I have a separate battery bank for each phase of my system but only one charger. I want to be able to switch the maximum 100A charger power and their sense lines from one battery bank to another at the same time. Does anyone know a mechanical or electromechanical switch that would do that? Thanks for your attention this far.
This is not recommended by Victron - all inverters of a parallel or polyphase system should share the same battery bank.
Parallel your banks and avoid the problem.
I would need to have all similar batteries to do that which is an alternative problem for me getting the most from what I have. Sorry to extend the question but Is there any background on the Victron recommendation?
Unofficially, I think as long as the battery negatives are well bonded, then basically the system will work and be controlled by the weakest battery. As soon as one inverter gives a low battery warning, this will be echoed through the inverter chain.
Your batteries cant be too dis-similar. If you are prepared to do manual switching, then look at using battery isolator switches for the power line (negative would not need to get switched).
Positive sens could come from the common of the isolator switches, providing the battery banks are close together. This would at least compensate for the volt drop in the common cable lengths.
Why aren’t you using the chargers in the inverters?
… battery -ves are well bonded …
Yes, if only I could gang a 100A switch with a couple of 1-5A ones (for sense lines)! I believe there may be octagonal pins designed to link specific DIN rack mounted switches (even with ganged switch motorisation) but I can’t find anything catalogued.
Thanks on the warning to look out for the weakest bank limiting the rest.
My Multiplus-II inverters will be charging my batteries when my 50A generator is running but otherwise my single MPPT450/100 will be switched as required.
you could try using a diode or FET splitter for the MPPT (it was not clear previously what the 100A charger was).
I’m not following how diode(s) or FET(s) could mitigate my sense line issue.
The V sense is an issue, however, the solution with diodes would be to take the +V sense from the input to the diode splitter, and to add 0.6V (or the low current volt drop) to the Abs and float voltages in the charger. The common point of the splitter will follow the lowest battery voltage. With FET’s there is no volt drop to worry about.
Thanks for your advice. It got me thinking. I’ll vote your response. In the end for each battery bank I’ll use 6A 3p contactor to pass sense lines and the coil current for a 100A contactor.
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