All Posts in Questions & Answers

https://www.victronenergy.com/blog/2020/04/06/victronconnect-v5-20-connect-configure-remotely/

Long mooted, long awaited, and now here ..wow..

Thank you Matthijs, Victron, developers, and beta-testers.

Recently commissioned a EasySolar-II 3kva 48v system running PowerPlus Energy 4kwh ECO module. Setup battery monitor on VEconfigure, programmed mppt as per powerplus recommendation and all looking good. About 5 days later system shutdown on low SOC cut-out, went to site and batteries full and on float but SOC showing 15% so it had slowly gone down each day after i left but was in fact being charged fully each day. Where have i gone wrong??

I have EasySolar 48/5000/70 MPPT150|100. I faced with the issue that SoC is 100% always, even if batteries partly discharged or charging or discharging. I have configured the system according to 2.4.2 case B (https://www.victronenergy.com/live/ccgx:start#battery_state_of_charge_soc). Could you give me some advice about what I should check or correct in order to measure real SoC?

Good day all,

I have an EasySolar 48/5000/70-100 with MPPT150/100 and when I load the inverter to above 2500W when on solar, I receive the following alarm and the inverter shuts down. "Multiplus 48/5000/70-100, Alarm, High Temperature". The inverter restarts but will shut down very shortly afterwards with the same error. Running at 800-1000W is no problem and when the mains AC is available, there is also no problem with the higher power draw. Everything else is working perfectly. I have tried using an external fan to improve airflow around and through the unit, but the error persists. The time taken when I increase the load, to when the inverter shuts down is between 15 and 20 minutes normally.

Any advice on what could be an issue here?

Thanks

Hello, Im planning on installing three phase grid tied solar system with three Victron Multis 48V 3000W (and batteries and solar panels etc.). I would very much like to use ESS assistant. The point of my question is, that the wiring in the whole house is a bit older, which means that it is done using only two wires for single phase (L and PEN) and four wires for three phase (L1,L2,L3 and PEN). After asking some companies who install Victron equipment in my country (Czech Republic), I have been told that in this type of grid I definitely cant use Multiplus II because it acts also as an residual current device which cant operate in this kind of grid (somehow the current flowing into the system by L wire does not exactly equal to the current flowing out of the system by common PEN wire in this system-that I have tested by residual current device and it is true, but so far I havent measured the difference). Also I have been told that Multiplus 1 doesnt have this in-build residual current device and therefore that one is suitable for this aplication. My question is if such a system would work completely well with Multis 1, or if there would be some bugs due to the common PEN wire anyway? Thank you all for your answers...

I've had my system installed for ovear a year with no issues, and suddenly this started happening. (no changes to system)

So, I've got a 290 watt single panel the goes to a 30amp circuit breaker, then to my victron 100/20 mppt. To another 30amp breaker and then to a bus bar. Which goes out to the battery, fuse panel, and inverter, all of which also have breakers.

So a week ago i get in and pull up my stats and notice no solar coming in. I look and the breaker between the panel and the mppt had tripped. Well it's in a not so great place, and I thought i may have bumped it. So I reset it and everything was good until the following afternoon.

Now the breaker between the mppt and bus var tripped. I inspect all of my wiring and can find nothing wrong. I reset the breaker and move wires etc as much as possible to see if i can get it to trip. Nothing. Again works great until the following afternoon!

Is m charge controller at fault? Any ideas? My battery died due to this. And as much as I would love a valid excuse to go lithoumm, I just want my fridge to stay running.

Sorry for the long post! Thanka if you made it this far!

So, this is a pretty uncommon case I'd imagine, however with my current setup the CCGX doesn't have a constant internet connection. Only gets one when I can take my laptop out and share the WiFi to it. (working on getting ethernet out to it)

However, when doing so I've noticed that the rate at which the CCGX uploads to the online portal is extraordinarily slow, like 2MB total upload data (monitored from the network interface) over half an hour kind of slow. I'm wondering if this is intentional, or if there's a setting somewhere that limits the upload rate? While a very uncommon use case, it still seems a little odd that the data rate is so low. I know it's not the internet connection as I can easily push 1MB/s over WiFi from this laptop.

Cheers.

What would be the advantages and disadvantages of using 2 x MULTIPLUS II 48/5000/70-50 Versus 1 x Quattro 48/10000/140-100/100?

Thanks for your replies!!!

Hi guys, as mentioned, Anybody tested this yet?

Hello,

I have a camper van with a 12V system powered by a single 150W Poly Panel (not from Victron) controlled by a MPPT 75/15. Now I want to upgrade and I'm thinking about selling the current panel and controller and get two 175W Victron solar panels (in parallel).

My first question is regarding the cell technology that I should go for. The 175W Mono and Poly Victron solar panels have the same size and the price is very similar too. I can't find anything on the datasheet regarding the efficiency but I read that the mono panels tend to work better on low light situations while poly work better in shaded conditions (scattered rays).

Should I go for one of each to have the best of both worlds? Or should I go for 2 Mono since it will give me the best performance in full sun and low light conditions (the conditions that I will have maybe 98% of the time).

My second question is regarding the new controller. The MPPT Calculator gives me the 100/20 option, but its datasheet says that the Nominal PV power at 12V is 290W and the new system would give me 350W at the peak. Is the 100/20 controller a good option? Will I be able to take full advantage of the system with it?

Thanks for the help!

Can mppt values be set via the remote consol. Far from site an need to ajust my battery charging setting like float and bulk charge.

The mppt is connected toVE direct port on color control

Got a 2.5kw Victron Multiplus inverter which normally runs at just over 1/2amp at idle. It is now buzzing and using 5 amps with no load (disconnected)... anything simple to check? Took the front off and re-sat all the cables - removed the 240v cable ... nothing obvious - really struggling

@Ur12VMan , @Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff)

Hi 12VMan (and Victron staff please). I found your thread on Lithium battery protect settings while searching, but decided my comment should be a new question.

Thanks for your answer in that thread, mentioning that Victron lithium batteries issue a temperature alert at 5C. This gets my attention. My research to date was indicating that lithium batteries are OK for charging down to around 1C (and for discharging well below 0C, as an aside). I need to pursue this, as I'm planning to use Victron LiFePO4 batteries in Arctic conditions, in an expedition yacht that will be static for days to a week or two. Water temps will be down to around 2-3C, sometimes lower depending on icing. I'm looking into the need for heating for the battery box, which will be under the insulated floorboards and so outside of the primary heated spaces. If 5C is the real deal, I need to get serious with calculations on battery energy that might be consumed in making the batteries warm enough to be chargeable. Or other heating.

So, where is this 5C figure coming from? OK, I see +5C mentioned in the 12.8V LiFePO4 battery data sheet.

This prompts a few specific and important questions, about the Victron 12.8V 300Ah variants:

1. What is the lower internal battery temperature at which the battery signals to a connected BMS that charging is not permitted?

2. If the answer to Q1 is different than +5C, what is the consequence in terms of battery health (and charging efficiency?) of charging occurring between the two temperatures?

3. Does the answer to Q2 depend on the rate of charging?

4. If the internal battery temperature is just high enough for the battery to allow itself to be charged, and in this case at a low rate of 20A per battery (80A from a normal alternator, shared between 4 batteries), will this charging slowly warm the batteries up such that a higher rate of charging can be initiated in due course?

5. At what battery temperature (measured by a sensor on the positive terminal, or is there a way to get the internal temperature?) can high rate charging at ~150A per battery be initiated, such that no appreciable damage to battery health occurs? Would it be prudent to step the charging rate up slowly as the batteries warm up?

Clearly, it will be helpful if I rig a temperature sensor for the battery box, to guide appropriate action before each charging session.

The boat will use an Integrel On-Engine Charger (basically a big and very efficient second alternator) which can charge at up to a very high rate. Or it can be turned off so that charging is via the engine's standard alternator only. I might need to raise the battery box temperature before starting to charge each week or so. Heat from the main engine during these charging events will then help.

Thank you for your help with these questions. :-)

I searched but answers not found. Please help with this MultiPlus question.

I'm about to order a full suite of Victron devices for a lithium battery and solar system on a yacht. Storage will be at 12V, with four 12.8V 300Ah Smart lithium batteries - so 1200Ah. A Multiplus 12/3000/120 will provide charging from 230V AC shore power, as well as on-board inverting when needed. This Multiplus is available with either 16 or 50 amp Transfer Switch.

The MultiPlus' maximum charging output of 120A is ideal for the planned battery bank, being 10% of the Ah rating. Question is, should I choose the 16 or 50 amp version? Is the 50 amp version only intended for yachts typically used in 115V shore power regions? Or is this 50 amp version a good choice for my yacht, given the capacity of the battery bank? It could be that the 16 amp version will not be able to supply house AC (say, an electric fan heater) and charge the batteries at full rate, simultaneously.

Am I understanding this parameter correctly? Thank you.

Hi !

I'm using openWB to charge my EV. Unfortunately the Solaredge PV inverter allows only one concurrent TCP connection.

That means if the GX device is talking to the Solaredge the communication to the openWB is blocked.

But I've seen in the Modbus TCP menu of the (Venus-)GX that there is an entry for the SE PV inverter. I checked so far the documentation of the GX but without success.

Can anybody explain me what this means? May be I can use it to retrieve the production of the SE via the GX device.

[image]

Thanks !

Dirk

Hi Community,

my Question:

How can I manage to feed in excess solar power during absorption phase as well?

my system:

• Octo GX
• 3 pcs MultiPlus-II (3 phase connection)
• 3 pcs DC Coupled MPPT Solar charge controller
• 2 pcs AC inverters from SMA connected to the UPS side of the MultiPlus each per one phase (L2 and L3) but not yet measured with energy meter.
• 48V lead GEL battery

how the system behaves, see image below

• battery is in absorption, so DC voltage constantly 57.5V in this phase
• AC power from SMA inverters on L2 and L3 is used to charge the battery
• excess AC coupled PV power is feed to the grid so far so good
• but DC coupled PV charger power is drastically reduced in order not to exceed 57.5V (in the image below reduced to 236W but often to as low as around 50W)
• The available DC coupled PV power at the time would have been around 1.5kW
• As soon as absorption phase is completed the DC coupled PV power goes up to the maximum as per solar input and the system starts feeding excess solar power to the grid.
• see second image as well, this was an overall clear and sunny day. so no need to reduce solar pv power on lunch time. should be a "nice" daily full power PV curve.

My config:

• DVCC enabled
• SVS enabled
• STS enabled
• feed in excess solar power enabled
• battery monitor is MultiPlusII on VE Bus

Best regards,
Matthias

[image]

[image]

Good day

In the last 4 weeks we seemed to have a lot of Ccgxs that give error 42. Hardware failure. Seems to be after a certain update.

Any idea how to avoid this?

Regards

In Google Chrome the date picker for selecting a user defined period does not represent the selected date, but a mix of the date and format string, e.g. "jjjj.04.tt (tt.04.jjjj)" instead of "01.04.2019" or "2019-04-01".

It would also be nice if the date format could be changed depending on the language setting, e.g. in German only in the format "dd.mm.yyyy".

Browser: Google Chrome Version 80.0.3987.163

[image]

Update:

After an update of Chrome to Version 81.0.4044.92, the date fields are now empty.

I am running Smartsolar 150/35 units. I have had a problem twice now where the VictronConnect app (Android) has dropped bluetooth connection mid-sync to a device. Once this happens, the app will reconnect fine to the device, but the wattage only displays 10% of what should be the actual wattage. For example, if the actual wattage is expected to be 1200w, the app was only displaying 12w. The input and output voltages were correct and the charger state was correct (bulk), but no amps.

I tried closing and re-opening the app, but it didn’t fix it. The only way to get it to display the correct wattage again was to totally power off the unit and power it back on again. I don’t know whether the unit was still charging correctly as I don’t have an independent ammeter inline and didn’t have the time to wait for an extended period and take the chance of it not actually charging the batteries.

The devices have run fine for a very long time without being powered off and I believe it is the disconnection mid-sync that has caused this to happen. I thought I would report this here in case it hasn’t been noticed by the developers yet.

Hi

When programming my assitant rules, using SOC, must SOC of the VE.BUS be configured (via VEconfig)?

Or will it use SOC from the system CCGX (BMV)?

If I switch on SOC in the VE.Bus, I dont see SOC in the graph in VRM, is this correct?

hallo

Welchen USB-Treiber muss ich bei Windows 7 installieren, damit den Buck Booster konfigurieren kann?

Vielen Dank im Voraus

Gruß

New Install, Easysolar 48/5000, 4 x Pylontech 2000b. The CCGX is only showing about a 1/4 of the actual Charge/discharge to the batterys. The Details screen in the Battery Device List also is not being populated. Wired and set up as per Instructions, everything else is working fine. It appears as the CCGX is only displaying the current/power into/out of one battery. Any advice?

Pylontech CCGX.pdf

Is my BMV-712 working? The display and settings seem to be ok, but my NO, COM & NC ports in back never seem to turn on (energize w/12v signal). Are these ports affected by "11. Relay mode"? Batteries don't charge if COM port isn't "ON" with 12v signal (COM port is connected to VE.Bus BMV Charge Disconnect port). Are there any recommendations for settings 16-31?

fyi, all other components are from Victron. TIA...

I'm not interested on solar panel inclination. But I would like to respect 10cm between solar panel and the roof for temperature purpose.

Do you have any idea to fix it to the roof without buying an expensive 100€ fixation kit ?

Thanks a lot

Hi experts! I need your advice. I have lead-acid batteries. Type GEL.

Amount - 72pcs. And three Quattro inverters (10kW).

How much do I need a Battary Balancer to equalize the charge?

According to which scheme is it optimal to connect?

It will be an ESS system with Fronius Symo. Thanks!

I saw the blog post for a new firmware update for the Multplus-II, but it doesn’t appear on our IOS VictronConnect app. How come?

I understand any ESS requires Anti-Islanding relay. Does the Virtual Switch Ignore AC also requires it? My PV is connected to the MPPT to charge the batteries and I want the Grid only to charge the batteries in case the PV power is not enough or I have used a lot of power at night and I have depleted the batteries.

• Quattro 48/5000
• Smart Solar 250/100
• Venus GX and
• BMV-712 monitor

I recently installed the SmartSolar MPPT 150|100-Tr charge controller. I love it so far, and a huge selling point for me was being able to monitor the controller from an app and also export the data.

I have a few questions about this controller that'd I'd love help with:

1. How much data will the charge controller store? What kind of storage is inside it? I would obviously like to keep the data for the lifetime that i have it and want to make sure I don't loose any data
2. Is it possible to query the charge controller's data from some kind of API? I'm a developer and I'd love to be able to query the current stats of my charge controller for other projects I have. Is there some interface I can setup to do this from a local network?
3. The controller has a remote and relay output. I want to setup a tablet next to the charge controller and don't have any AC outlets in my electrical room. I obviously have a ton of DC connections, but I'd love to avoid setting up another breaker just to power a 3v 2a USB connection for my tablet. Can I use the Load Out of the charge controller to power a USB device and if so, how?
   
   Thanks in advance for any help, much appreciated. I'm really excited to be part of the victron community. I've been eyeing these systems for a while and really happy to be using them now.

Can anyone point em to a distributor with Cerbo availability? My US dealer says they wont be available in the US until sometime after June?? Ill need the Cerbo shipped to the US, so that's a requirement. I'm also interested in the 5" touch screen.

Thanks!!