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rogerwilco avatar image
rogerwilco asked

Load turning off and on at night randomly

My SmartSolar 75|15 has been turning the load off every other day (at around 7PM-12PM) and turning it back on again (8-10AM). This is a remote site 3km away in the bush that can be only accessed by foot. After getting there and either disconnecting/reconnecting the load or connecting via the iPhone VictronConnect app, the load turns back on.


I've confirmed the battery is not flat with another device (within 0.2V of the VictronConnect app). An 18aH battery cannot be recharged from flat in 1.5 hours of shaded light so I'm sure the issue is with the VE unit.


This is the 3rd VE MPPT solar charger (but the 1st SmartSolar) I've had that has developed this "feature". In the past I've just plugged the load into the BAT terminals and called it a day. Is it best to RMA and based on past experience, RMA the unit again in 12 months time?


I hope they will accept it back since I've had to epoxy a DIN mount adapter to the rear since VE still don't have a DIN rail kit available.

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2 comments
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ejrossouw avatar image ejrossouw commented ·

@RogerWilco Do you have the streetlight feature enabled? Also, have you updated to the latest firmware?

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rogerwilco avatar image rogerwilco ejrossouw commented ·

Latest firmware, streetlight disabled.

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4 Answers
ripper avatar image
ripper answered ·

Sounds like the load is somehow managed which is one of the options. Kinda sounds like off at x voltage, on again at y voltage. Make also sure not to use Battery life algorithm.

You can play around at home in the demos of your Victron Connect app. If its default its probably on one of the programs.


Battery Life is somewhat smart and might come to incorrect conclusions for your application. Your battery might have one cell damaged which is hard to find while sitting there and having it charged. One cell is 2 Volts that suddenly disappear. Couldnt believe it when I saw it either. It works fine for hours and within minutes 2 Volts are missing and everything stops. Had a beautiful picture of that on my logging. Voltage goes under threshold at night and reconnects after the sun came up for a couple of hours.

Verify its set to always on or wider margin to confirm.

Next thing, since you are sure of the times and you cant know that off Victron Connect, there is probably a device sending information running off that load output. Maybe the load out is never off, but the battery voltage due to a faulty cell or whatever the reason has come down enough for your machine to stop working.

I also had trouble With the short current detection of that load output before. It monitors steep inclines in current draw and turns off the load output. Is your connected machine doing anything like switching on something with big capacitors.? One empty usb plug thing is sometimes enough to overload a 10A rated load out.

In that case, it goes off and tries again and goes off right away again all night long. Again with higher voltage and therefor lower current it might be able to finally do whatever needs doingor till you come and completely reset and possibly not switch on the offending piece of equipment.

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Matthias Lange - DE avatar image
Matthias Lange - DE answered ·

It would be good if you give us some screenshots of the settings.

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rogerwilco avatar image
rogerwilco answered ·

When I have the time to walk 3km up a 240m mountain in the bush, I'll do that.

The settings are all the defaults.

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rogerwilco avatar image
rogerwilco answered ·

Went up to the relay today. No screenshots @Matthias Lange, sorry. Settings all on default and was use the BatteryLife algorithm.

The MPPT powers 2 MikroTik routers which both report rebooting from a power loss so the load was turned off.


I've changed it to 'Always On' for the time being. I'll try another when I've more time.


Thanks for the help!

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