question

matt-m avatar image
matt-m asked

BMV 712 not detecting Current or Power after 2 months of working perfectly

Morning -

I built a camper and live in it full time with my family and put together a solar system as follows: 400 aH of Battleborn lithium batteries, 4 175w panels that go into a Victron SolarController 100/50. I have been using the BMV 712 to great success (2 months of full time living on the road) until yesterday.

My wife accidentally overloaded our Victron Multiplus 3000 and everything went haywire. Lights flickered, etc. Since then, I realized that according to the history on my app, I hadn’t been receiving much of a charge from the panels for 3 days despite normal loads of normal living on the batteries. I was on float all yesterday despite running a fridge, fans, charging phones, etc the night before.

I went through and meticulously checked all connections with a meter and everything has proper voltage all the way around. That being said, my BMV 712 shows the correct voltage but nothing else. I’ve tried resetting and checking the shunt for proper connection but nothing seems to work.

Any help would be appreciated as we’re traveling with an 11 year old and I’d love to get things up and running as normal again.



BMV Battery Monitor
2 comments
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matt-m avatar image matt-m commented ·

Update since this morning:


I was looking at the solarcontroller through the app and came to a realization. Where it typically would show the watts received from the panels, it is now showing load on the system. I switch on a light: it jumps to 30w. Another light: 60w. Fridge on: jumps to 90w. And so on. What the heck is happening.

Another piece of the puzzle: many thunderstorms up here in Montana recently. Could lightning do something to Victron devices?

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kai avatar image kai ♦ matt-m commented ·

lightning doesn't have to "strike" your camper to do damage. If there a lightning strike occurs nearby, or is able to hitch a ride on a nearby high tension cable, there may well be enough power to damage equipment by induction.

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2 Answers
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered ·

It sounds strange indeed.

Lightning can definite damage electrical devices like an MPPT. If you are certain that nothing has changed with the wiring, I would try finding a Victron dealer and seeing if you can test a known working good unit in your system and see if it is behaving.

It may now be a fault.

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Trina avatar image
Trina answered ·

Any resolution?

I unplugged my bmv when I re-located my system and getting a similar issue in mis-reading the system by my bmv now and it ONLY detects voltage correctly!

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