Disastrous support performance - standard or exception?

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niklas-schauberg asked yesterday

Disastrous support performance - standard or exception?

Hi Everyone,

I had a very disastrous experience with the Victron support via the dealer which I want to share with you to find out if this is normal and if you have any advise for me how to continue.

So what happened?

I have a parallel Multiplus system which performes well but at the moment of switching it on

"VE.Bus Error 3: Not all, or more than, the expected devices were found in the system on VE.Bus System

- or -

VE.Bus Error 10: System time synchronisation problem occurred

happen.

System switches on and works well, but I want to get rid of the error messages which seem for me a bit too sensitive, but I don't know the cause for sure therefore I contacted the support via Victron's website.

I wrote a detailed problem description providing all system components incl. all serial numbers and what I have tried so far to contain the problem (like different firmware, alternative cabling etc.)

One week later I recieved an email by the responsible main dealer asking me about details like serial numbers I have already provided and the rest of the response made clear, that the report wasn't read by that person before.

I replied as requested.

Another week later I recieved a phone call from another person of this german dealer.

Obvisiously also he has not managed to read the report, because he wasn't even aware about the Multiplus model. I answered him, what model it is and then he asked me what kind of battery I use for the system. And without knowing neither about the installation nor the problem occurring his verdict was like fired from a gun "This is the problem!"

I asked him why he thinks the battery is causing the problems he replied as follows:

- Victron gear is extremly picky and not able to run reliable if not driven under very special conditions (!)

Furthermore he replied is forbidden by Victron to give any support if the system contains any of the following batteries:

- any Victron lead-based batteries

- any Victron lithium batteries without BMS

- any 3rd party batteries independent from the chemistry or BMS

I told him that I can't believe that such a directive exists by Victron but he insisted that this is the case.

After that I asked him about his opinion, that I do exchange parallel Multis by one bigger one. His reply was even more disturbing. He said, that:

- changing the Multiplus size in a existing systen is never possible.

- once a Multiplus is installed in a system it is forever coupled to the systems

- and this includes all other Victron gear as well

- I have to replace all MPPTs, all Shunts, Cerbo etc.

- He stated he just read in a forum that these components are "burned in" especially the Cerbo GX forever and you have to throw it away if once composed in a system.

Horrified from all theses concentrated messages I ended the call then friendly but quickly.

As you can imagine I am not happy, I really enjoyed the Vicron gear in all the years and never had any issues. But now once having a minor - maybe just small software issue - I was slapped in the face.

What is your experience? Do you have any comparable experience?

Do you have any advise who might be willing to help me in my issue?

Thanks a lot in advance,

Niklas

MPPT Controllers cerbo gx MPPT SmartSolar multiplus in parallel support

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Alexandra ♦ commented · yesterday

@Niklas Schauberg

Is it a self install? Or do you have a trained somebody involved? Or are you the trained someone? It does seem like you have taken appropriate steps to trouble shoot. Obviously i dont know all the details.

The victron lithium battery without a BMS does not have support. I can definitely say that as it explicitly states to have one. So not having one it is being used as not as intended. Warranty should be void.

System support for third party is not supported by victron but by the battery manufacturer side. That being said a Victron shunt is not the battery and the system is designed to work with that.

Burned in is a weird one. I know loads of people that have second hand equipment added to their system as upgrades. This even i support with one exception - inverters used in three phase and parrallel particularly - they have to be matched in age and service age.

Ve bus error 3 and 10 are in the manual. 10 is usually the one that follows the actual problem.

https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ve.bus:ve.bus_error_codes#error_3_-_not_all_or_more_than_the_expected_devices_were_found_in_the_system

https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ve.bus:ve.bus_error_codes#error_10_-_system_time_synchronisation_problem

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Alex Pescaru Alexandra ♦ commented · yesterday

@Alexandra

Why this thing / obsession with "trained personnel". I've seen installs made by individuals that are more correct made and clean that many so called trained people have been doing. Because those individuals are making the install for themselves as opposed with the trained personnel who are doing for others. Who do you believe that will be more careful?

From the saying of the OP, for example, regarding the things that last person could spoke on the phone, I would not let him anywhere near my system... Hell, my home even. And he is "trained personnel"... go figure.

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Alexandra ♦ Alex Pescaru commented · yesterday

@Alex Pescaru

I have to ask. Some people are very DIY. Some people are interfering with others work. Some have dodgy installers. I dont know this person at all or their circumstances. How we proceed in conversation rather depends on the answers given and the persons level of competence. So I ask a few questions to gauge where they are at.

And yes, I agree with you, some "professionals" I would also not let near my systems. Such as seemingly the person being described by @Niklas Schauberg. Even with training some are just not competent.

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Fideri Alex Pescaru commented · yesterday

@Alex Pescaru

That's my experience too. Many "trained" personnel don't have a clue. Maybe it depends on where you are.

F.

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nickdb ♦♦ Fideri commented · yesterday

It depends on how you source and reference your installer. If you fail to check references, and if cost is a primary driver, you are putting yourself in a potentially interesting position.

When in doubt use the Victron list.

There are poor installers in every industry, but I am yet to experience one myself, when properly referenced and researched.

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Fideri nickdb ♦♦ commented · yesterday

That doesn't always work, unfortunately. I used Victron's official list. They messed up everything even though they supplied all the gear for a simple install. In the end, I had to buy new equipment and do all the work myself at considerable expense. I must say that there are installers who know what they are doing. In my experience, it's a hit or miss process.

F.

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nickdb ♦♦ Fideri commented · yesterday

I would feed that back to the regional manager.

Locally, the standard has been quite high (from my limited perspective).

The Mickey mouse installers tend to sell Chinese gear. As a whole, where I have seen it fall down, is in the configuration of the gear to meet a specific requirement, rather than the actual physical installation.

Too little battery has caused plenty of issues, mainly as the client set the budget and that was the most expensive part.

I suppose, there will be regional variances, but generally an accredited installer should do a great job, which seems to be the case here at least.

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Answer 1 · 2024-07-26T08:38:01Z

To add to what @Alexandra has said.

It is difficult to comment when presented with one side of a story, and very little detail about the actual installation or the expertise of the installer.

3-phase and parallel systems are called advanced installations for a reason, they are not intended for beginner or DIY installations (you have not stated your experience), yet beginners tackle them.

Now I am not having a go at DIY users, there are many incredibly experienced people, doing wonderful work, but unfortunately the internet has convinced anyone with a screwdriver that they are now experts, and this isn't the case for many users. And yes, there are bad installers as well, but you won't find one listed as accredited on the Victron site that is not extremely capable.

Victron gear is very flexible with many ways to configure them, so you need proper training to get it right, yet too many don't do the work nor research, then the community becomes the overflow when it falls apart.

What is supported, especially when it comes to batteries, is well documented.

The battery is one of the most common causes of instability, though from the internet, complex issues are impossible to triage, so if you go down the untested/unsupported route your support will be very limited.

In too many cases when people want support, they are actually asking a supplier to become a free installer to come fix errors that are of their own making.

You can understand why a supplier would be reluctant to do so, more so if unsupported components are used. Suppliers typically supply to trained professionals who help the end user and carry that "support" requirement.

In the many years we've been working on the community, 98% of the issues and "bugs" reported tend to be problems the user has created, and far too often as a result of inexperienced DIY projects.

I am generalising somewhat, but in the same way we see this phenomenon on the community, so do suppliers.

Victron takes the performance of suppliers seriously, and a lot of work has gone into quality improvement.

You also need to understand that Victron appoint distributors, they don't appoint nor control who buys from the disties, nor the experience that those resellers provide. We don't know who you bought from, or their relationship to an appointed distributor.

A common thread of a poor experience is usually internet based purchases or lowest cost providers, those typically have no to little skill as their price model does not allow for it.

The where to buy page will have accredited installers, suppliers and repair centers listed for your region.

If you did self-install, the best thing you could do is engage a recommended installer, and spend some cash for consulting on your system, as it does sound like it is more installation related than a fault.

Answer 2 · 2024-07-26T09:06:17Z

Alexandra answered · yesterday

The suck the joy out part is the work in troubleshooting here.

You have to fully load test each inverter as stand alone to check it. (To overload)

It tests several things.

Can your wiring do it?

Can the battery do it?

Can the inverter do it?

Load test both as stand alone off the central bank at the same time - tests if the bank can do it.

Re install as parrallel and test again if it passed the above.

Check wiring. Is it load balanced? Both the AC and DC side have to be checked and metered.

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Answer 3 · 2024-07-26T09:26:32Z

Alex Pescaru answered · yesterday

Hi @Niklas Schauberg

Boy, what a can of worms you've opened.... :-))

I feel you, but let's just say for the beginning that it's an exception.

Despite the, somehow understandable, need of something or someone to vent your frustration on, if you came here to expose your problem, I also believe you want to solve it, right?

So give us more information about your system, like topology, software versions, hardware versions, etc. Some pictures of the install will not hurt either.

Alex

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Answer 4 · 2024-07-26T10:30:06Z

Hi Everyone, thank you all so much for you response. I am glad you give you more details. I decided to skip this initially to focus more to the "support experience" and how it happened.

And yes of cause it is just my side of the medal but it felt so obvious that there the chosen option was "protection over support".

To my person: I am not an certified professional/installer. I have an engineering degree and did all the web trainings on the professional area and studied other fundamental documentation like Wiring unlimited and all the stuff I identified as interessting. I know theory is nothing compared to experience. So I am doing a lot of stuff by myself regarding Victron gear I have 8 Multipluses running at home in different voltages including 3phase and parallel systems and learned quite a lot of it as they growed. And honestly speaking I faced never a problem I couldn't fix without the documentation and/or the community here - ok maybe a broken tempsensor within one of my MPPTs, but things like that happen and due to that my installation will never reach critical temperatures I deactivated the senor and let the MPPT doing.

Some months ago I purchased a RV and put a Victron installation in it, which runs perfectly fine. It is a quite simple RV set-up.

2x MPPTs, 2x MP24/1600, lynx dist., Cerbo GX combined with an EEL 280Ah LiFePO4 Battery with a JK BMS at the moment.

Following an excerpt of what I have forwarded within the report:

Dear Sir or Madam,


After expanding my Multiplus with a parallel device, an alarm occurs almost every time the device is switched on via the touchscreen. Errors #3 and #10 alternate. It seems to me that the occurrence of the errors depends on how long the inverters were switched off. If the inverters are switched back on after seconds to a few minutes, the error usually does not occur. However, if the shutdown duration is 30 minutes or longer, it happens every time.
For error localization, I have already tried the following:
- Downgrade and upgrade of the firmware in the Multiplus (v496, v510, v552)
- Upgrade of the firmware in the Cerbo GX (v3.30 to v3.34)
- Switching the Master/Slave roles between the devices
- Removal of the assistants in the Multiplus
- Switching Battery Monitor from BMS to Multiplus including disconnecting the BMS data line
- Replacement of all VE.Bus data lines with other brands (Cat. 5e & Cat. 7) including completely different routing of the lines
- Swapping VE.Bus cable position from Cerbo GX to Master and Slave
None of these measures has improved the situation.
Without knowing the exact cause, it seems to me that one device might need significantly longer to “wake up” than the other and is then completely missing (#3) or perhaps has not yet received all the data from the Cerbo GX (#10)
I hope for your problem-solving support!
Thank you very much in advance!
Best regards, 
Niklas Schauberg


Installation Details:

MultiPlus 24/1600/40-16
    Phase 1 Master        HQ2242M43UY 
    Phase 1 Parallel Unit 1    HQ2212V4VK6
    Firmware version    552
    Product id        2668

Cerbo GX
    HQ2242RTJA2
    Firmware version    v3.34

SmartSolar Charger MPPT 100/20 48V
    HQ2240YKPEY
    HQ2228GC3VG
    Firmware version    v1.64

I see that the two Multiplusses are 30 weeks apart and this might be a problem, but I don't know for sure.

I found the following in Github which seems to be related but not the same:

VE.Bus: Error 3 when switching off a "complex system" · Issue #808 · victronenergy/venus (github.com)

I tried also to run the MPs as standalone (non-parallel) within the configuration and both run fine without any error message.

Once being coupled they run fine as well but #3 or #10 occurs.

I also configured them via VE.Bus System configure and VE.Bus Quick configure in all variations, having them decoupled before or just repairing or overwriting.

If you need any more information or detail, please let me know.

Thank you very much :)

Best regards,

Niklas

Answer 5 · 2024-07-26T11:55:31Z

Matthias Lange - DE answered · yesterday

I don't want to join the discussion about the support but most of what the dealer/distributor told you is wrong.

How do you switch the system ON and OFF?

In a system with more than one VE.Bus device you should only switch via remote panel (DMC or GX device) NOT with the switches on the devices.

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niklas-schauberg commented · yesterday

Hello Matthias, thanks that is good to hear. I switch the system via the GX Touch 70. I leave the hardware switches in on position.

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