Why does the charge controller (Victron Smart MPPT 100|50) not allow the PV charge to the battery sometimes when the battery is slightly discharged, and there is input wattage to the solar charge?
Here my 560ah bank is 5% discharged, and I know there is solar wattage incoming to my 800w of panels, yet the controller does not charge the battery, I’m not sure why? Anyone?
The system works great all the time, this is the second time I have noticed after the night, that it maybe takes a while for the system to “wakeup” before it allows charge to the battery bank?
Any information appreciated.
Thanks, John in Montana USA
Grab a screenshot of the MPPT battery settings from VictronConnect including the expert settings. We may be able to yell you why. We could guess, but better with some data.
Nothing wrong I can see in the settings that would cause it. There are reports from time to time of MPPTs not waking up. One thing that crops up is having a Bluetooth VE Smart Network and VE Direct cables to the GX device, if that is the case switch off the VE Smart Network. Cycling the “Charger enabled” often gets it going. Sometimes a complete power down and restart stops this. The final thing is an intermittent wiring fault between the MPPT and the battery so there is voltage drop and while the battery may be 13.3V, the MPPT terminals read higher so the MPPT quickly goes through absorption to float. The odd thing is your screenshot says storage which suggests it has tried to run. Check your cabling.
The next time this happens check the VictronConnect app status page to see what the MPPT thinks the battery voltage is. You could also try a multimeter.
As soon as I left the VE Smart Network within the MPPT it started charging, WTH?
VE Smart networking is for systems that are NOT connected to a GX device, it is an either / or thing, you run one or the other. Running them both can create erratic problems and is not recommended. It is something that we have to tell people a lot.
My system uses a Cerbo GX
