I’ve just purchased a new battery to replace the two ones not compatible with Victron’s Multi RS & Cerbo GX. I did a factory reset and set (tried) only the required settings for the new setup. However, it only draw 460 Wh yesterday and 210 Wh Today, even though the sun is shining. I couldn’t identify the problem yesterday, when the battery was full. But now it’s at 72% and the display on the RS firmly states “discharging”, while the solar input is 0W. The voltage is jumping around 370V on the solar array.
The load is very small, ranging between 200 to 500W.
Looks like the RS is stuck in Discharging mode, probably due to some inadvertent settings. I’m ran out of ideas what could be causing it, tempted to do another factory reset in Multi RS settings and start over.
Few settings I think could be related:
ESS:
mode: “Optimized without Battery Life”
Minimum discharge SOC: “20%”
Inverter: “On” (displays “Inverting” on the display)
Your system is not under the control of battery’s BMS.
You need to solve that first, meaning the battery should appear first in Cerbo.
In this moment the battery is charging based on the voltages configured in Multi RS.
If you don’t want the BMS control, at least configure the proper voltages in Multi RS.
Particularly, your charge detect is too high.
See below how are they in my system. Also see that the system is under BMS control.
Don’t use my voltages, as I have a 15S battery.
You have a 16S, so adjust the voltages appropriately:
Low bat shutdown: 48V
Low bat restart: 51.2V
Charge detect: 51.2V
Absorption: 56V
Float: 55.2V
Storage: 54.4V
I think what you wrote is most likely what was happening. However, I don’t have “BMS controlled” option (as per my screenshot above). I thought this was set (on Multi RS) by setting percentage limits as opposed to voltages. The SOC is exactly what the battery’s BMS showing in the app over the Bluetooth, so I think Multi RS gets correct reading via Cerbo GX.
To be clear: Yes, I want to use the SOC to control charging - that was exactly the point why I got the new battery (EVA-BATTERY ESTORA JK-EEL, produced locally here in Europe /coincidentally few kilometers from my place/ from quality A-grade EVE cells with a good BMS, with outstanding support).
The solar does produce some electricity sometimes, i.e. at one stage the load was 2.4 kW and solar then produced exactly 2.4 kW too. So it seems it just doesn’t want to charge the batteries. I also changed.
I changed the values as per your suggestions and the solar does seem to work now. It’s cloudy now, so it’s jumping all over depending on sun exposure, but seems to react well.
This seem to point to what you’re saying, that the battery is now VOLTAGE-CONTROLLED, not BMS CONTROLLED. Any suggestions about this specific to Multi RS would be very appreciated…
I do plan to contact the producer about the parameters not mentioned in their instructions, because not all of them were listed. But I think they didn’t specify it, because it may not be important in BMS controlled mode.
So now it says Charging on the VictronConnect app, instead of that Storage?
Do you have a cable connected between Cerbo’s BMS CAN to battery’s CAN port?
I’ve took a look at this document and it seems that the cable pin configuration is just like the Victron type A CAN cable.
That option on VC, BMS controlled, appears when the communication between the Cerbo and battery is successful and the Cerbo is able to get the necessary information from BMS, like CCL and CVL.
Look on Cerbo, at Settings - DVCC - Controlling BMS. You should see there the battery.
Also, the battery should show on the Device list in Cerbo and if you go on Settings - Services - BMS CAN port - Network status, you should see the number of RX and TX packets incrementing synchronously and have no errors or dropped packets.
I did not see the status, it doesn’t show (AFAIK) in VRM and I wasn’t until now at the unit. But the animation showed flow to the battery whenever the sun power was higher than demand. It did recharged the battery with the remaining sun light to 85%.
Yes, I have cable, I crimped & tested it myself as I didn’t have any suitable on hand. The battery is the one you found documentation for. The battery now shows in Cerbo GX Remote Console in Device List:
As for communication, there are no dropped packets:
It would be nice to have some documentation for this page - is it like ping? No dropped packages = OK? What about the state “ERROR-ACTIVE” - is that normal?
EDIT: Based on other posts, looks like “ERROR-ACTIVE” is actually OK and means “ERROR-CHECKING-ACTIVE”.
I’ve double checked now, the “BMS controlled” option still doesn’t show…
I don’t see “Controlling BMS” option in the DVCC menu, but there’s line “Used sensor: JK-BMS on CAN-bus”, which seems to indicate it does use the battery BMS.
I disabled the option again, since I’m not familiar with it. Is that something I should study and use?
When I briefly switched on the DVCC, something got messed up. The Cerbo GX adviced reboot, which I did and after that it started beeping all the time until I logged into the console and tapped the message:
So then it though connection to BMS has been lost. Furthermore, since then it didn’t charge or discharge the battery, it takes all the needed power from the grid (which is probably consequence of lost BMS).
Howerver, the Device list still shows the BMS, including correct up-to-date values:
I think your point about Settings - System setup - Battery monitor got that resolved, though.
@alexpescaru I see you have DVCC enabled, but then all it’s features disabled. What is then the point to enable it? Is it to forward some information to inverter?
I looked into manuals and posts and looks like I should enable DVCC, but I’m unsure what particular features I can enable. I’ll consult it with the battery producer, I left all but “Shared current sense” off for the moment.
“Controlling BMS” item in the DVCC menu is still missing in my case.
I guess I’ll see tomorrow with sun out, if everything is working correctly. but for now, it seems id does use battery power.
In my case:
I don’t need to limit battery voltage, so that one disabled.
I don’t need to limit battery current, so that one disabled.
I don’t have multiple chargers, so SVS, STS and SCS are disabled.
Indeed, once that Cerbo detects my Pylontechs, it enables, by default, DVCC.
And yes, Cerbo is supposed to forward the info from batteries to Multi RS.
DVCC enabled means that the Multi RS is controlled from Cerbo and its scripts.
All about charge voltage and current is available, so I can play with them…
The fact that it says BMS connection lost when you’ve enabled DVCC, means that somehow, the relevant information from BMS doesn’t reach Cerbo to forward them.
Somehow, your BMS is not taken into consideration as a BMS service…
Do you have access to Cerbo SSH prompt to see the communication between battery and Cerbo?
I think the problem could had been, that DVCC can’t operate with “Settings - System setup - Battery monitor” not set to the BMS. I also think the beeping started after I disabled it again.
For the moment it looks like it’s working, with DVCC “on” and Battery monitor set to the battery’s BMS.
SSH: I tried in past to connect via SSH, but didn’t succeeded. I looked at some resources and it looks like the option to enable SSH might be in newer firmware. So I updated firmware and then a new option “Enable on LAN” appeared. However, I still can’t connect to the Cerbo GX:
libor@linux-e53g:~> ssh root@192.168.1.249
ssh: connect to host 192.168.1.249 port 22: Connection refused
libor@linux-e53g:~>
“Charge Voltage Limit” - I don’t see such parameter, though I could have easily missed it, since there are like 200 of them. The producer set the BMS particularly for Victron ecosystem, which they actually recommend.
The problem: Initially the battery was only in discharging mode and solar power was not used for charging. At higher loads it was used to cover consumption. In the Victron Multi RS application, there was no “BMS controlled Yes>” option.
Cause: Improver sequence of setting parameters, particularly missing Settings - System setup - Battery monitor: My BMS.
Resolution:
Prerequisities: The BMS can be seen in the Device List
In Remote Console, go to Settings - System setup - Battery monitor and select your BMS
Enable DVCC
Verify, you can see the “BMS conrtrolled Yes>” entry in your Multi RS settings → Battery
Just by following the steps here: Venus OS: Root Access [Victron Energy]
Meaning, enable superuser, set root password, enable ssh on lan
And then using WinSCP, as I am on Windows.
