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bjpirt avatar image
bjpirt asked

Will the generator auto-start retry?

Hello,

I have a 5kVA Easy Solar with (amongst other things) a Hyundai 6kW Diesel generator. The CCGX is still on the v1.x firmware (which I'm going to upgrade but there's no internet at the property so haven't got around to it yet!). Most of the time the generator will auto-start without issue, however, recently I had an issue where the charger didn't latch on to the AC from the generator. This meant that the generator just kept running while the CCGX just kept waiting.

It looks like there is functionality in the newer v2.x firmware to "Detect Generator at AC input" which will raise an alarm. Could anyone shed some light on the actual behaviour of this function? Particularly:

  • Does the alarm turn off the external relay?
  • Does it retry?

I'd been considering building a simple circuit to do the retry but hopefully I won't need to if it's built in to the unit.

All help appreciated!

Thanks,

Ben

Generator
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Matthias Lange - DE avatar image Matthias Lange - DE ♦ commented ·

From FW 1.x you cannot update via internet, you need to do a manual update via SD card.

https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ccgx:firmware_upgrade_to_v2

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bjpirt avatar image bjpirt Matthias Lange - DE ♦ commented ·

Heh - that's why it's taken me so long to do it :-) Thanks for the link

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1 Answer
Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

The Venus (CCGX is one type of Venus device) generator control has no restart logic. It simply closes the relay when it wants the generator to run and opens the relay when it wants it to stop.

The "Detect Generator at AC input" provides a notification alarm only and does not affect the generator logic in any way.

Any restart logic should be implemented external to Venus. There are many generator controllers available.

The real question is why the Multi rejects the generator AC sometimes. If you look at the Multi in the CCGX device menus, it will tell you what the incoming voltage and frequency are. If one is close to out of range (specified in Multi programming) you may need to adjust the generator. VeConfigure app (Windows only), it will tell you why it is rejecting the AC input.

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bjpirt avatar image bjpirt commented ·

Thanks for confirming this Kevin - I'll put together a simple restart device that should do the trick. I'll make sure to check the params next time. It works most of the time, just very occasionally fails.

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