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niels-cup avatar image
niels-cup asked

Victron MultiPlus II 48/5000/70/50 not charging anymore

I have a Victron MultiPlus II 48/5000/70/50 with 2 parallel LifePo 48V 50Ah batteries in my boat. The setup has worked for about a year and a half now but all of a sudden the Victron refuses to charge the batteries. As soon as I dock and connect shore power the Victron used to start charging, but it doesn't anymore. Also in charge mode it refuses to charge the batteries. I haven't changed anything in the setup, so the only thing I can think of is a faulty update or the Victron broke down within 2 seasons.

In settings I see "Active AC Input: Disconnected" which sounds incorrect: I have grid power, everything works except the charging, If I set the victron to charge, I see "passtrhough" in the screen and the boat has power.

I have checked all kinds of settings haven't changed anything, everything is connected properly and don't know where to look now.

Can anybody give me a few pointers on how to troubleshoot this?


Pic1: Active AC Input: Disconnected

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Pic2: Inverting, Not charging, shore power is connected here

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Pic3: Charge Only mode: the boat is powered but Victron is not charging

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Pic4: Same as above but with higher load (electric boiler), So shore power works but Victron refuses to charge.

img-0504.jpg



48volt charging
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12 Answers
gazza avatar image
gazza answered ·

You mention a potential “faulty update”, so the obvious question… did you update something, or is your GX device set for Automatic updates?

The first thing I would do would be to turn OFF the whole system, disconnect the PV, then disconnect the MPPT from the battery for a minute or two. Then reconnect (starting with MPPT battery) and power up again. Effectively a complete reboot. You may have done this?

Check for any connections that may have come loose during the powered down period.

If that fails then you could check the GX firmware update (if it was done automatically? ) you have an option to roll back to the previous loaded firmware?

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niels-cup avatar image
niels-cup answered ·
  1. Yes it is set to auto update.
  2. I have no PV, just batteries and shore power as displayed in the pictures
  3. I have turned off the entire system several times, for hours, I always turn off the whole system when I leave the boat.
  4. I have checked all connections, and checked if there is power on the systems, I did that again this morning, it also shows in the pictures that everything is connected, only the charger does not turn on.
  5. How do I roll back to a previous version?
  6. Is there any way to turn on the charger manually?
  7. What about "Active AC Input: Disconnected", is this how it should be? Because it says disconnected and at the same time underneath that (see pic1) it says 233V 50Hz, that does not make sense to me.

As a workaround I connected the charger that came with the batteries today and it started charging right away, as expected, same grid power. So why a 150 euro charger can charge my batteries and a 2000+ euro system can't is a big mystery to me.

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gazza avatar image
gazza answered ·

img-0073.png

Use the rocker switch at bottom of Multiplus to switch to charger only.


img-0073.png (326.4 KiB)
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niels-cup avatar image
niels-cup answered ·

I did this already, this is displayed in pic3 and pic4 of my 1st post

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gazza avatar image
gazza answered ·

img-0074.pngOn the console go to Settings >Firmware then click on Stored backup firmware, there you can boot from the previous version


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niels-cup avatar image
niels-cup answered ·

Ok, I will go and try that now, thanks!

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niels-cup avatar image
niels-cup answered ·

Autoupdate was set to Check only. I think it's on on the smart shunt. Updated it to latest version, but it still does not work. I will try again tomorrow, otherwise return it and buy something more simple.

img-0505.jpg


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2 comments
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seb71 avatar image seb71 commented ·
Firmware v2.56 is not latest. Quite old, in fact.


I don't understand why you think the Smart Shunt is the cause. That's on the DC side only.


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niels-cup avatar image niels-cup seb71 commented ·
It was a suggestion made my @Gazza to check this, so I did
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derrick thomas avatar image
derrick thomas answered ·

Have you previously updated the MP2 firmware? This sounds like a configuration issue to me. Are you connected to VRM or have a MK3 adapter? Check your settings on the charger tab.

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niels-cup avatar image niels-cup commented ·

I have a MP2, a Cerbo GX, smartshunt and a touchscreen. I don't have an MK3 adapter, do I need one to update the MP2 firmware?

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gazza avatar image gazza niels-cup commented ·

When you first installed your system how did you configure the MP2 without an MK3 adapter, or did you do it remotely via VRM?

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niels-cup avatar image niels-cup gazza commented ·
I havent installed it myself, I had it installed so I really don't know the answer to this question.
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gazza avatar image gazza niels-cup commented ·

Ok, do you know if it was configured for Lithium batteries by your installer/supplier?


What is bugging me is what you have said that "nothing has changed" ie this suddenly just started to happen? Clearly something has changed, but if you had no way of configuring via VEConfigure then it is hard to know what has changed?


The reason I ask the first question is that the "default" setting for a new MP2 is for LeadAcid batteries with a 4 stage charge cycle. The last stage of that is Storage, which happens to be 52.8V ( very close to the figure that your screenshots above show). There have been other cases of systems "stuck" in Storage mode. Obviously you need a MK3 adapter (basically VE.Bus to USB so you can use the VEConfigure software). I believe the way to exit this mode is to use the inverter to discharge the battery a set amount.... for a 48v system the battery voltage has to drop below float voltage minus 5.2v.

Without knowing "exactly" how your MP2 is configured we are "guessing", but if you are prepared to try... then you could deliberately disconnect AC In and run the inverter to your float voltage minus 5.2V. Then plug in AC in and if the charging begins then at least we could say that the battery set up is wrong in your system, ie Lead Acid!! Either way I would get a MK3 adapter or go back to your installer.

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niels-cup avatar image niels-cup gazza commented ·

Nobody touched the MP2 and I only turn it on and off. So if something has changed it must be via some automatic update otherwise it's a hardware failure.

I have already ran the batteries down to about 50%, and it didn't start charging. The Victron is configured for lithium batteries for sure, I talked about that with the installer, unless this was reset by some update.

The installer is on holiday so I can't reach him. And I thought, buying the touch display I could access all settings of the system, but apparently I can't. I wont be buying an MK3 adapter, it will cost me even more time to figure out how this works and I don't have that time. And if turns out to be a hardware failure then I have to remove the MP2 anyway. So I might as well replace it with some plain inverters right away, saves a lot of time and headache and easy to fix if it ever breaks down. I can even make it redundant/fail safe for a fraction of the cost.

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gazza avatar image
gazza answered ·

A couple of thoughts.

First, to eliminate the "quality" of the AC In (shore power), have you tried other AC In sources? (distortion of input waveform can be a reason for the Multiplus to reject even if the Voltage and freq are within limits) This is something that may have changed without you being aware?
If you go to the Devices page on the console and look at the Multiplus line... what charge mode does it "think it is in"...?
Thirdly has the Smart Shunt been Synchronised manually ? (there are references in the manual)

Either the AC In is unacceptable or, the "system" thinks that the battery is fully charged, even though the SOC and battery voltage shown suggest it isn't? (communication problem?)
Have you checked actual voltage at the battery with a multimeter? These are only suggestions.

There could also be a hard fault... however, it is important to rule out possibilities.




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niels-cup avatar image niels-cup commented ·

Doesn't the MP2 give an alarm or a message with a reason if the grid power is rejected? I could give it a try but but it will just be another socket, same grid.

I don't see Charge mode anywhere.

The smartshunt is synched manually. The batteries have their own volt/soc meters and I sync the smartshunt with this one because it is out of sync most of the time. The voltage displayed by the console matches that of the batteries, but the SOC is off most of the time because it was set to "start at 100%" but I changed that yesterday to keep its last SOC. And yesterday I charged the batteries with a different charger so it was off again.

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gazza avatar image gazza niels-cup commented ·

Charge mode is shown as "State" on the Multiplus menu (top of the page you have shown in Pic 1)


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niels-cup avatar image niels-cup gazza commented ·

It says "State: Inverting". And if I put it in charge only mode it says "Passthrough"

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seb71 avatar image
seb71 answered ·

Check your inverter country code settings.

The inverter might not like 50.1Hz for AC In.

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seb71 avatar image
seb71 answered ·

The setup has worked for about a year and a half now but all of a sudden the Victron refuses to charge the batteries. [...] I haven't changed anything in the setup, so the only thing I can think of is a faulty update or the Victron broke down within 2 seasons.

You first say that this setup worked well for 1.5 years and then you say you never charged anything in this setup.

Can you explain what you mean by that?

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niels-cup avatar image niels-cup commented ·

"You first say that this setup worked well for 1.5 years and then you say you never charged anything in this setup."

I said " I haven't changed anything in the setup" not charged. So the system has worked for 1.5 yrs and suddenly it stopped charging the battery without any changes to the system being made. But I get the confusion, I am a bit dyslectic myself as well, seriously :-)

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niels-cup avatar image
niels-cup answered ·

Thanks everybody but I think I will just replace the Victron with a few simple inverters. I already have chargers and they work perfectly on this grid. Replacing those, if they ever break, will cost me 150 euro's and 10 seconds instead of 1500 euros and 4 days. I really don't want this overly complicated and frustrating stuff on my boat anymore.

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