question

Alex Pescaru avatar image
Alex Pescaru asked

Multi RS ACDC fan turning randomly on full throttle... 1.16beta2

Hi developers,

Multi RS Solar, dual tracker, 1.16 beta2 firmware.
During sunset period, when the light is at the border of turning MPPTs off, randomly, the ACDC fan starts for about 10 seconds at full throttle.
Some days it can happen multiple times, some days not at all.
It happens, as I've said, only when MPPTs are "turning off", because the "sun icon" in the display's upper right corner is intermittently, quickly and randomly showing on and off.
Also, in the same time, the voltages from the PVs are randomly and quickly jumping in the 60-150 volts range.
Maybe some calculations on the trackers power, with these jumping values, lead to some BIG values that warrant this fan turning on full throttle?
Can an hysteresis be implemented on the MPPTs functioning, especially on sunrise and sunset?
Or improved somehow?
Thank you!

LE1: It happens on the morning too when MPPTs are turning on. See below first answer with some video.

LE2: It doesn't happen on 1.15. See below second answer.

bug reportMulti RS
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Alex Pescaru avatar image
Alex Pescaru answered ·

Thank you very much for solving this in the new 1.16b4 version.

Best wishes,

Alex

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Alex Pescaru answered ·

Hi developers,

@Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager)

This morning my Multi RS solar decided to also give me an wake up call.

I've managed to make a short video to demonstrate the problem. See below.

You can hear the fan roaring at full throttle in the first half of the video.

The power draw at that time was only 90W, with the inverter drawing 120W from the battery. Solar was 0W on both trackers. Still the ACDC fan started on full power for several seconds, which is odd.

You can clearly see the PV voltage jumping up and down, and the solar icon appearing and disappearing.

fans-on-full.jpg


fans-on-full.jpg (27.6 KiB)
20240105-071259.mp4 (3.3 MiB)
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Alex Pescaru avatar image
Alex Pescaru answered ·

Hi developers,

Changing back to firmware 1.15 corrected this strange behavior.

No more fan turning on at max speed when MPPT is on the brink of start and/or stop working.

The "solar icon" is rock solid now on firmware 1.15, without randomly appearing and disappearing like in 1.16 beta2. It just appears at 100V PV voltage at sunrise and disappears at 50V PV voltage at sunset.

I will stay with this 1.15 for now, because waking up at 7 o'clock in the morning because of that fan is OK now in winter, but on summer, to be woken up by the fan at 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning is not nice....

Please @Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) , now that I found out the behavior is specific to 1.16 beta-2, maybe this thread should be moved to the 1.16 beta-2 thread?

Thank you!

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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) ♦♦ commented ·
Thanks for the report Alex, I'll make sure the RS developers see it.
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hotel-lima avatar image
hotel-lima answered ·

I also have the fan full speed issue (?) on my MPPT RS 450 / 200. I'm wondering if this is maybe intended to pperform a fan test once per day?

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Alex Pescaru avatar image Alex Pescaru commented ·

Hi HL,

Don't think so, because the fans don't have the RPM feedback pin like motherboards and processors fans. They are simpler fans with only 2 pins (+12v and GND).

And on my case sometimes happens more than one time per day.

Also, on all other versions this issue is not present. If it were to happen, it would on previous 1.15 version, where exactly the fans operation was improved. But there is not present at all...



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Related Resources

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Mutli RS Solar Datasheet

Mutli RS Manual