On my system that does not seem to be the case as it charges within 2A of its max.
Not saying you aren’t onto something here.
Mine is an ess system. Maybe that is the difference
Hi everyone,
I wanted to give you an update on my 24/1600/40 charging issue after a long 4-month wait.
On February 23rd, 2026, I sent my MultiPlus to the local distributor for warranty repair. Over the next three months, the service engineer replaced the control board three times. Interestingly, on one of those replacement boards, they actually achieved a 38 A charging current. However, we eventually decided to proceed with a full unit replacement to get the expected 40 A.
I received the brand-new replacement inverter on June 17th and installed it some days ago. Unfortunately, the new unit has the exact same limitation: the charging current is capped at ~33.3 A (only a 2 A improvement over my original unit).
My local distributor (Ukraine) sent me the following explanation, presenting it as the official response regarding this behavior:
“For most Multi devices, the default VE.Bus charge current is set to approximately 75-80% of the nominal value, which is adjustable in VE.Configure. The nominal charging power is calculated based on nominal battery voltage (24V) and 25°C ambient temperature. For the MultiPlus Compact 24/1600/40, the charging power is 40 A x 24 V = 960 VA. All Multi and Quattro devices proportionally reduce the charging current as the battery voltage rises because the charging power remains roughly constant. With LFP batteries, the voltage of a discharged battery is higher than that of a lead-acid battery. As a result, the observed charging current with an LFP battery might be lower than the nominal 40A. This behavior is related to the design assumptions of these Multi devices, which were engineered primarily for lead-acid batteries about 20 years ago.”
While this explanation is technically detailed, I find it highly contradictory for several reasons:
- Why the warranty replacement? If this is indeed an intended “design limitation” of the 1600/40 model, why did the local service center keep my unit for 3.5 months, replace the board 3 times, perform dozens of tests, and why did the main office in Amsterdam approve a full warranty replacement of the entire inverter? They should have just pointed to this design specification on day one.
- How was 38 A achieved? During the repairs of my original unit, the service engineer achieved 38 A on one of the replacement boards. If the transformer is physically limited to a constant 960W power cap, a control board swap shouldn’t have bypassed this limitation.
- Other users’ experience: As mentioned by @lxonline in this thread, their 1600/70 charges within 2A of its max, and dropping by 3A is an extremely rare exception for them. If the constant power limitation affects all these legacy Multi designs, why can the 12/1600/70 consistently output its full rated current, while the 24/1600/40 is restricted to ~80%?
This official response feels like an excuse to justify a hardware calibration or design flaw. If it is true, it means Victron’s own technical support chain spent 3.5 months replacing perfectly fine hardware with more fine hardware, completely unaware of their own product specifications.
I’m really disappointed with this experience and would love to hear if any other 24/1600/40 owners are actually getting close to 40A, or if we just have to live with this limitation.
Not what i said.
What i did see is it starts there and drops as the unit gets hot internally, which is does fast due to its compact nature.
Possibly temperature. Sometimes wiring set up makes a difference. I know one of the best changes i made on my unit was bigger cables and a bus bar for the batteries. That made a difference.
80% is great for components longevity. And there is always a trade off between longevity and performance.
Not what i said.
What i did see is it starts there and drops as the unit gets hot internally, which is does fast due to its compact nature.
This issue is not related to temperature. Even during a cold start, the current immediately caps at 33A and goes no higher. It is physically impossible for the unit to overheat within 1 minute, especially since it is installed inside an enclosure with 4 active cooling fans and a room temperature of around 23°C. Furthermore, I have not found any reports or forum posts indicating that the charge current on this model should be lower than its rated specifications. My DC cables are thick (25mm²) and short (~0.5m), and the total voltage drop under load across all contacts is negligible (<0.15V). Ultimately, none of this explains why my inverter spent 3.5 months in service, where the engineer confirmed the low charge current and tried to resolve it by replacing the control boards three times.
80% is great for components longevity. And there is always a trade off between longevity and performance.
Perhaps, but it is unacceptable for a manufacturer to omit such design limitations from the official specifications while keeping a customer’s unit in service for 3.5 months trying to “fix” it.
Yeah i don’t know there. As an installer i have service exchange units so at least the customer won’t be inconvenienced. But i have never had a 3.5month wait on anything.
Also they may have been just guessing the issue. Not sure how changing a control board would have helped.
I don’t even know what to suggest here. I have been pretty happy with my little unit. And grid charging was never the priority. So have had a different experience than yours.
Appreciate you are disappointed though.