Issues with 'fringe' Victron products and GX/VRM

DIY
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1

System consists of Cerbo GX v3.50 with:
¹) SmartShunt IP65 500A/50mV
¹) Smart Phoenix Inverter 24V 2000VA 230V ¹
²) Phoenix Inverter 24V 1200VA 230V
¹) Phoenix Inverter 24V 500VA 230V ¹
¹) Phoenix Smart IP43 Charger 24|25 (1+1) ¹
³) SmartSolar MPPT VE.Can 250/100 rev2

Power bank is 24V 200Ah lead acid with IP65 Smart Shunt being the only connection on the negative, devices are connected to GX using ¹) VE.Direct, ²) VE.Direct through a Duppa 4-Port USB converter and ³) VE.Bus.

Issue #1 VRM Installation data “Solar” does not show any “direct use”, while it is clearly happening according to the data of charger, shunt and inverters

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Issue #2 IP43 charger is showing up both under Inverter/Chargers (with correct custom name) in GUI v2

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and under Batteries (with wrong name “Charger”)
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with the Animation direction for power flow when charging being wrong
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and the amount of power delivered from the grid to the system is not accounted for at all, in the Installation data statistics of VRM:
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This is a 500€ device… :frowning_face:

Issue #3 The Phoenix Inverter 24V 500VA 230V generates a low battery alarm each time it is shut off through opening the remote enable (wired to the NO relays of both MPPT and mains charger, so it’ll only be active if solar or grid power is available and not drain the battery)

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Issue #4 Smart Phoenix Inverter 24V 2000VA 230V (in VRM and GUIv2)

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is according to the label and Victron Connect App in reality a 24/1600
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Issue #5 SmartSolar MPPT VE.Can 250/100 rev2 does not deliver set float voltage, but 0.2V below what is configured. That might be caused by temperature offset, but as the used Temperature is not shown anywhere that is guesswork.

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(oscillates +/- 0.02V around 27.4, instead of the 24.6 configured)

Issue #6 SmartSolar MPPT VE.Can 250/100 rev2 (configured for VE.Smart network, to use the data from the shunt) reports “Battery current”, which (according to the shunt and inverters) is the total output and not what it is delivering Interaction with “the battery”

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A better description could help here.

Issue #6 SmartShunt does not detect charge cycles (but recognizes sync to full on charging end)

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Now the big question:
Where to report all this best, so it can (and hopefully will) get fixed?

2

I can help with number 6. If you read the Shunt manual you will see that a cycle is registered as below. Many people, myself included run 70% to 100% and never record cycles.

  • Total charge cycles: The number of charge cycles over the lifetime of the battery monitor. A charge cycle is counted every time the state of charge drops below 65% and then rises above 90%.

https://www.victronenergy.com/media/pg/SmartShunt/en/operation.html#UUID-fb41551c-8916-9f71-17bf-259a7fee2012

3

I was under the impression that the shunt would calculate “charge cycles” as something like
(Total Ah of energy discharged) / (configured Ah capacity of the battery bank)
to report the effective charge cycles the bank went through.

Thank you for pointing me toward being wrong about that, it makes it clear to me that “charge cycles” as reported by the shunt is basically useless - at least when it comes to determine/estimate remaining lifetime (as manufacturers usually advertise lifetime in full cycles within a certain SoC-window).