Defective Unit - fire hasard

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conceptura asked Jun 1, '24

Defective Unit - fire hasard

Hi all. A friend of mine bought 3KW multiplus and hooked it up to some power queen lithium batteries fed from a power queen controller. For no apparent reason and without warning the unit (victron) caught fire and nearly burned the house down. The supplier changed the unit out and sent a new one to replace it..no questions asked. Happy with that he reconnected the new one but that unit started smoking and so my friend disconnected it from the batteries and started the after sales process again. This time the supplier refused to replace it, blaming the problem on a number of things such as over voltage and wrong cabling. The batteries were cabled in parallel 12V on a 12V unit and the measured voltage was around the 13.5 mark when the problem ocurred. The battery cables were very heavy duty ones, the type used for jump starting a car. There was no load on the inverter above about 50W. The inverter was not connected at all to the controller and the only connection it had was from the batteries on the input side and a small load on the output side.

Any ideas what can be wrong?

Thanks.

fire

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Answer 1 · 2024-06-01T16:53:32Z

Duivert NL answered · Jun 01 at 04:53 PM

Well there must be something seriously wrong with wiring/fusing/voltage if you burn 2 multiplusses… they dont burn just like that

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Answer 2 · 2024-06-01T17:02:04Z

nickdb answered · Jun 01 at 05:02 PM

Does your friend actually have any electrical experience or victron knowledge?

This sounds like something seriously off in the installation.

Victron gear is tough. If you've smoked two, there is a bigger problem somewhere else.

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Answer 3 · 2024-06-02T19:28:07Z

conceptura answered · Jun 02 at 07:28 PM

Thanks for your feedback. I have sucessfully installed 3 systems with these victron units: exaclty the same configuration as for my friend only with lead acid batteries and an EPEVER controller. I'm looking for suggestions and ideas as to what could have gone wrong. Many thanks.

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nickdb ♦♦ commented · Jun 02 at 07:38 PM

Impossible to tell remotely with no access to the installation, nor its configuration. Suggest you follow the official support process as per the community guidelines.

Victron takes reports like this very seriously, I would keep an eye on your email in case someone reaches out, as this was flagged by the moderation team.

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conceptura nickdb ♦♦ commented · Jul 03 at 04:46 PM

Maybe Victron could have a word with the reseller in Germany. I do thnk it would makes sense for Victorn to get the unit back and do diagnostics but that's up to the reseller. A third party advisory consultant has suggested to my friend that he get another Victron unit (with integrated MPTT and breakers) but this sounds like madness given that nobody seems to be able to provide a root cause as yet. I also take this case very seriously so good to hear that victron does too. Thanks for any help you can give.

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Answer 4 · 2024-06-02T20:17:58Z

wilm answered · Jun 02 at 08:17 PM

PowerQueen controlers are by default set to 24V.

So what happens:
Your batteries do see 24V+ and the BMS will switch off (OVP).
Your Multiplus sees 24V+ and will burn, as there is twice the voltage.

This happens often when using non compatible, or mis-configured items.

Sorry for your friend, but a house-made-problem.

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conceptura commented · Jul 03 at 04:41 PM

Thanks for your insight and sorry for the late reply. The batteries were charged to between 13 and 14V so they did not see the 24V you refer to. Also the Multiplus could only see this voltage (13-14V) so I don't see how your point applies to this case. thanks for taking the time to answer in any case.

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Answer 5 · 2024-06-03T17:22:38Z

vicens answered · Jun 03 at 05:22 PM

Que parte del inversor se ha quemado? Pon alguna foto de la instalacion y el quemado. Esquema.

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Answer 6 · 2024-07-03T16:42:45Z

conceptura answered · Jul 03 at 04:42 PM

Hola Caballero, siento el retraso en contestar. Desafordunademente el multiplus esta ja en case del vendador aleman quien no quiere reconcer el problema. No puedo entonces enviar fotos.

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Answer 7 · 2024-07-03T23:13:24Z

dc-marine answered · Jul 03 at 11:13 PM

What about leave steel hardware between the cable lugs and the connection bus on the multi ? It's easy to do this mistake if you're not paying attention, simply removing the nut and leaving the flat washer and/or the lockwasher in place before connecting the cable. This will lead to a fire real quick once there's enough current being draw. I see it quite often in the marine world where the same mistake were made on fuse holders and busbars, along with loose connections and bad crimps on the lugs. With no pictures of the connections there's no forensic investigation that can be done to help you understand what happened.

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