I am off shore power, boondocking and my rig was running good for the past few days but the Victron shut completely off this morning. I think I run down the batteries using my A/C’s , and both inverters turned off. I have manually turned the switch to the off position. It’s still dark here in Albuquerque. What should be my next step?
After reading I think once the sun comes up and I have the inverters turned on I will start getting solar power to my RV again. Do I need to keep it at “charger only” before I turn on the inverters?Anyone agree or do I need to do something else?
- I assume by Victron you mean the inverter/chargers, something like a Multiplus. If you are off grid then you do not need to set these to charger only as that applies to charging from shore power.
- I assume ( again since you have given no detail of your system) that you have separate solar charge controller to DC. In this case once the sun rises then the solar charger will start to charge the batteries. Once you have built up a healthy charge then turn the inverter back on.
If the above assumptions are wrong then you need to let us know what is in your system.
Yes. I am really new and want to learn and understand my Victron system. Like you said it would, it is changing. I have it in charger only because the only other setting besides off, is turning the the inverter on and I don’t have enough power stored in the batteries. What do you think?
My PV charger is right now at 407w. My dc power is at 818w. Leaving the inverters off is not a good thing? I don’t know as I am not well informed about this. Thanks for responding!
If you are boondocking and have no shore power then the inverter can not charge the battery. The inverter changes dc to ac power, which you do not want at the moment or changes ac power to dc power and without ac power it can nor charge. Ideally, as your batteries are flat you need to find some shore power and set the inverter to charge only.
The other thing is by rig do you mean that you have an RV or something with an engine (American and English terms not quite interchangeable). Does your system charge from the engine alternator because that would get power back into your batteries.
When off grid you really need to watch your batteries SOC so you can balance power out to be no more than power in.
I suggest you download and have a read through the Victron publication “Energy Unlimited” as much of this is a good primer for RVs / boats.
My Victron Phoenix inverter has two settings based off of battery voltage to prevent running a battery flat.
- Reset/Alarm
- Low voltage shutdown
These are there to prevent damaging total discharge of the battery. They are preset by Victron to some pretty low values. I would raise them a bit if you think you will frequently run the batteries down.
A/C, water heaters and such, continuously draw a great deal of power and are not ideal loads to run off of batteries. With A/C the main load will usually be when the sun is out and the solar panels can pick up the load. But when the solar panels shut down you won’t have much time on A/C unless you have a very large battery and solar array to charge it.