Flashing LEDs on Quattro - Low Batt Warning

DIY
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1

Hello,

After 3+ years of full time, off grid use my system went haywire during normal operation.

I have a Quattro 24v/5000W, with cerbo, 3mppts, and 3 Simpliphi batteries totaling approx 10KWhr of storage. Firmware on the cerbo is 3.41. Firmware on the controllers is 1.64

I experienced a low battery alarm and system shutdown during the day with full sun, inverter running at 75% capacity, and near fully charged batteries. Voltage readings on Bluetooth victron connect were reading 26.7V. However when I manually cycled on/off switch on inverter, it would immediately shut down again with another low voltage alarm.

At that point, I placed a voltmeter on the DC leads at the Quattro and detected that the voltage was being drawn down quickly after inverter restart. I assume the sample rate of the victron Connect was not frequent enough to pick up the sudden drop In voltage. All AC loads were removed and i cycled the inverter again. I got the same result. The magnitude of the voltage drop was large and seems to point to a dead short.

Next, I isolated the individual batteries one at a time to determine if I had an internal short in one of the batteries. All seems good with the batteries

I am now getting flashing LED lights on the Inverter with two slightly different sequences. I have inserted links to YouTube videos below. Note that the noise in the background is a generator running.

And finally, I am unable to detect or check my VE Bus configurations via the web. Previously all was working fine with respect to the communications and web access

The CAT 5 cable from the Cerbo to the Quattro appears to be fine

All of this occurred suddenly. There were no recent changes to the hardware or software. The system was operating normally until it wasn’t.

Currently, I am thinking my Cerbo went bad. Or possibly there is a short in the Quattro that is drawing down the battery voltage.

Thank you in advance for your thoughts on how to troubleshoot this.

Videos of LEDs Flashing:

(https://youtube.com/shorts/5F4e1QTiszg?si=oQkJhzxg332cH00n)

[https://youtube.com/shorts/8RdrCrKTg4w?si=daVrJt-BrNWOmlAY]

2

If you start a multiplus without a battery connected, it will generate a DC voltage spike on its DC terminals, then it shuts off with low bat voltage, and you can see the DC voltage to slowly bleed off again. I assume its the same with a quattro.

So my assumption, theres no connection between the DC terminals of the quattro and the battery. You are measuring the DC voltage spike that the inverter itself generated on startup.

Check all fuses, disconnects and cabling

LED patterns are nicely shown in the victron toolkit app, even with blink animations

3

Update: the CAT 5 cable running between the Cerbo and inverter checked out as good. All DC wiring was checked and is good.

I also discovered that my GX Touch Screen is non-operational. I had it unplugged from the Cerbo because I never used it.

The blinking LEDs have one pattern that matches error 11. However, there is a second pattern that does not match any pattern on the app. Thanks for the tip on this

4

Another Update: I stated above that the batteries seemed to be OK. However, this is incorrect. What I discovered is a bit mind boggling. Namely, when I run 2 of the 3 batteries, I don’t get the low voltage alarm. However, as soon as I turn on a 3rd battery, either I get an immediate low voltage alarm with no load, or I get a low voltage alarm as soon as I apply a small load. This would all make sense if there was a single battery causing the problem, but there is no one single battery culprit. I can run any two of the three batteries and all is ok. As soon as I turn on a third battery, the voltage tanks as described above. Again, any combination of two of the three batteries seems to work.

Also, all of the blinking LED lights are no longer blinking.

It would be great if Victron Support could chime with some guidance.

5

I had similar. low voltage after splitting battery stacks. One showed up low voltage one was fine. after 4 weeks of charging the one stack and nothing changing, I decided to go down the monitoring road with Batteryview, Multisibcontrol, and a usb to RS232. all the indications told me that the batteries were balanced and at 100% SOC but still stack 1 gave low battery warning.
Thinking about it, Low Batt Warning comes on when Batteries are disconnected from the Multiplus so there may be a problem with one set of power leads. I swapped them… Yes there was a problem as stack 1 worked fine. Next problem… leads or connections? The answer was neither, it was a 200a mega fuse in the Lynx. I hope this helps someone… Low battery warning… check your fuses.

6

Here is an update: It appears that my batteries have failed.

I performed a load test on two of the three batteries yesterday. I limited the test to two batteries because one is in significantly worse condition than the others, and I had to remove it from the bank.

For the test, I ensured the batteries were fully charged and in “float” mode. I also isolated the inverter’s output from everything except the load used for testing. The load was a small electric heater, drawing approximately 1,369 watts on average during the test.

The test lasted 1.97 hours. At the start of the test (just before the load was applied), the battery voltage was 27 volts (in float mode). By the end, the voltage had dropped to 24.08 volts, and the batteries were completely discharged. This indicates that the two batteries provided 2.7 kWh (1,369W × 1.97 hrs) of power. Given that the rated capacity for the two batteries is 7.6 kWh, their current capacity is only 35.5% of the original, after three years of use. I suspect the third battery is in even worse condition, as its inclusion causes a significant voltage drop.

Attached is a graph showing the load applied and the corresponding voltage drop over time,

The graph shows a notable voltage drop of 1.35 volts when the load was first applied. This could suggest a bad connection. However, if the batteries were in good condition, the voltage curve would have remained much flatter after the initial drop. To further eliminate the possibility of a bad connection, I checked all cabling and re-torqued all connections before the test—there were no loose connections. This was expected, as all cables were crimped using a hydraulic crimper.

Since the batteries are only three years old and have been used within specifications, I am working with Simpliphi (purchased by Briggs and Stratton) on related warranty items.

battery graph
battery graph2531×3724 304 KB