Hi, there are times on our narrowboat when we are on the waterways and our wet battery status is fairly low, but we would like to boost the fridge, use the shower drain pump and use other devices without having to turn on the engine. So, we bought a lithium ion battery pack, which has both AC and DC output. This would be hooked up to the shoreline socket. To use power solely from the power pack, should we then have our Victron Multiplus inverter turned to “On” or switched “Off”? (We understand it should not be turned to “Charging”, which would cause the power pack to charge up the leisure batteries, which it does not have capacity to do).
Many thanks,
Francis
I believe that you are in a bit of a pickle here because it is not really the way the Multiplus is set up to work. There is no setting on the Multiplus to just pass through power without charging the batteries.
Rocker switch.
“Off” and no power passes through.
“On” power will pass through and charging will occur, if the ac demand is higher than the ac input current limit then it will stop charging and start inverting.
“Charger only” power will pass through and charging will occur with any spate current between the ac input limit and the required consumption.
Do you have any other control on the Multiplus such as a GX device or digital control panel. If you have a GX device then you can set it to invert only and set the ac input current limit to match the power pack.
The other thing is on the output of the Multiplus before the consumer unit you could add a selector switch to select either Multiplus as the supply or a hook up for the power pack as the power supply. Then your 240V ac system could be run entirely independently from the power pack.
Dear pwfarnell,
I am relieved and grateful to have your clearly experienced opinion - thank you sincerely! Ok, I think I will ask a boat-savvy electrician to add a selector switch, as you describe in your second text. That seems the most straight forward.
Our Multiplus is the 2000W/80A model, and I’m understanding that switching the inverter to “Charging” mode when the battery pack is plugged into the shoreline (on AC mode), even when our wet batteries hold good charge (Our leisure + engine battery total 230A), isn’t going to work.
So, the selector switch really sounds the way to go!
I’m very grateful,
Francis
Incidentally, the power pack we bought is rated at 1070W (30.4Ah)
You can set the charging current to 0 or deactivate the charger in the settings of the MultiPlus, but that would be a permanent setting.
You could also configure the “charge current control” assistant in the MultiPlus, with that you could deactivate/activate the charger with a switch connected to AUX1, AUX2 or T-sense of the MultiPlus.
1 Like
Hi Matthias,
Thank you for that additional advice. We definitely wish to keep the full functionality of the Multi plus, and avoid any permanent settings.
But your second idea is a further option which I will pass on to the electrician who comes to rectify the issue. Simple and straightforward is best for us, even if that means having to keep on switching selector settings whenever we hook up to the battery pack, or go out cruising the canal, or use a marina “hook-up”.
Thank you, Matthias.
Warm Regards,
Francis