I discovered that the ECO mode that was supposed to be highly configurable is limited in such a way that it is useless for my fridge. It appears to power on and do some internal things before deciding to run the inverter. So far I have seen it run inverter at around 30, 60 and 90 watts and it always takes 6-7 seconds before starting inverter if it feels it needs to.
The longest seek duration I can set in the ECO mode config is 5 seconds.
I feel that these arbitrary limitations are preventing a good use of this inverter. The 64s interval is probably ok, but if I were able to set the seek interval to 8 seconds to be compatible with this fridge that would mean a 8/64 duty cycle reducing the loss by less than 12%. If it was possible to push this interval to 300 seconds I would reduce it to 8/300 or 2.7% which would be much better.
(I know there are some things running while in sleep mode so not a full saving possible, but still a lot better.)
Could we please have a little more flexibility here? Maybe a custom/advanced mode allowing entering the values instead of sliders so the normal interface can be kept simple?
I have this exact same issue for my fridge. I also would like a firmware update that allows ecomode search times longer than 5 seconds. It seems like this could be a simple firmware fix here. Here’s a post I made on a different forum about it. The solution I came up with was a secondary tiny circuit that turns on a 5W light bulb for 8 seconds to trick the Victron but obviously that is a clunky solution and a waste of power when the goal is saving power. I also discovered that in the Victron Connect android app, you can type in arbitrary values for the Wake-up power and shut down power of eco mode. So even though the plus and minus buttons move in 10VA increments, you can type in 5 or 3 for example. Also, it allowed me to set the ECO mode search interval to much longer than 64seconds. But the search time wouldn’t go longer than 5.0sec.
What sort of fridge compressor do you have? I understand that a modern inverter compressor fridge doesn’t give the same thermostat on signal that the Victron in Eco mode would recognise.
Here’s the details of the circuit I made in case anyone else finds it useful, but again a simple firmware fix would make this unnecessary.
I designed a little circuit to turn on a 12V 5W automotive lightbulb for about 10 seconds and then switch off. I’m running this off a 120V to 12V AC-DC 500mA “wall wart” power supply that I had laying around. The circuit operates at 12V and is limited to 500mA through the power supply. I was able to scrap the capacitor and NMOS transistor from an old switching power supply that I didn’t need. It successfully tricks the Victron into staying on until the fridge compressor has time to engage. Now, the Victron only wakes up every ten minutes and runs the compressor if needed to get to the programmed temperature and then goes back to sleep, exactly as I wanted.
If you dont want to design your own circuit to do this, they make simple modules to turn on a relay at power up and turn it off after a short time. You could use this and wire a 12V power supply and a 5W light bulb to the relay outputs. Search google for “DC 12v signal timer relay adjustable delay” to find many options on amazon or aliexpress.
Mine is a commercial fridge without an inverter. The inverter shouldn’t be a problem though. The issue is that modern fridges often take some time to turn on and boot up before they start the compressor and start drawing power. It can take 10 seconds or maybe even a few minutes before they turn on the compressor and start consuming any significant energy. Since the Victron only searches for 5 seconds for power usage, it cuts the power off before the fridge has even started working. Allowing ECO Mode search times of up to 120s would solve this on all types of fridges including inverter fridges.
I am so glad to see others are having the same issue maybe we could get a slight fix.
My fridge is a cheap Point PORF585DW and i have measured it’s wake up time to 6.5 seconds or so. Just long enough for the victim not to pick it up. It appears to be able to regulate it’s compressor at 30, 60 and 90 watts.
