inverter current draw

[image]

Our inverter doesn't seem to hold a charge anymore. We've only had this system for a couple of months. Everything was working perfectly. Out of nowhere we began to lose power in our RV in the middle of every night despite the SOC being very high and us using little electrical appliances during the night. The app shows the inverter is set to "off", despite trying to turn it on. Once the sun begins to rise, the app shows the inverter is still "off" while it is charging back up, and is usually at a super low voltage around 4-8V. After a few hours, it's up to around 13V, but then doesn't get much higher than that.

We have 3 lithium batteries connected that are fully charged. We see the inverter dies at night, and the app shows the low battery warning, yet the SOC is still very high (usually above 80%).

We believe the SOC trickles down to 80% because our lights are hardwired into the batteries.

[image]

We haven't had a problem for months up until now. We think it may have had to do with a recent software update. Also, we bought a space heater and used it in our outlets for a couple of days. We made sure our batteries didn't go below 70% while using it, just wanted to heat up the RV in the mornings. Sometimes, when using the heater, the power would cut out and then turn back on.

[image]

We've tried resetting everything to default, checking for updates, restarting the system - nothing works. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Recently I was talking with someone, who seemed to have a pretty strong and emotional bias against Victron and higher end inverters in general, who asserted that Victron Inverters--specifically the Multiplus--exceed the idle consumption listed in the spec sheet by about 50% (~30W for the multiplus 3000/24).

I'm hoping those of you who have bothered to check, can provide some data points. Has the idle consumption you have observed (excluding power save modes), been higher, lower, or spot on, when compared to the datasheet?

The manual says maximum gauge wire is 35mm2 or 2awg ? Send a little small for peak power 2400w ? The manual also doesn't have any info on wire fuse size? Do I fuse the wire with 200A (for 2400w) or 100A (for continuous 1200w) ? I emailed Victron North America distributor but did not get any response.

Looking at the manual for this unit under section 4.2, we don't see recommended fuse type. Given surge current, inverter efficiency loss, and true wattage, we were going to use a Class-T fuse. Why has Victron not suggested a specific fuse type? Especially one with a higher AIC. What fuse type have others used?

Thank you.

Hello everybody.

Guys I am setting a Multiplus 800 connected to a 100 A Lithium battery with EXTERNAL BMS.

I have few questions about the default "inverter settings" that are the following .

Under the "Inverter tab" :

DC input low shut down=9,30 V

DC input low restart=10,90 V

DC input low pre-alarm 10,90 V

1# it seems to me this default setting is too low to protect the Lithium battery from a deep discharge > DC input low shut down=9,30 V > should I change it to a higher value like 11 V for example ? What do you recommend ?

2# the same for the other two values below . Are they too low ??!!

DC input low restart=10,90 V

DC input low pre-alarm 10,90 V

Thanks in advance for your help.

Oscar

[image]

We have a Multi Plus compact 12/2000/80-50 120v. Few questions:

-Can we disable automatic inverting upon AC disconnect?

-Can we reduce or set a limit on the battery charge mode current?

Hi,

I have a Phoenix 12/500 which I tried to use with a 500W load. The app showed that the inverter was under high load but the voltage drop on my battery was significant, it went from 11.5V to 10.1 or lower.

So at that point the undervolt protection kicked in. After this the inverter seems to be stuck in the 'OFF' state. I have tried now to charge the battery to at least 13V hoping the inverter would turn back on, but no success so far.

I saw the 'charge detect' setting that is on 14V on factory settings, and tried to lower this to 13V, but that didn't help either. Is there any way I can reset the transformer from this error state? The battery voltage should be high enough now to use it again with the inverter.

Thanks

SUMMARY: very innacurate VA values (33% less than the real value). How to improve?

I finally pulled the trigger and bought a Victron Phoenix Smart Inverter, exact model 12/2000 and with AC output of 230V. It has been automatically updated to the latest firmware version (v1.25) by the VictronConnect app, the first time I connected to it. I have installed it following the manual directions, and I specifically grounded it to my installation's ground (in my case, my vehicle chassis ground point). It's being fed by a single (so far, during the tests) Pylontech RV12100 12V 100 Ah battery, connected over the recommended 70mm2 battery cables with ~1m each.

I'm having some issues, which is kinda disappointing given Victron's price (about 50% more than the equivalent/comparable EPEver/EPSolar IP-Plus). I will post these issues in separate questions so as not to confuse the subjects.

Here in this post, I will specifically ask re: its VA precision: with a purely resistive load (ie, a 60W incandescent lightbulb with a power factor of exactly 1.00), I measure (using both my Uni-T UT210E DMM and a Poniee PN2000 Electricity Usage Monitor (both of which I have strong reason to believe are very precise), they both register 54W being drawn by the load; the VictronConnect app shows only 36VA (ie, about 33% or 1/3 less).

As the power factor is exactly 1.000 (as measured by the PN2000, and also as expected from a pure resistive load like the aforementioned incandescent lightbulb), the VA value shown by Victron should be exactly the same as the watts value shown by the DMM and the electricity monitor.

I believe the Victron inverter is under-reporting the VA value; as its voltage measurements were very precise (less than 1% difference when compared to the other two instruments), I understand this means its current (ie, A / ampere) measurements are way off.

This is very worrying, as not only I was counting on these VA measurements to be able to follow up on my electricity usage, but also because I understand its measured current values are used by the inverter itself for a series of other things (among them the ECO mode wake/sleep loads, and the Dynamic Cutoff value -- the latter of which I'm also having issues with, coincidence or not -- please see my next post).

Yesterday I went to the local Victron representative where I bought my inverter, and they were very helpful; they weren't aware of the issue, but they immediately pulled a brand new inverter of the exact same model from their inventory and together we were able to almost exactly reproduce the issue with it, with the only difference being that new inverter showed 39VA instead of 36VA (in the exact same test conditions). We also did a quick test (as it was getting late) with a much heavier resistive load (an air heater drawing about 800W/VA) and the VA measurement seemed to be much more precise, even if not exact either.

So, what is the expected accuracy of a Victron Phoenix Smart Inverter VA measurement? Is there any way to improve it (better grounding, parameter configuration, different firmware version, etc), specially with light loads?

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help.

EDIT: please see my posts regarding other issues I'm having with those inverters here:

Post #1: This very one.

Post #2: Phoenix Smart Inverter: issues with Dynamic cutoff

Post #3: Phoenix Smart Inverter: very little data being reported in the app

I usually do this using the Victron phone app, and adjusting the VE Bus current limit controls directly, but since a firmware bug is currently preventing this, I wonder if anyone knows if I am able to use the BMV-712 wall panel to change this setting? It's currently limited to 7.7 amps, for some reason, so even though I'm plugged in to a 30 amp outlet, i'm slowly losing battery life.

I've never had this problem until recently but I've been unable to set a current limit, and I am seeing the following error that I do not understand. My setup hasn't changed so I don't understand why this no longer works.

[image]

Good Morning!

I have a simple off-grid system, with a SmartSolar 100/50 CC feeding LiFePO4 batteries, which are monitored by a SmartShunt.

The VRM monitoring is superb, and now even better via a Rasperry Pi, connected to the SmartSolar and SmartShunt via the USB adapter cables.

Simple question: is it possible to add an additional smartshunt to monitor the energy flow to the (non-Victron) inverter? And have this show on the VRM as energy flowing to “AC Loads”?

I assume this is possible, but would hate to buy the additional shunt and only have the data available via the Bluetooth connection. Would love to see it all integrated on the VRM/remote console.

By the way - I love how easy this system was to put together. Unbelievable - it just works!!!

Thank you in advance!

Hi all,

I am hoping to get some help debugging this issue. I recently connected my new victron quattro and im having an issue with DC Power read out. I havent been able to update the Quattro firmware yet (still on 413) so im hoping its just out of date. I'm pretty sure the discrepancy is the inverter losses not being taken into account by the DC power but im not 100% sure. My system comprises of a Cerbo GX, BMV-712, two MPPT smart charge controllers and the Quattro. Any Ideas what it could be? Would updating the firmware and enabling DVCC help? Anytips would be much appreciated.

Thanks

[image]

I have BlueSolar MPPT 75/15 connected to a LiFe 12v battery.

I tried to attach a 300W Bestek sine wave inverter to the "Load" terminals of the BlueSolar but as soon as I plug it in, the Load switches to "Off" and no power to the inverter. The inverter is turned off and has nothing plugged into the outputs. I notice an occasional 0.1 amp spike in the "trend" tab. As soon as I unplug the inverter, the Load switches back on.

Battery is fully charged 13.7 v and the voltage doesn't change when I plug in the inverter.

I can attached the inverter directly to the battery and it works just fine.

Can the BlueSolar be used with the inverter? I'd like it to manage the inverter load.

I would like to operate Victron MultiPlus II - GX 48/5000 on an interim base together with one Freedom Won 5/4 Li-On battery. Later I plan to implement another Freedom Won 5/4 Li-On battery and operate both parallel. Is it possible to limit the settings in the MultiPlus at first from 5000W to 3000W ? Or do I have to choose the GX 48/3000 ?

I have a mobile (Caravan) system that is Lithium based but I DO NOT have Victron Lithium batteries. My batteries also do not have an accessible BMS. They are a Renogy 170 AH lithium batteries.

My system is charged via a Victron 100/50 Smart Solar MPPT and a Victron 30 amp AC charger. I also have fitted a BMV712, smart battery sense and a 65 amp Smart Battery Protect.

I am about to install a NON Victron Inverter 2800/5600 watts to see how much I can do via 240v instead of gas. Induction cooking etc.

my question is about how I best protect my batteries from over discharge whilst using the inverter.

I have read that you should not use a Smart Battery Protect on an inverter. Is this correct?

if you can then the 220 amp model it may be a bit small (2640 watts).

Can I use the BMV712 to activate a relay to disconnect the inverter?

Are there any other alternatives?

Thanks

Hello,

The 500VA Pheonix VE.Direct Inverter is rated to support up to 900W of peak power, according to the datasheet. However, the maximum wire gauge that can the screw terminals can accommodate is apparently AWG8 (also according to the datasheet). If the inverter is running from a 12VDC power source and the power demand is surged to ~900W, then the inverter would pull over 80A (accounting for some efficiency loss) which is well above the ampacity of an AWG8 cable. This seems like a potentially dangerous situation, or am I missing something? Thank you

Geoff

Hi all, I've asked a similar question before, but after doing some trouble shooting, I still have an issue I'm trying to solve for. I'm converting a Ford Transit 250 into a camper and just finished setting up my electric system last week.

Components:

BMV 712 Smart Battery Monitor

MPPT 100v 30A Solar Charge Controller

(3) 100Ah LiFePO4 Battle Born batteries

Giandel 2200W Pure Sine Wave Inverter

Sterling 60A B2B Charger

Progressive Dynamics 60A 12v LiFEPO4 Battery Converter/Charger

What I’m trying to solve for is that when I turn my inverter on, it beeps continuously and says "Lo", indicating low voltage protection, and then shuts off.

I have taken apart the inverter and checked that the fuses are in good shape. (There are 4 30A fuses and they are all good).

I have charged up my battery bank to full, using my PD Converter, and synchronized the SOC to 100% on my BMV 712, as well as input the correct battery monitor settings in the Victron app.

It was previously recommended to me that maybe my main 300A fuse was blown, or that there was a short somewhere. I have used a multimeter to test all connections and I’m getting consistent voltage of over 13v anywhere I test. That leads me to believe that there is not a short, and that the 300A fuse is not blown (I've tested on both sides of the fuse).

However, my BMV 712 will not show any history (please see my updated attachments).

What am I missing here? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Hiya. Quick question, when sizing cable and fuse for an inverter, should I be sizing for continuous power or peak power?

I have the Victron 12v 250w inverter with continuous power of 200w and peak power of 400w, connecting to a 12v 405Ah battery array with a cable run of less than two meters both ways.

Here's my (possibly misguided?) calculations... assuming I'm looking a peak power then 400w divided by 12 volts equals 33.4 amps. Then divided by efficiency factor of 0.87 equals 38.3 amps? Added on a 25% safety margin to reach 47.9 amps. The maximum cable size for this inverter is 10mm so I'm figuring a 50 amp fuse should be sufficient to protect this size cable?

Was planning on using 35mm cable for the battery array to future proof any subsequent upgrades.

If anyone can confirm I'm on the right track or if not kindly put me on the right track it would be much appreciated. Also are there any definite guides for cable and fuse sizing out there please?

Using Victron 300 Amp/hr Lithium + VeBus BMS. Can no longer turn Multiplus 2000 on/off or adjust in AC (Hybrid mode)- which is a great feature. CCGX now shows feature disabled and controlled by BMS. All firmware up to date.

Anyway to override? Really want to use small genny + battery to run higher AC loads.

Hi everyone, as the title how do I connect my 12/800/35 Multipass to VE configure

Hi there,

I have a van that I am building out and trying to straighten some things out in my system as I design for kitchen.

The basics:

• I have 400W of solar on roof.
• I have 200ah Lithium Ion in battery bank. (I ran some calcs early on and was looking at ~180ah of use per day, so 200ah seemed doable. I left a space open to drop in another if needed.)
• I have the 3000W 12 V MultiPlus Inverter Charger. (Some of my calculated items pulled a good bit of wattage (hot water kettle=1k W, induction stove ~1-1.8k W) so I figured Ok lets do the 3k W.)

I am hitting a lot of points where the inverter just won't budge though. Sometimes I'll be at a good charge say 75 - 80% of capacity and the inverter light will switch to "low battery" when I turn on the 1k watt hot water kettle. Really, at 1kW? No go. If I start the car, the kettle works. I haven't even bought the induction stove yet since I'm running into these issues.

I saw somewhere that potentially I would need at least 3 x 100ah batteries just to give enough current to the 3K W Inverter to do its thing. Is that right??

I'm hesitant to drop another $1k on a battery, although I would do it if it let me run my whole setup with the induction stove smoothly. It starts to worry me though that maybe I couldn't fill the 300ah battery bank fully with only 400W of solar. I've heard good rule of thumb is 200W solar per 100ah battery charge. I have enough room on the roof for another 50V panel..maaaybe 100W. So I'd be at 450W-500W, not the ideal 2:1 ratio. I do have an Orion that charges while I drive... so there is that. I would hardly ever be parked anywhere for days on end without moving. This is mostly a family extended trip mobile. Going for several days up to 2 months at a time remote work/travel trips. I also have a shore power hookup but don't plan on relying on that for steady refill, more of an emergency backup thing if in a pinch.

The other option would be to just swap out the 3k W inverter charger for the smaller 2k W inverter charger - if that is in fact a more appropriate current draw on 200ah batteries- not buy another battery, and just go propane setup for the kitchen stove instead of the induction stove. Thoughts? What say ye?

Recap:

1. Could my 3kW inverter charger (and solar setup) function smoothly with an additional 100ah battery and be able to supply for induction stove? Or
2. Cutting it too close and best to go to 2k W inverter charger + propane setup?

What is the input capacitance of Pheonix Smart Inverter 48V 1600VA? This is so that we can calculate if and what value of precharge resistor is needed with it.

Thanks, Prithvi

Hi!

I want to upgrade my installation, because I'm having too much stand-by consumption, but I'm not sure if it will erase the memory or something on the Victron equipment, thing is:

1 x Multiplus 12/1600

1 x Smart Orion TR 12/12-18

1 x Smart MPPT 100/20

1 x BMV-712

1 x Cerbo GX (with GPS & 4G)

2 x Smart Battery Protect 65A

1 x 200A lifepo battery

When not using the van, it stays in an underfloor parking, so I get no chances to get solar power (may I try to change the fluorescent light over the van?), so van is using around 130Wh/day with everything "Off".

I want to put 2 manual analogic "non powered in any way" battery 300A switches to disconnect manually the chargers from one side, and the rest of the system if van needs to be stopped more than 1 week.

So the question is, what will happen with my configurations in the MPPT, Orion, Multi and Battery Protects if I cut the power for 2-3 weeks? Will they wake up with the same configuration, or will they loose it? And the Cerbo? Will it also loose it?

Thanks!

Albert.

Hi

I have a Victron 12/500 inverter and have noticed about a 0.85Amp draw without any load. Is that normal?

cheers

Mat

Greetings !

New guy here. Resto-modding a vintage motorhome - inclusive of lithium batteries for the house systems. Seriously considering the MultiPlus Inverter/Charger - 12/3000/120-50/120V.

I particularly like the feature to "dial down" the battery charging current via the remote panel. Might this feature also be automatic such that when I plug into differing shore power receptacles (15A, 30A, or 50A) the MultiPlus will automatically throttle the battery charging current ??

Thanks you in advance for your answers and comments - and thank you for the wealth of information here. I'm certainly a beneficiary.

Steve W

Southern California

General question, I'm learning as I go ahead, and the more I progress the more I realise I don't know anything :-)

I have a small solar setup and my battery is a Victron Deep Cycle AGM 60Ah.

It is connected to a SmartSolar 75|10 and I monitor it via a SmartShunt.

The battery is used to power LED lights and give power to a couple of small electrical loads. Everything is connected to the load output of the charge controller, works perfectly fine. With the lights on I draw around 24W.

Battery charges correctly, everything is fine.

I also have (wired directly to the battery/shunt) a 1000W inverter.
It doesn't get used much, and generally with loads of about 50/150W for 10/15 minutes maximum.

So far so good.

I sometimes want to connect a much bigger load (air compressor). It runs for less than a minute generally, unless it is fully empty, in which case it will run for a couple of minutes, (but this case will happen less than once a month).

The compressor is rated at 700W. When used, the SmartShunt measures about 900W (and a healthy 86A) but the battery voltage drops down to 10.5 under that load.

The SmartShunt indicates about 20 minutes remaining energy (at 50% SoC) under that load.

I used it a couple of times to test it. Battery SoC went down about 10% (as indicated in the app), charged happily in the next day or so.

Questions are:

– how much would be an acceptable voltage drop under an heavy load for that AGM battery (cannot find data online)?

– any pointers on how to properly calculate battery capacity to run something like that?

Thanks in advance.

[image]

can anyone please advise which settings to change out of these 6 pages.

Equipment on board is as follows

Victron multiplus inverter charger 12/3000/120

6 × trojan t105s 6v wired to make 12v. 675 amps in total

Absorption 14.7

[image]

Bulk 14.82

Float 13.50

Equalization 16.20

Figures taken from trojan website.

980w solar into victron mppt 150/85

[image]

No mains power only generators 1 x honda eu20i and a kipor 6.7kva

[image]

Anybody an idea why my Multiplus compact 12/2000-80-30 draws about 2178 watts (176.90amps) from a 200AH Lifepo4 for a 1500 watts coffe maschine? DC Cable size between Multiplus and Lifepo4 is 50mm thick and about 1.50 meter long. I also got a cheap chinease 2000 watts inverter only which I wanted to replace by the Multiplus and this chinease inverter is working fine with the same setup. The max Power what that inverter draws out of the Lifepo4 are 1640 watts. Could be something wrong with the Multiplus? I guesss there are no settings which I could change. Any help would be much apriciated.

Regards,

Helge

I'm wondering if I bought undersized cables to link my batteries to the Multiplus (12 | 3000 | 120 - 50 | 120V.)

Before I ordered cables, I looked at an AWG to mm2 table online and assumed it was accurate. But no. It says AWG 1 == 50 mm2.

Per tables I looked at after ordering cables, (e.g. this one) AWG 1 is actually 42.4 mm2. The Multiplus manual recommends 50 mm2 (x2) and I've got 42.4 mm2 (x2).

Each cable is 24" from Lynx distributor to the Multi.

The cable vendor's web page describes the cable I bought as such:

• 105C temperature rating
• Outside Diameter of stranding: 0.3540 inches (nominal)
• Rated to handle 245 amps continuous outside of engine space
• 836 strands of copper (30 AWG ea strand, rope lay Class K)

I'm starting with 2 Battle Born 100AH batteries (plan to add a 3rd if needed) and I've got a 200A mega fuse on each AWG 1 cable to the inverter. Am I okay? If okay with 2 batteries, still okay with 3 batteries?

This is a 30A RV and I won't be trying to run the air conditioner off grid. (Unless I attach my small Honda generator to shore power inlet, and then maybe I'll try air con if it's really hot.) The Honda spec says: 120V 2200W max. (18.3A), 1800W rated (15A).

@Kevin Windrem

I have a simple Solar setup, using MPPT 75 I 15, a Siemens Solar Panel M110-24 and a 12V110Ah battery.

[image]

I want to add more battery capacity, but that is another issue, so I wounder if I can connect an Inverter 12Vdc to 230Vac-700W direct to battery?

[image]

this is because the MPPT75 I 15 has a máx load output of 15Amp (180W) and the inverter will consume much more. The MPPT 75 I 15 will shutdown port LOAD when battery reach low battery level. As the inverter has a wired powerOn control, the battery will be protected since the wired powerOn from inverter is connected to port LOAD. When port LOAD is off, inverter is off.

Is it possible? thanks in advance, best regards.