I just purchased this van last week and the last couple of days have noticed some electrical issues with the outlets - everything built in with switches and the refrigerator are working fine. The convection oven tripped after seconds of turning on but would turn on a moment after. I tried a few times the last two days and it happened each time. The outlet worked fine to charge my phone and laptop. Tonight, I tried to charge my toothbrush and when I went to check it, the outlets were down - both outlets arenât functioning. (Itâs 4:40am and thatâs the time of the screenshots.) There are no visible fuses for the outlets, only for built in electrical systems like lighting, toilet fan, and water heater. Iâm brand new to this system and learning as I go along.
Is 11.17 volts too low for power outlets?? Battery is still at 70-some percent.
Your battery is flat, 11.2V is too low for either lead acid or lithium batteries, you need to know what type you have. Secondly, you are not getting your batteries recharged, you need to get your batteries up to in excess of 14.0V each day to recharge them enough. You are using more power each day than you are putting back into your batteries.
In the short term you need a full recharge getting the voltage up above 14.2V until the battery current on the SmartShunt is below 10A, preferable 5A. Your solar is not going to be enough you may need to run your engine.
Your SmartShunt has not be set correctly, it has a setting " charged voltage", currently set at 13.2V, this is making the battery show it is fuller than it really is, it needs to be set at something like 14.2V (see FAQ linked below).
Finally for the moment, if you have lead acid batteries, as your batteries have been undercharged it is not known if they are failing or not, 74% should be 12.3V, 11.2V is empty but as the SmartShunt is set wrong the 74% can not be relied on. Once you get the SmartShunt reset and the batteries recharged then see how you go. If you have lithium batteries these do not.mind if they are not fully recharged.
Victron have a book linked below which covers battery storage, charging, problems etc.
I also know of a good and less dense write up on a canal boat forum which will be a good intro, you need to learn this rapidly or will quickly kill a set of batteries and applies equally to vans.
Wow. Thank you so much. Yes it was a grey and rainy day and mostly overcast previous days as well so probably why itâs not getting that full charge. However, I drove for two hours yesterday so wouldnât that charge the battery?
I will look at the SmartShunt settings and manuals you shared. The batteries are lithium.
Also I just looked at my unit and the green light for the inverter is not on, even after turning it on and off. Could this be an issue? (I just read - If the battery voltage drops below a certain threshold, the inverter will shut down, and the LED indicators will signal a low battery condition.)
Thank you so much for your quick and generous response. Iâm really grateful!
Thankfully lithium so there will be no issues with battery damage. The canal boat link is more geared towards lead acid but still has useful info.
For lithium you need more changes to your SmartBMV settings, Peukert Exponent should be 1.05, Charged Efficiency should be 99%, Discharge floor should be 10%. This will make it more accurate.
Here is a generic voltage SOC chart and you can see 11.2V is somewhere between 0 and 10% which shows how misleading the SmartShunt is when not set correctly.
I am not sure you have engine charging because the battery voltage recorded on the solar controller was only 13V or so yesterday. That might be because the batteries were empty or the charge current is limited. Do a test, look at the current on the SmartBMV with the engine off, then start the engine and see if it increases over the next few minutes. If not then it has not been added to the van. If not, we can advise on a charger for this.
In terms of the Multiplus, just get the batteries recharged and then try to turn it on again. I am not sure about lights as mine is in a cupboard and I have monitoring kit so do not bother with LEDs.
Thank you again so much. I updated those settings and the battery dropped to 54%. And yes Iâm getting some quick lessons on basic electrical knowledge so thank you. I see how that itâs low and makes sense why my convection oven wouldnât run.
I do have an Orion Smart DC-DC Charger. Is that to pull power from my van or to give power to my vanâs battery? Itâs currently disabled because of the low input voltage.
Ok another setting on the SmartBMV, at the bottom you have the option to reset manually, do that and set it to 5%, then you know it will be pretty close. There is another setting, Battery SOC on reset, swap that to âuse last settingâ or words to that effect.
The Orion DC to DC can be used to go from engine to lithium, which is the normal route and will be shutdown because the engine is off. Sometimes it is the other way. Start engine and it should come on, but if it is a small unit, 20 or 30A it will only slowly charge the batteries.
On the solar, 14.6V is tpo high, it is the absolute max, I would use 14.4V at the most here, see if you can find manufacturers details for the batteries. I would also check the expert mode settings as well.
Hi again. Thanks for the tips. Iâm curious why you suggest setting the SOC to 5%. Do you think 54% was not accurate?
With sunlight today, the voltage came up to 13 and the outlets worked again for low voltage charge. The battery charge has only come up 15%. (Itâs 7:30pm local time.)
I also noticed there is a lynx distributor that isnât lit and it doesnât have Bluetooth connection like the other Victron modules. I tested the solar panels and two of the four arenât contributing to the battery charge. Whether theyâre covered or not, the wattage stays the same. Iâm wondering if thereâs an issue with the lynx distributor and therefore itâs not managing the solar power and overall properly and thatâs why itâs not charging quickly and the outlets seem to blow. Curious of your thoughts!
The 54% is not accurate for 2 reasons, it the SOC has been resetting to 100% when the batteries were not full so the 74% you started with was too high. The voltage of 11.2V on the SOC chart I gave you is between 5% and 10%. Until you get the batteries full then any SOC is a guess and 54% may mislead you that you have more than you really do.
The Lynx distributor does not have Bluetooth, it is simply a bus bar and fuse holder, it does not do anything else. It has a central green LED that should light when there is power. It has an LED for each fuse which should normally be off, if they show red it means the fuse has blown. The Lynx distributor is normally connected to the battery and connects the loads and charger, so on the battery output side of the MPPT, the Orion and to loads such as the Multiplus. I have no idea why the light is not on. The Lynx Distributor is not normally used for solar panel connections.
If you have 4 solar panels but only 1 MPPT then all panels go to input side of the MPPT. As you are getting some charge it sounds like you have 4 panels in parallel or 2 sets of parallel panels (strings) with each set (string) having 2 in series. You have a poor connection in one of the strings if 2 strings or 2 of the panels if 4 in parallel. This could be in the clip together panel connectors, in a junction box, in the connection into the MPPT, a failed panel or broken wire. It really is a case of chasing down this sequentially by checking each connection. A multimeter can be useful if you know how to use one. Just be careful, your screenshot shows 45V on the panels, that is enough to give quite a jolt.
