question

dspan avatar image
dspan asked

victron epoch 460 stuck in float AGAIN!!!

Brand new system keeps getting stuck in float and not charging. It is driving me insane.

Battery is at 24%. Using default Lithium charging profile from Victron (position 7).

I called Go Power and they had me get on the roof with my multimeter and the panels are working perfectly. They also had be test the inputs to the Victron and same numbers there, working great. I next called Epoch and they had me run some tests using my battery charger and everything was looking good.

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2 comments
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snoobler avatar image snoobler commented ·

What does your daily history show? You should see times spent in bulk/absorp and float.

Please include MPPT setting - with expert switch on.



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dspan avatar image dspan snoobler commented ·

most of these days full or partial sun, battery between 20-75%


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4 Answers
JohnC avatar image
JohnC answered ·

@dspan

Your first two pics show differing V's between the battery and mppt. If it's like that all the time you'll need to determine why..

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dspan avatar image
dspan answered ·

any ideas?

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duivert avatar image
duivert answered ·

I think you need to check the specs from the battery to see if your charge voltage’s in your mppt settings are correct

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snoobler avatar image
snoobler answered ·

I'm seeing bulk, absorption and float charging on each day. That means it's not getting "stuck" in float. It means each phase criteria is being met, and it's moving to the next.

What's very suspicious is the one day your battery shows 14.5V.

When charger is in bulk phase, use a multimeter and do the following:

  1. Measure and record voltage AT the battery terminals.
  2. Record BMS reported voltage at the time of #1.
  3. Measure and record voltage AT the battery connection terminals on the MPPT.
  4. Record VictronConnect reported MPPT voltage at the time of #3.
  5. Observe your battery at the peak voltage of the day and record the 4 cell values.

I suspect you may be dealing with:

1) MPPT voltage error.

2) battery imbalanced.

#1 would cause the MPPT to shift to absorption prematurely.

#2 would cause a voltage spike and prevent charging to full... like on the day the MPPT reported 14.51V even though it's only set to 14.2V output. This could also be due to charging from a secondary source at a higher voltage.

Your BMS is likely not reporting a correct SoC. Like a battery monitor/shunt, it needs to be periodically charged to full so a sync to 100% can be made. SoC accuracy drifts over time. On a new battery, it is often off by a fair amount.

An LFP battery at rest at 13.16V is likely 50-60% SoC. The fact that it's reporting 24% indicates the BMS SoC tracking is not accurate.

Seeing min voltages in the 12.6-12.8V range indicate you are either using nearly 80% of the capacity daily OR you are hitting an over-voltage protection (OVP) event, and the BMS is cutting charge and briefly showing an artificially low voltage.

Recommend you connect to the MPPT via bluetooth. Go to the Trends tab and select battery voltage and battery current. This will now log the last 46 days of data (resolution worsens with age) even when you have the app closed, and you should be able to see if there are any abrupt voltage/current drops indicating and OVP event.


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