Usually if the system is updated correctly and properly configured, it will stop charging 2% above the min soc set in ess.
Use the scheduled charge settings in ess to allow for PV only to power loads during the day. That way the battery gets excess and charges up using solar and doesn’t discharge again until it is out of the window set.in the scheduled charge.
Thanks for confirming latest firmware does it too.
I have an assistant that controls the charge current so I have to block DVCC from sending current control commands, otherwise DVCC gets in a fight with the assistant. no matter, I don’t need CCL anyway.
I would not recommend tweaking scripts if you can avoid it as it may upset ESS.
it was a last resort for me and I don’t use ESS so I can get away with it in my case.
But…. I did find why DVCC was causing my problem and couldn’t find any other way to stop it other than turning DVCC off.
I hope you can find a better way.
Maybe Victron could add a menu option to Stop DVCC commanding the charge current to maximum when CCL is turned off.
@BartChampagne appreciate the answer. I will update everything (mppt, invertor, cerbo) and I’// get back with a status.
But a question first: I do not have “update" option for Multiplus in VRM. Can I use Victron Connect (with MK3 interface) from mobile phone instead? There I have these options: export settings, import settings, update firmware. If I do so, will I still be provided with the .rvsc file after update?
Updating Multiplus from phone is strongly discouraged, as you probably do not have the VEConfigure tools installed there 
While updating from VictronConnect will work, it will probably* wipe all of its config, so you’d have to completely reconfigure it.
* : unless it’s been updated for not doing that anymore, which I doubt.
The recommended way is to use VRM on a PC that has the VEConfigure tools installed (the toolset you use to open .rvsc files).
WARNING: updating your Multi’s firmware and config will cause it to shut down and restart.
Make sure your GX, internet connection and critical users are not powered by the Multi before starting the below steps.
Since you don’t have a grid meter, this might be tricky.
If you have devices connected to the grid directly, without a grid meter their consumption will not be taken into account for ESS calculations.
Anyway: the VRM update procedure:
Check if your problem still persists after that.
Feel free to upload the “-merged” file here for verification.
Thanks for all the details @BartChampagne .
I have updated everything (mppt, cerbo, invertor) to latest versions. Now it behaves better than before, but still not perfect.
I have turned Grid current on, and in about 10 minutes, I see this:
And here is another example from yesterday:
Is this normal? In ESS I have SoC to 25% and “Optimized without battery life". I would expect that I am powered by batteries only, but instead I am powered from time to time (and not only powered, but also batteries are charging!) from grid.
What do you think?
Thanks again for the input so far.
What is your ESS grid setpoint, Minimum SOC etc set to?
GUIv1: Settings > ESS > Gridsetpoint
GUIv2: Settings > System Setup > ESS > Gridsetpoint
Hi, sorry I’m late to this thread and not a regular on the forum here but this interests me as I had a similar desire to not charge my batteries when connected to the Grid and have plenty of free solar energy available. I did my best starting at the initial post to try to figure out why the OP wants to stop charging from the grid but didn’t see/understand the exact reason…..assuming it’s the same as mine what I used was Conditional AC Input to my Multiplus II’s. I have a 55’ yacht with 1200Ahr’s of Lipoe4 batteries, 1000W of Solar panels, a pair of MPII’s and then two large frame alternators on my diesel engines. When sitting at the dock at home I don’t need/want the batteries to float at 100% when plenty of free solar energy is available. Also thinking of the 80/20 rule to treat LiPoe4 batteries I was searching for a way to implement grid/shore power only when the batteries absolutely needed to be charged.
Drawing not 100% accurate, actually have four 250W solar panels and never implemented Orion TR DC-DC chargers as the Balmars work fine.
What I wanted was the shore power to only turn on IF the battery SOC was < 20 or I choose 30% and then turn off at 80% SOC. I could not find a setting in the MPII’s that would turn on SOC instead I have them turn off when Bulk Charging ends, usually 97-98% SOC. This has worked great for me and I was thinking to start a Thread on the Forum here to ask for an 80/20 SOC charge rule in the MPII’s but again I’m not a regular and what I have works. NodeRed seems like the answer for more powerful rules based charging but I’m not interested in getting that into custom programming.
This is what I setup in each MPII to get conditional AC Input
Hope this helps….not 100% clear to me what the reasoning for the OP post but what I have works and sounds close to the desired intention?
Scott aboard MV/Mariah
Since you have Lithium, the Multi’s can’t determine the SoC and thus can not act on it (unless they get SoC sync’ed from the GX).
Specifically for a boat (where you can’t and shouldn’t use ESS since you can’t feed excess solar back to the grid) I’ve built a Node Red flow that reads battery SoC and Voltage and uses that to drive the Multi’s “Ignore AC In” feature.
It’s still in development but what works rather well so far:
Both switches / functions are auto-enabled by default.
Still to add:
OP is grid connected, running ESS and (if I remember correctly) feeding excess solar back into the grid, so even while this looks related it’s a different setup with a totally different configuration.
Do you have a 3 phase or single phase setup?
If you only have a single Multiplus, try setting “Multiphase regulation” to “Individual phase” instead of “Total of all phases”.
If you program with victron connect rather than ve config it is easier to understand, but there is no option for soc there.
There is this method.
Or there is a way to use the generator start stop from the gx wired to the aux/temp input with some basic programming - this method allows you to manually overide it as well.
LX thanks for the input but I don’t fully understand. Bart’s description of how he has implemented Node-Red logic sounds like exactly what I want. IF it were possible to use Generator start/stop logic to connect/disconnect to shore/grid power virtually without relays or contactors that would be ideal but I don’t understand why the Multi’s don’t know SOC when that info is on the bus. You say to use Victron Connect rather than ve.config….when I run Victron Connect on my PC and try to configure the Multi’s I get this:
IS there a setting I should enable to enable modifying settings over remote connections? To setup the Virtual Switch settings I downloaded the MPII configs via VRM Portal, used ve.config locally to change the config file and then upload it back. When on a boat out at sea this is not ideal if Internet is not available. We have Starlink but there are times when Internet is not available. When I installed my system I took my laptop down in to the battery compartment space and with a USB cable directly connected to one of the Multi’s I was able to do setup/config. Making changes this way sucks especially out to sea when the boat is in rough waters.
It drives me nuts why doesn’t the Multi’s know the SOC and display it on the various screens? Right now my Virtual switch logic reconnects shore/grid power when SOC < 30% so it clearly knows what the SOC is.
Barts description is spot on to my usecaes/need, IF I am at the dock all of the time this Virtual switch logic works great. But we are leaving for a two month trip to the Bahamas and when we are on anchor I would like to be able to control when the charger charges to manage the load on the generators. Typically late afternoon I start the generator to cool off the interior of the boat w/HVAC so for the first hour the load is high. I would then like to top off the batteries before shutting off the generators and going to sleep for the night. Before the Virtual Switch logic I did this manually via the breaker panel. I would love a switch/option in the Cerbo to enable shore/grid/generator power on demand and drop when bulk charging finishes or SOC > 95%
I didn’t mean to hi-jack the OP’s thread and I’m happy to start a new one but the Title is EXACTLY what I want even though his usecase doesn’t match mine. I have found threads similar to my usecase and I don’t know all the acronyms and usecases for the various configurations so I sometimes get confused about DVCC, vs ESSS vs my BMS based system etc. Bart I’d like to follow up with you regarding the Node-Red logic you have come up with. I am retired Computer Engineer, ex pascal/Fortran/Ada programmer from many years ago so I’m sure I can figure out the Node-Red drag-N-drop to build the logic I just didn’t want such a super custom config that maintenance becomes a nightmare longer term.
Scott in Sunny FL
It snot that it doesn’t know it. Its that neither ve config not victron connect are able to use the information to connect and disconnect.
The ve bus does synchronise with a van connected battery if you have one.
A node red option (my answer was an additional idea) is possible as you already know and useable if you are comfortable with using that. Not everyone is.
LX,
Thanks again for the follow up but this is where the disconnect between a Victon Expert and a semi knowledgable end user/retired engineer diverges. IDK what the difference is between veconfig, victron connect, VE.Bus, N2KBus, DVCC, ESS, BMS and what technology is used where. I have no idea what a “van connected battery” is. I see lots of end user posts here complaining about the lack of support and from my experience that is usually from a lack of design. Failing to plan is planning for failure! So I paid for a Victron engineer to design and draw the initial drawings I posted to show the relationships between the various Victron components. I think the MPII’s only talk VE.MKII while the other components talk VE.Bus and then there is a bridge in my Cerbo that puts information on my NMEA2K Bus. I have a TCP/IP network that my Cerbo talks to and I run Victron Connect on my PC so when I connect should I be connecting via VRM/USB/VE.CAN/N2K/TCP it all depends what I’m talking to and what that end point supports. Knowing those details as an end user has been a nightmare/struggle but I’m doing my best to read everything posted before asking questions.
My initial post to this forum was about a problem I was having getting data to/from the N2K Bus and I was pleasantly surprised by Mathias and his team’s willingness to ask questions, investigate my situation and identify a bug that I was describing. They quickly produced a patch/upgrade that I tested and that feedback loop was beneficial for everyone. My point of posting about why doesn’t the MPII’s know about/advertise/display SOC of the batteries as seen by the BMS on the network is a HOPE that a Charge Control algorithm/feature would be introduced to address my problem/desire. More importantly I don’t understand where there is not more talk about better treatment of LiPoe4 batteries through charge management. After 30 years of being a boater I have cooked my fair share of high quality AGM batteries with high quality multi-stage battery chargers by floating those batteries for too long. From what I have read/come to understand LiPoe4 batteries like to be exercised AND can last much longer if they are kept higher than 20% and less than 80% SOC so why not include a charge profile in the MPII’s that addresses this usecase. That is one of the goals I’m trying to address when my boat is parked for months at a time.
The next goal is to not overload my generator or use high priced Bahamas/Dock/Grid power when I have plenty of Solar power available. In general if I just deactivate my Virtual Switch while I’m cruising I can accomplish this by manually managing the Grid/Generator connection via my AC Breaker Panel. BUT Like Bart has done with Node-Red it would be super nice if I could do this with a Virtual Switch that when I enable charges to full and then stops until I enable it again or batteries reach 20% SOC. Manually having to throw a breaker is subject to being missed/forgotten….
BART! I thought I could direct message you like other Forums I participate in but I could not figure out how to do that here. I found you on LinkedIn but since I don’t have a premium subscription I can’t message you in Belgium. Find me on LinkedIn and message me OR please share some screen shots/details about your Node-Red implementation as it sounds like your doing near EXACTLY what I want. I already have a large format firmware with Node-Red enabled, just need to figure out what credentials to use to login
Thanks. Seems like pretty much what I want to achieve,but I was (and still am) a bit reluctant as to manipulate those settings. But it I can’t figure it out how to accomplish this through VRM console settings,I will give it a try.
Hi Bart; I have a single phase. I change the setting you suggested and it behaves the same. Also, I do not feed-in into grid (not sure if it matters).
Once I updated the “individual phase" value,I turned Grid input on, and with 70% SOC, and 2500W consumption, in 10 minutes the MP was powering the house from grid not batteries.
The point of DIY - doing it yourself - is the doing includes the self education. Which is the part alot don’t put much time into… They just want to do the doing.
There are alot of resources for that for learning the difference between everything. Cutting down what you want to learn usually starts with knowing what you want to do in the first place then the leaening canbe simpler.
Your credentials if you haven’t locked them are the same as the remote console login if you have that set. It is not normal off the bat for it to ask for the login.
Have you see this feature for swapping between config.
I do know there are no plans to make virtual switch editable or interactive from outside of base program methods.
Scott do you start your generator from the GX?
10 posts were split to a new topic: Control charging from grid
There’s obviously something off somewhere in your setup but at this point of debugging pretty much blind, I’m out of fresh ideas.
Best bet now would be to hire some professional support to look at your setup, maybe starting with simple remote access.
I’m too far past my deadlines with the end of my to do list not even in sight to keep on digging, sorry.
