watts it pulls in Bulk charge seem to be consistent with what I'd expect, however, I originally had two 100w panels and one went bad on me already. They are flexible panels that I know aren't reliable long-term yet. I still have the bad one connected in parallel. I get very weak voltage out of it but I don't pull any watts from it. I thought maybe that panel could be causing issues but it seemed to make no difference when I disconnect it during the voltage spikes. I'm glad you mentioned those spikes every 10 minutes as I was wondering what those were.

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Ramouz avatar image
Ramouz answered ·

@Adam Dobbs did you ever get an answer from SOK on this? I have been having issues with my inverter/batteries shutting off and finally figured out it was the same issue as you. At first I thought it was my fridge kicking in causing a big voltage drop due to the in rush current... however recently this happened and I noticed the same trend as you, I get a big spike in voltage and the inverter starts beeping and goes into "protect" mode.

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adam-dobbs avatar image adam-dobbs commented ·

@Ramouz I did get a reply, I'll share their email response below. I tried to adjust my settings to what they mentioned but I couldn't find most of these settings on my Victron charge controller. I did make adjustments to what I could though and the beeping does seem to have stopped.

Hi Adam,
If BMS has issue, the voltage wouldn't be over 10V.
for your description, seems the mttp issue.
try these:

Charged Voltage: 13.8 (*2 for 24v & *4 for 48v Systems)

Discharge Floor: 10%

Tail Current: 2.00%

Charged Detection Time: 3m

Peukert Exponent: 1.05

Charge Efficiency Factor: 98%

Current Threshold: 0.10a

Time-to-go averaging Period: 3m

Battery Starts Synchronized: Disabled (NOTE: you will need to fully charge your battery to sync up SOC%)

State of Charge: 30% (NOTE: Set this to 30% with brand new, untouched batteries. They ship at 30% SOC%.)


Or post your question on our Facebook group.


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1 Like 1 ·
Ramouz avatar image Ramouz adam-dobbs commented ·
Thank you Adam!


Yeah looks like the only thing from those specs that I can update is charged voltage.

Tail current 2%... but tail current on our MPPT is in Amperage, so 2% of charged voltage? That would be .28A.

I'll give it a shot see what happens. Thanks again!

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jjbond avatar image jjbond Ramouz commented ·
Yup, in the charge controller it's in amperage but it's in percentages in the BMV-712 and Smart Shunt battery monitor portions of Victron Connect, great info he gave you, would have been good for him to tell you it had absolutely nothing to do with what you were trying to adjust.
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Trevor Bird avatar image Trevor Bird adam-dobbs commented ·

Hello @Adam Dobbs ….it appears the information provided to you is the programming information for a shunt, not a MPPT charger. It seems they have given you details for a different piece of equipment. The first comment about 10volts is a bit strange too. I wonder what 10volts has to do with it?

It seems like a classic case of BMS activity causing the voltage to fluctuate momentarily.

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jjbond avatar image jjbond Trevor Bird commented ·
That's exactly what they did, most of those settings are straight out of a Victron Connect for BMV-712 or Smart Shunt not a solar charge controller.
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