Hello,
Ever since I installed the Curb GX with a touch 70 display it will power off when I turn my navigational electronics (chart plotter, instruments, etc). The Cerbo is powered directly from the house bank and not thru a switchable breaker (it is fused with the inline fuse it came with).
I have absolutely no idea why it's doing this and would like some help.
Antoni
How do I get the attention from a victron tech support rep? First time ever dealing with a company that relies on tech support from a user base…
We would need more information on your installation to be of much help. A wiring diagram is probably most useful in this case.
Dealer is a retail store, not a tech support specialist. They sell thousands of products, not sure how anyone couple possibly expect a retailer to be the tech support. Side note, what about people who buy from Amazon? They supposed to call Amazon for support?!
As for specifics.
Don’t have a wiring diagram handy at the moment, but here’s how I can clarify.
Battery bank positive cable (1 gauge) goes to a dc switch (main on/off at the panel), negative terminal from battery first goes to a smartshunt and then to a negative bus bar via a 1 gauge wire.
Cerbo gx gets its power from the common side post on the back of the switch (it’s the stub on which the cable comes directly from positive side of house bank). Cerbo is not on a switched circuits only thing in the circuit is just the inline fuse that can with the cerbo.
Only other connection is the ve.direct cable from smart shunt to cerbo.
The issue I’m experiencing is when I power on my electronics, like the chart plotter and other sailing instruments the cerbo shuts off, powers back up after a couple of minutes. It doesn’t do that when I turn off the electronics though.
Thank you!
Basic info such as what voltage would also be useful. This sounds like a momentary dip in the voltage as the equipment takes in extra power at start up which is causing the Cerbo to turn off. Once the systems are running they draw less power and the voltage recovers allowing the Cerbo to restart, which takes a couple of minutes to reboot and come fully on line.
This indicates that there is either a high resistance in the circuit somewhere or the power demand at start up is higher than the batteries or 1 gauge wiring can take. You need to check all of your connections are good between the batteries and the switches and smartshunt and bus bars. You should also check that the switch you have is good for the duty and is making good contact.
See the question linked below for more info on support. The dealer who sold to the retailer is responsible for support and you can find out who this is. https://community.victronenergy.com/questions/164617/victron-support-for-amazon-purchase.html
The issue here does not appear to be a Victron equipment problem but a basic wiring / installation / system specification problem.
I will get back to you with voltage readings, however I highly doubt it’s a voltage dip issue. The draw from my electronics would have to be massive for the voltage to drop, we’re not talking about a windlass kicking in, just a chart plotter and other instruments that barely draw 5 amps if that combined.
But I see your logic in troubleshooting so I’ll go thru the steps.
Thank you
Got around to doing some testing.
I measure voltage at the back of the main dc switch to which the positive cable from the cerbo gx is wired to (common post, the one that has the main 1 gauge wire coming from battery positive) and when I turn electronics on I get no voltage drop whatsoever. The cerbo gx shuts on when powering electronics.
Second test was to wire directly to batteries by passing the 1 gauge wire, unit doesn’t experience shutting off while turning the electronics on.
Any ideas as to what could be causing this bizarre behaviour?!
You did not say how long your wiring is.
I don't know how much current your electronics is drawing but you might check to see what the voltage drop across the 1 gauge wire is once things are up and running. If there is more than 1/10th of a volt in normal operation that might suggest larger wires.
You might just wire Cerbo to the battery terminal via it's own fuse and dedicates positive and negative wires since that seems to solve your problem.
0 voltage drop, 13.04V at house battery and 13.04V at source for cerbo. Wire run is 14 feet total (1ga for both positive and negative). The ampacity for the wire according to “circuit wizard” is 171.5 amps at a 3% voltage drop. There’s 0% chance this is a voltage drop issue. The combined draw of my electronics as tested with a clamp on meter is 1.23 amps.
Hi @LogoFreak,
There could be some kind of interference, voltage at frequencies that aren't easy to measure.
If you don't want to continue with your current work around, and instead want to move the Cerbo back to the common post, something else to try might be adding a capacitor to the power input of the Cerbo GX to 'potentially' alleviate this 'theoretical' interference.
Note you can ignore the prefix information in this attachment about 48V systems - this document was prepared for another unrelated issue, but the solution suggested 'may' also assist in your case
2022-08-cerbo-gx-power-supply-issue-in-48v-systems.pdf
Of course the easier method might be to just distance the Cerbo GX power supply wiring from the interfering equipment (as you have already done in your troubleshooting), in that case the battery itself would be acting as the capacitor absorbing the frequency interference, or it is just falling off naturally below the point that it is an issue as it is physically further from source.
Thank you Guy!
This is exactly what’s happening. I temporarily used a different wire, a 12 gauge to go between battery positive and common post on battery switch. Cerbo would still shut off when electronics would be turned on, however if I powered the cerbo with the 1 gauge wire (separate source for positive) it then doesn’t shut off when powering on.
So if I understand correctly there’s a design flaw that affects a small percentage of installations? Can I simply have my unit replaced with the updated version? Or should I just fix with the capacitor work around?
Thank you again!
I would try and work with what you already have for a few reasons;
Given the somewhat unique profile of the interference from your other equipment it is very likely that a repair centre would not be able to reproduce it on their test bench and a warranty claim might get rejected.
Also you would then need to get the revised hardware model - which isn't certainty from your supplier (you might just get another one from the same batch),
And then that would actually need to be the issue - which is only a pretty vague guess at this stage, and even then a new model might have the same issue because it's only tangentially related to the actual interference issue you are experiencing.
All this is based on my own unproven hypothesis based on the info you've given.
So with all those caveats, I would first try and resolve it with everything available on site, testing the capacitor theory and if that works, call it success.
Sounds good, I’ll try the capacitor work around. If it works though I would probably still try and get Victron to replace the unit with one that has that issue resolved.
Cheers!
It is a seperate issue, I only referenced it because it had convenient instructions for how to add a capacitor.
The related warranty claim is only for ~1% of units that failed, and only failed units were on 48V systems with a specific wiring setup. None of that is applicable to your 12V system or this issue.
Capacitors are used for lots of power control regulation, they can solve lots of issues in systems for filtering and stability, that is the commonality, but not the causality.
Even if replaced you may still need the capacitor modification for your specific interference, and we haven’t even determined if that is a working solution either.
You could run Cerbo on a small DC-DC converter from the battery. Pick a DC-DC converter with an input range below your battery voltage.
This is not a wide-spread issue or we'd be hearing more from the customers and installers. I still suspect a wiring issue in your system. But it's hard to say without a lot more information.
Also, don't forget the battery negative wire as a source of voltage drop during this surge.
As stated previously. Both positive AND negative wires coming from house bank to the dc panel are 1ga wires, all new, with high quality lugs.
How are you possibly still thinking it’s a voltage drop issue?!
Electronics draw 1.23 amps, there’s 0v difference between battery bank and the location from where cerbo is getting power.
Further more, any other circuit that I switch on does not result in the cerbo shutting off. Much higher loads, like diesel heater which draws about 8.5amps at startup. I literally turned everything on and it doesn’t cause the cerbo to shut off, but turning the electronics does. NOT a voltage drop issue. Has to be interference, which I have 0 knowledge on.
If the 'electronics' you're switching in has capacitors, then it may well be the fill current doing this. This will last the duration of a spark and won't register anywhere on a basic meter. But still cause a voltage drop for an instant.
Keep an open mind or you'll never find the issue.
My electronics switch on the dc panel goes to a terminal block where several circuits are tied together (turning multiple electronics on), my next troubleshooting step will be isolating all of the circuits to figure out which unit is the one causing the issue.
I agree with Guy to try to add a capacitor to the power connector of the Cerbo.
Reading that thread from top to bottom this was my first idea.
