Hi all. I am tearing my hair out today due to not being able to use a generator to charge my batteries in prolonged bad weather.
My system comprises of an Easysolar II GX 48/5000/70-50 and 2x pylontech us5000b batteries. Victron is outputting 230v at 50hz.
I’ve had it set up for close to a year without any notable problems. Today when I have depended on adding charge from a generator I am having multiple issues.
Firstly I tried plugging in my small (Yamaha 2800w) generator and all appeared well for about half an hour. I was getting 2000w of power input from the generator that was charging my batteries. That then tripped the overload on the generator. When I tried restarting the generator to reset the breaker it started fine but almost as soon as the Victron switched the relay for the generator on it was again overloaded.
I then was able to find and change the generator input current limit setting which I expected to remedy the situation. It did not. The generator was not tripping the overload but it the Victron did not get any power from the generator.
I then grabbed the larger generator (7500w output) and left the settings to 10a generator input current. I could see the voltage from the generator in the Victron but it wouldn’t take any power.
I was getting frustrated (been dealing with cyclonic weather issues for days) and called a neighbour over that has a large multi component Victron system to help me.
Between the 2 of us we changed some settings via VE Configure but progressivly only made things more confused without any solution. Some things tried were enabling the “Weak AC input” setting, Disabling the “Ground Relay” setting, disabling the “Power Assist” setting. None of these seemed to fix the problem and now I have sen a new issue where the generator is sometimes providing power but only a very small amount, less than 600w. This is with either generator.
I am at a complete loss now. My neighbour was confident with the settings changes but I would like to reset the whole system to defaults and start from scratch.
This has really shaken my confidence with the system. I really do need the ability to charge the batteries from a generator in bad weather such as we are having now. I’m at a loss as to how to achieve this.
The documentation has not helped me at all. I have no idea where to go with this problem. I bought the (to me) very expensive “EasySolar” so I would have a reliable solution that was simple to deal with. The first time I’ve needed to depend on it in an bad weather situation I feel it has failed. I still have some battery left but there is likely days more time I won’t have enough solar input.
If anyone can give me any clues as to where to look for options to rectify this issue I’d greatly appreciate it. My opinion on Victron has truly soured today, I feel let down by the product. My neighbour was talking about needing an oscilloscope to investigate the problem further. I really never expected a prodcuct called “easysolar” to be so difficult to deal with about something so seemingly simple as charging battery from a generator.
This morning I helped a different neighbour with their older multiplus. They needed to charge from a generator. I wired on a lead and plug and connected their cheap generator and it jus worked.