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romeetb asked

Smartsolar 150/100-tr Battery Type Selection / Custom Values

Hello All, thank you to the community for the great help you seem to be giving with answers to all.

i have a new Smart Solar 150/100-TR hooked up as shown in illustration attached, i need to know what values to feed in custom battery parameters (since i cant seem to find its type in presets).

since if i do straightforward calculations, the controller seems to keep on charging the batteries even though the floating voltage seems to have been attained and the load on the inverter is not as much as the current being supplied to the batteries.

please if you could also kindly recommend a safe and efficient charging current for the battery bank please.

I am using the victron bluetooth latest app to configure.

I live in Daressalaam, Tanzania - Tropical Climate with temperatures around 34 Degrees Celsius ( if it helps in temp compensation)

Thank you in advance.

Kind Regards

Romeet Barmeda

battery chargingbattery system voltagebattery capacity
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2 Answers
JohnC avatar image
JohnC answered ยท

Hello Romeet. I think you could safely pick one of the standard settings for your batts. As 'Calcium/MF', they're likely AGM type, so see what available there. (In 12V, not 48V), the standard settings might be 14.4 Absorb and 13.8V Float. You can keep the algorithm as-is, but just tweak the V's if you desire.

In your diagram there may be a language/meaning thing involved too.. 2) Maximum V 13.8, I suspect refers to Float. And 5) Floating Voltage 12.8V seems more like a standing V than anything useful as a true charge float. But you could check that with the batt maker.

I haven't the app here to check what's available, but you may find additional options like 'Adaptive' or 'Battery Safe'. You could study up on them and delete if you want, but they'll only help unless you have special needs.

Note too that daily-cycling Pb's will always keep accepting some charge. 500Ah @ 48V is a substantial bank, and you may never see it down as low as 5A (~250W). The real world..

With 5x parallel batt strings, imbalance may eventually become an issue. And 'softer' charge settings may assist with that. Personal theory only, and of course you've still got to charge them over the day. If they need 'equalizing' I'd probably dodge doing that without close & constant supervision..


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romeetb answered ยท

@JohnC Thank you so much for your response, i appreciate it. I am afraid i dont seem to be able to follow, esp the Floating Voltage and charging voltage points you have touched. i am attaching a picture of the battery label so it may give a clearer indication on what they probably mean with the values i posted ( could be i may have put up a confusing scene )

My concern with charging, and i agree with you that it probably may not be that low, is that i tested each and every battery ( all are brand new and hooked up together in one go- no mixing old and new ) to see if there was any that probably had issues and would keep requesting for a false charge due to some issues with it, none, all would reach floating volt when i tested them in a smaller 12V MPPT Scene and gave expected backup.

The batteries are fully charged, i had kept a custom value in maximum charge current to be not more than 50A ( though i would have preferred a smaller current to get a nice slow charge ) and my charging voltage id kept it at 57.6V and Floating Voltage at 51.2V ( all being direct multiplication for each battery values x 4 ).


I notice that even when the battery bank reaches the floating voltage of 51.2V and the output load being minimal at say 300W ( not more than 7-9A ) the controller keeps indicating that its on absorption and will keep charging the batteries at approx 30A.

i Monitored this for about 20 Minutes to see if the charging ( overcharging ) would stop in a bit maybe due to temp compensation or something, but it didn't. Fearing for my battery health, i have turned off the whole system and thought of asking for help here to see if i may be making any mistake in the values? or if i am overlooking some temp comp factor or some settling down concept?

do you reckon it may be offsetting some imbalance that the controller detects, like you mentioned above?

Thank you once again for your help and detailed response, i truly appreciate and am grateful for your efforts.


1 comment
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JohnC avatar image JohnC โ™ฆ commented ยท

Yeh, I can't help but think that 12.8V is a 'mistake'. Maybe a printing error, a 2 for a 3. Even a maintenance/trickle charge on most pb's will roll ~13.2V. Up to you, but I'd call it 13.8V and run with that. Still safe, and well below the max specced.

Your 50A max is fine. That's 0.1C of your bank, and unless you have a GX box/DVCC enabled will also include loads. Safe and practical setpoint.

If your batts can still accept 30A, then they're not fully charged even at 57.6V Absorb. At the lower Float V (whatever you choose) they've still some way to go (and likely should still be in Absorb).

Note you can't hurt your bank if you don't exceed the V's, except maybe spending too much time in Abs. Unlikely imbalance is involved with a new setup, and if it were would manifest itself in higher temp of batt(s) someplace. Never hurts to run your fingers over each batt surface periodically. If you can detect a difference then that needs checking. Hot batts end up dead batts.

I've a similar setup to yours, but 225Ah against your 500 with my house bank. Just using the default Victron flooded settings, it normally calculates for me ~2 hour Abs time, then drops to 13.8V Float. Within an hour or 2, charge current is less than 1.5A. That's less than 1% of batt Ah, and I consider them 'done' at that stage.

Temp comp shouldn't be an issue. As it gets warmer the V's will fall away by maybe up to 0.5V, so just remain aware of that - like no panic required.. :)



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