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lawrence-craig avatar image
lawrence-craig asked

Multiplus Passthru

Hi there,

I have a question about Passthru on the Multiplus.

I am on a boat with a Generator (3KW power) and Battery Bank connected by a Multiplus 3000 (230v, 16a) to an AC system including a water maker. I have VenusOS running on a Pi.

When I want to run the water maker, it takes a lot of power from the generator (2000W). This causes issues if my battery bank also needs charging (600W example) as the power draw is too high for the generator to manage. This resultant high draw causes the generator to shutdown.

I have found the only way to get the water maker with an empty battery bank is to connect to the Multiplus to my laptop and disable the charging mode on VE.Direct. This puts the Multiplus into passthru mode and doesn't charge the batteries. I then need to re-enable the charging mode after the watermaker is done.

Is there any way to get around me having to change those settings or use VenusOS to manage this?

MultiPlus Quattro Inverter ChargerVenus OSVictronConnect
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2 Answers
Alexandra avatar image
Alexandra answered ·

@Lawrence Craig

Use the input current limit to stop the system drawing too much from the generator. (around 10A to 12A maybe)


If the load is too high to run the load and charge, then it will stop charging, this is known as the power control feature.


The other way is to enable DVCC and turn the charge current up and down there as you need to.

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JohnC avatar image
JohnC answered ·

Hi @Lawrence Craig

The easiest way to deal with this is just to set an AC Input Limit on the Multi. Let's say you find your genset is happy at 1500W, so set 6-7A limit. The genset will first satisfy the loads, then charge the batts with what's left. If the loads are more than that, the Multi will add to the genset from the batts. And your genset will run at a constant load with no interference at all.

The setting is available in the Multi and other ways too if you have VenusOS.

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