Bluesolar 150/70 MPPT only outputs when connected to Cerbo

Q&A and troubleshooting
, , ,
22

There are a couple of situations where an mppt will not charge;

  • no incoming solar (pretty obviously not your situation, but a faulty isolator might trick you)
  • no connection to the battery- again a faulty battery breaker will do this, or a tripped breaker, loose connection. Again, not likely for you
  • programming
    • not allowed to charge due to high temp, bms saying no, or GX saying no
    • charge voltage set below the current battery voltage (i.e. battery appears to be full
    • charge current set to near zero (because GX or bms thinks it is full)
    • mismatch in battery chemistries- the mppt thinks the battery is X, and therefore is already full, but when plugged into a GX , the GX says battery is Y, and needs more charge.

I think the last one is moat likely

1 Like
23

Remember that the default battery for an mppt controller is an AGM i think, so if your battery is a much higher voltage, the default will cause the mppt to go into float immediately, and it wont charge the battery until you tell it that your battery is say LiFePO4. This might be what happens when you connect to a correctly configured GX

Also, watch with Li battery types, they can be 15 or 16 cell, and setting the wrong voltage for charge/float will be disastrous

24

There is only 1 setting for LIPO batteries (number 7 on the rotary switch). Are you saying that one should be using a custom setting?

25

You can use the rotary switch to quickly change to a preset, or you can select a preset in VictronConnect and then customise from there.

We use the rotary as a backstop in case a customer does a factory firmware reset on the controller - that way the controller will go back to SmartLithium and not the “as shipped” default of rotary #1 (i.e. AGM). Then we pick the SmartLithium preset in VictronConnect, and then we might fiddle with the float voltage or tail current depending on the battery.

All i’m saying with the 15 vs 16 cell issue is that the rotary #7, or the Victron SmartLithium preset, is set up for 16 cell batteries if the controller detects a 48v battery (it will be set for 4 or 8 if the controller detects 12v or 24v respectively). So just make sure that if your battery is a 15 cell, that you check your voltage set points carefully. Another reason to check these voltages is that even though all LiFePO4 batteries have the same chemistry, the BMS might be vastly different, and therefore the manufacturer’s recommended float and bulk voltages might be different.