question

thickasaplank avatar image
thickasaplank asked

Full Solar power does not seem to be feeding my batteries through my multiplus

Hi all,

I have a shipboard system, a MPPT100/50 being fed by two 380W panels in series. This is then fed into a multiplus 12/3000/120-16 which is monitored by a bmv702 and a colourGX.

I have been running the system for a while now and all has gone well, until I started taking an interest in my readings… as we are nearly ready to start our sailing journey. We are alongside at the moment and experimenting with just using our house batteries (690A of Victron AGM’s).

what I noticed today was that we were producing 650Watts of solar power, our AC loads were around 100 watts, but I was only getting 300W into the battery. I will try and attach a screen shot.

I am uncertain if there is any “throttling” occurring somewhere, but I seem to be missing 250 watts or so of power.


does anyone have any ideas?


Thank you in advance,

Brad

3410d4dd-7095-4c05-8f56-b35f9c022ffa.jpeg

Multiplus-IIMPPT Controllers
3410d4dd-7095-4c05-8f56-b35f9c022ffa.jpeg (273.4 KiB)
2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

3 Answers
nickdb avatar image
nickdb answered ·

Do you have any DC loads attached? If so “has DC system “ should be enabled on the GX system setup settings.

If not, that image is not realtime, it is behind so the numbers may be out of sync, it would be best to monitor from the remote console if vrm can’t transition to realtime data.

2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

thickasaplank avatar image
thickasaplank answered ·

Thank you Nickdb,


I do have DC loads on the system, and did think of that as I was checking. I turned off the fridge and I had nothing else in the boat running. I will enable the DC system as you have suggested. The VRM is running behind, but accurately depicts what was showing on the colour GX in real time as I was watching it. I can change my settings to realtime on the VRM, but at the moment is is set to ten mins.

I will change those settings and will monitor again tomorrow… the sun is just about set here now.

thank you again,


Brad


2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

thickasaplank avatar image
thickasaplank answered ·

Hi all,

so I have added “DC loads attached” and it would seem that my missing power has been accounted for.. But… I have No DC loads that are drawing that amount of power. The photo below shows my colour GX, the AC load is pretty much all accounted for by phone chargers etc…

I have turned off every DC load at the switchboard including my bilge pumps, and I am still getting the same issue.

what is odd, is that when the sun goes down, I am not drawing anything, so it only happens when I am producing power from the solar panels.

the power being produced seems correct (yesterday, full sun, midday, no clouds I was producing 730W from a max capacity of 780), so I think my MPPT is working and reporting correctly..

So… now I am stumped!


Thank you in advance.

Brad673d9945-8f36-4b09-b53f-5c20c3b27e8a.jpeg


673d9945-8f36-4b09-b53f-5c20c3b27e8a.jpeg (2.0 MiB)
1 comment
2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

nickdb avatar image nickdb ♦♦ commented ·

Have you got a wiring diagram? Exactly how/where is your BMV connected?

Might be worth double-checking all your connections.

Some of this power reported will be the "internal" usage of the inverter, gx etc but 150W is a bit high.

0 Likes 0 ·