"Faulty" Victron MPPT cause major freak-out and chaos. And it smells funny 👃...
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- Опубліковано 10 жов 2022
- All Victron charge controller stopped charging at the same time! A major freak out of the system resulting in 0A going into the battery. Of course, this happens when you're not at home. Thanks to the Victron VRM, I could get access to the controllers and found that they all show -1°C which caused them to stop charging.
Back in the garage, I could do some troubleshooting and fault finding. I could get 3 out of 4 controllers working again but the main MPPT did not want to play the game and refused to start charging. And it has this funny smell...
A big thanks to the Victron Team for replying so quickly and helping me out here (even on a Sunday).
Someone else had a similar issue with one of the Victron Solar Charge Controllers and a negative temperature glitch:
community.victronenergy.com/q...
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Hi from cloudy, cold UK! 🥶
Thanks for the info re app/VRM firmware differences! Only been running Victron system for a few weeks and spotted this but refrained from installing the VRM update as I didn’t understand why it was different. Makes perfect sense now 😁
Keep up the informative and entertaining work Andy, cheers! 🍻
Thanks Nick. I didn't know this either and was wondering why there is a difference. Stay warm over there...
We are neighbors! Hi Andy. I live not so far from you in Karalee. Just wanted to say thanks for, not just the great technical information but the great entertainment as well. I am just a dabbler in solar a t present but I certainly enjoy your videos immensely. Thank you
Thanks a lot for saying hi and yeah, that's just 30min away from my place...
Wow. What a frustrating situation Andy. Glad Victron is looking into it. Keep up the good work buddy. 👊🏾🇬🇧🇯🇲
Thanks 👍 Yeah, their service was pretty good and they replied even on a Sunday. I've sent all the data and screenshots and they work on it. They probably replace both MPPTs through the dealer down here.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia that’s fantastic service. I’m wanting an all in one inverter system so won’t be using victron. If I could afford to buy 15kw Quattro I would but I feel that would be way over my Budget.
Thanks for these videos! Love the content...I have learned a lot from this channel!
Thanks a lot for your feedback. More to come...
Hi Andy,
first of all: in my Installation the same -1°C issue occurred on 2022-10-05 at 14:45. At that time no change was made and we had really normal weather conditions.
The installation is very similar to yours, which is, after looking all your videos, of course a pure coincidence 😉😊. It is only at a smaller scale with one MPPT 250/85, one Multiplus and an 14 kWh EVE with JK BMS and Victron smartshunt. I only started right from the beginning with the Cerbos GX device and have an ESS assistant running.
But back to topic. As the issue occurred, we were at holiday, checking VRM not every one and a half minute, but every two minutes 😉. Diagnosis via remote:
- No error message!!!
- Everything works fine, only the MPPT shows an input of 180V but no output
- Multiplus was decharging the battery and feeding into the grid
- Restarting the system didn’t help
So I shutdown the system to prevent the battery from deep discharge. Being back from vacation I checked the installation via Bluetooth and found the virtual temperature of -1° C immediately. I am very sure, that there was no temperature indicator before, you confirmed that in your video - thank you. After switching off the “low temperature cut off” everything works fine again.
After watching your video I found an update on VRM for the MPPT, which was not shown via Victron Connect. So I updated the firmware from 3.10 to 3.11 and the ominous -1°C vanished. That is the actual state.
Regarding the smell: the MPPT 250/85 becomes very hot during operations. With an input of 170 V and 28 A I measured a surface temperature of 57°C. The temperature of the MOSFETs must be nearly at 100°C or more. In my opinion the passive cooling layout is overloaded. So I installed an active cooling system with two small fans, sucking the air out of the heat sink, controlled by the Cerbo GX. With that, the temperature stays at max. 44°C and there is no smell anymore.
Many greetings from old Germany and a lot of thanks for your instructive, helpful and always enjoyable videos.
Jürgen
I was warned by my supplier to steer clear of the ESS as it does not work well with LiFeP04 so just be careful for this as well, I have also set up my MPPT's mostly as Andy has his, I have just changed my voltages as I am running 15 cell batteries and not 16 cell.
Unfortunately DVCC has messed up my battery top balance so there's that to deal with now too.
I have two cooling fans on my setup to keep the MPPT's cool and I have it running on the Venus GX WITH temp sensors that I made up using LM335 Temp IC's. I did this so that the fans are not constantly running but also to save a bit of power (it's not much but the fans will also last longer).
Just watch out when using these two (ESS or DVCC) with non victron appliances.... I found out the hard way that they do not play nicely together. Good Luck Jurgen, I hope you get it up again
@@GapRecordingsNamibia
I am about to build a ESS with LiFePO4 cells. What didn't work well with the ESS?
@ Gap Recordings Namibia:
please: no misunderstanding. After switching off the “low temperature cut off” in the MPPT everything works fine. The MPPT produces a lot of power again.
@Hunter: don’t worry, everything works well with ESS!
In my case, I want to use all the power from the roof for self-consumption, without cutting my consumers from the grid. So the inverter is running parallel to the grid and feeds in just the amount of power, which will be just needed. If there is more power from the MPPT available as needed, it should be feed into the battery for later self-consumption. If there is less power available, the battery assists the MPPT or at night, delivers all the energy for the Multiplus.
This works very fine, but only with an installed ESS!
DVCC is only needed, if an intelligent and compatible BMS is connected. Otherwise it is completely useless.
With an active ESS you only have to be aware, that the MPPT is remote-controlled by the ESS. All the parameters concerning charging in the MPPT are overwritten by the parameters from the Multiplus. Those are not exactly the same, the parameters in the MPPT are a little bit more detailed. But the main-parameters for absorption, floating, ... are the same.
As mentioned before, this works very fine for months. Since July this year, I was able to reduce my power consumption from the grid to less then 10% of the months before. Considering the winter in Germany, I think, that I can reduce the power consumption from the grid to approximately 30%. So 70% of the power are for free!!
@@jurgenburger7081
Thanks!
@@jurgenburger7081 Thanks a lot for sharing, Jürgen. That is quite interesting and odd that it happened to so many people at the almost same time. Victron is reading the comments here and is well aware of the issue. They suspect the software on the smart shunt causing the issue but still investigating...
Very interesting. We haven’t set our Victron system up yet, but this is quality information to add to our quiver…and the more the better. Thanks.
It’s also good to know there is a solid support network behind the products.
The support is outstanding and products and service are great. Never had a better combination of both.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Sadly I've had a different experience: I got Victron components for my RV specifically because of their retailer network. My expectation was not that nothing could go wrong because I got a Victron system. My expectation was that _if_ something went wrong, I could get help pretty much anywhere. Three months later my charge controller (MPPT 150/45) failed hinting at a faulty current sensor. I reconnected everything multiple times, sometimes it would start again, sometimes it wouldn't. After a couple of weeks it consistently failed. At the time I was the south of Spain and checked the website to find a dealer near me. Should be quicker/easier than getting support from online support, I hoped. I drove hundreds (!) of kilometers from one listed Victron dealer, installer, RV specialist... to the next, none could help me, some were just selling an MPPT or two, but didn't know anything about the products they were selling. Some claimed they had never heard of Victron - despite being listed; I checked multiple times. So I contacted Victron and all they told me was to get in contact with the original seller. He obviously also couldn't do much but go through the basics and then tell me to return the unit. So to me the highly praised network of retailers and installers was worth sh*t.
Instead of waiting for the whole "there and back again game" with a return shipment I just got a Renogy unit for a third of the price wich was delivered two days later and works without issue. Who wants to wait around for two weeks, pay for shipping etc. during a planned three week road trip? I have to say, I was and still am very disappointed.
Even with you it's your second charge controller already. Those aren't great stats for "premium products" in such a short timespan in my humble opinion.
It's frustrating to think that I could have gotten _two_ Renogy MPPTs (one "live" plus a backup) and still have saved cash money and nerves.
@@jakobtheiner6329 Thanks for sharing Jakob. That's certainly not good. I'm not sure how their dealer model works and if they are all networked together. So, buying a device from dealer A but returning it at dealer B.
And in such a situation you were in, that's really bad. They should have helped no matter what and advised you where to go to get help.
Andy, thanks for the great Video. Thank you for having these issues and walk through them so we all get to learn. WOW! Community helping Community😁
have you done a video on how you have so many MPPT's hooked up and how one is the MOTHERSHIP????????
Thanks for your feedback. I' more than happy to share my experience here.
I'll show more about this 'craziness' with Victron gear soon...
Thanks for all the amazing info. Keep making videos for all instead of answering emails for one. Most of us appreciate that choice! 👍
And me too, hahaha. Thanks Dave!
That exact thing happened to me this past weekend in the middle of a sunny day. When I looked at my VE Network, it showed the controller was getting Voltage and Temperature data from the VE Network. I removed the controller from the network and the negative temperature reading was no longer present. It also started charging right away and kept charging after I added it back to my VE Network. I do have a Multiplus II that has a temperature sensor, but I'm in southern California so the temperature was no where near freezing like it was reading. Thanks for sharing your experience with us!
Thanks for the information, Mark. Victron is reading here as well and picked up all our comments. Do you have a smart shunt as well?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Yes, I do also have a smart shunt but don't have a temperature sensor connected to that.
Merci Andy, je regarde cela car c'est quand meme inquiétant pour Victron charge controller...
Vive Australia
Thank you for the valuable information! Love the videos!
Thank you, Robert!
nice sound transition with the last frames...I am on the forum too but not had the issue in the marine world.
I haven't checked my controller for weeks .. just checked and its saying -18 degrees.. i know thew uk is cold in comparison.. but not that cold🤣 .. Victron sort it out!! good video Andy.. cheers .. mines a 100/50
Yeah, all sorted already. Both controllers will get replaced either through the dealer or Victron directly.
6.8Kw yay! Thanks for the update and info. Cheers
No problem 👍
Nice work Andy 👍
I was like a "faulty" victron? Sacrilege! Anyway, if there's anyone that's upto the task, it should be Andy. Thanks for the video.
Great service from Victron as they responded the same day and provided a solution the next day.
Well done Andy! Thank you.
Thanks Andy been watching you from the old PHEV days . Recently upgraded my off grid home to lifep04"s 48v system from lead acid so having a steep learning curve so finding your videos invaluable. Recently had the same issue and couldn't work out why this occurred. Brought my Victron solar controller back in 2018. was able to reset after disconnecting from the battery's though. I believe this was due being a cloudy morning then max current when the sun came out? I will check updates and see if this occurs again. 👍
An awesome informative video, this has helped me a lot.
Thanks 👍
I do love the smell of victron in the morning
😊
Hahaha, it's great, right? When I open the garage first thing in the morning... ahhhh, that smell so full of energy 😂😂
Good to know, as I'm hoping to build a full system in the near future, and trying to be ready.
Good morning Andy ☕☕ from Philippines 🇵🇭
That is really very good information for all of us spacialy technical department
Best regards from Philippines 🇵🇭
Thank you.
Scheissviechkram!!! Hahaha, I love your videos, they are full of things to learn, but funny the same way!! I almost peed in my pants seeing you grumpy and fighting the Scheissviecher
Intelligent as well as funny - what more could we ask for!
You do a great job of video production and editing.
Thank you very much!
Cliffhanger avoided! Thank you Andy.
Just slipped into my shirt again... 😉
Hahahaha, I watched your new mower episode, wish I knew some German!
@@taulli1 Someone should translate all this from my other channels and add subtitles. 😀
Good to know! Thanks Andy for the information. I have two of these controllers that were likely produced about the same time yours was produced. I will keep an eye on things. So far, so good here but then again yours was running flawlessly too until it didn't.
At least now what symptoms to look for and what could be causing this rather bizarre situation. Reading temperature when temperature sensing is off-------wow>
Do you use the original Victron VE.Direct cables/adapters? Someone here mentioned he had the same issue and replaced the cheap DIY cables with isolated ones.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Haven't had the problem to date but this is good to know. Keep us all updated on what Victron's solutions may be.
@@jws3925 Yes, I will. There was another glitch this morning with the West roof controller and also the East Roof MPPT freaked out but no -1° problem this time. I think I have a major comms issue in my system. I'm also still running Venus OS 2.66 on the Pi. Maybe it's time to update...
Failures are always more interesting than successes!
So much info and he knows alot just man is it hard to watch
Great job
And THIS is why I choose Victron! They care about their users.
Yep, they really do. Product and service is great.
Thanks Andy
On our boat.
We have a 100/30 behaving just like that. In broad daylight no output and shoving a minus temp. Was part of a wireless VE network with another mppt, smartshunt. Could not get it to work so switched out for a older smaller spare we had ondoard.
Thanks for sharing. Just disable the temperature cut=off in the MPPT. It's most likely the smart shut software which is buggy here.
I have a similar setup as you and a couple weeks ago one of my solar controllers start doing some strange things with not charging and I try everything like you to find what was wrong and I did find the problem which you found also but didn't notice it. In your video when you had it disconnected from VEdirect cable it worked fine. I had similar cheap VEdirect cables like you that are not fully isolated properly and this slowly damages your communication device in the unit and starts sending wrong signals. I have smart shunt that will not communication anymore via VEdirect completely damaged it. I now replaced all my cheap VEdirect cables with the proper victron ones and now everything works perfectly. but you need change them quickly because it may damage you unit completely and it will not communicate anymore soon. it is funny how yours happened exactly the same time as mine which was when I got large voltage spikes. Clearly not having things properly isolated will damage things in the long run. Sometimes cheap is not always better
That's a great tip, Mark. I didn't think about the communication cables.
I don't understand how it can slowly damage the device....
interferences being radiated into the non shielded VE direct cables killing the GPIO's on the ųC in the devices.
making your own VE cables is fine, but use the shielded Lycy cable and keep the braided copperhairs covering as close to the plug as possible. heat shrink and epoxy potting will make it a lil more durable.
or just put in the -fortune- coins and buy their premade VE cables 😂
What's the TEMP in Sunny HOT Australia?
MINUS one! Hah.
Glad everything appears to be working!
Yes, all up and running again...
ALSO! I am seriously jealous of how clean your cable set-up is, BUT...... it does make it very difficult to switch pieces around to figure out potential issues. Like the current issue for example.
Thank you. This is not a cabling issue. It's very easy to take the controller off the wall and temporarily connect it to a 12V battery for example. There should be no need to open any of the cable ducts unless I upgrade are extend the system.
Love the smell of hot solar charge controller in the morning, smells like ENERGY
Yeah, hahaha, me too! We should fill this in bottles and sell it to enthusiasts 😂
I'm also developer member of Victron ;-)
Are you? Hello! 👋
Funny, yesterday I had some very nice issues with my Victron systems
Das glaube ich dir gerne, dass du nicht mehr nachkommst, die Emails zu beantworten!
Du machst tolle Arbeit und super Videos! 👍
Mach weiter so!
Stay safe and stay changed! 😉
Greetings from Germany
Thank you.
Sorry to hear a top of the line gear is glitching out for you. I still have my Morningstar mppt controller with the original firmware out of the box. Granted it’s not communicating to anything. But it just works. The smart shunt tells me what is happening. Good luck.
I am with you Mitch I have a Mercer 5kW system with 7 kw of pylon tech batteries -
It just works!
I also have a Victron 5 kW system with 8 kW of Blue nova batteries -- One has to pay constant attention to things like software upgrades etc and I am unable to get it to take my batteries down to 90% - it holds out at around 65 %
I wish I had "Mr Off grid garage's" knowledge but I don't think I have enough life left to accumulate it
En effet c'était assez stressant cette situation que tu as eu ANDY, merci pour le partage de cette nouvelle expérience avec VICTRON ! Heureux que tout est enfin opérationnel.
Hey Andy just to say y months later, I just had this exact issue on my 150/70 temperature -1 and the mppt just shut down this morning for no reason, cloudy rain to start and then sunshine - latest firmware as per VRM devices.
Professional information. And what will happen if I exceed 150V from PV. Will the controller turn off or cut the voltage and not accept more than 150VDC
Glad I looked at this video, but I am facing an issue where I do not see the temperature, but my Mppt 100/50 has seemed to have died. I put it into service the last week of December 2023 with lead Acid batteries and changed those batteries out the 1st week of March with an Epoch 300Ah battery (black). Now a month later my MultiPlus II 3000 Ah 2 x 120 has blown out a capacitor and also I believe the Mppt 100/50 may also have died. Testing I have approx 68 volts coming into my isolation breaker but showing 14.41 on the output with breaker open. On Mppt 100/50 I find the input voltage is 14.41 but on the output it is 14.36 which is the same as the battery. I also had the bulk light blinking on the Mppt but when I look at status of it it shows the State of Battery as Off. I also found the Cerbo S-GX blew the power fuse. That I am going to reinstall shortly as I just received new fuses through Amazon. Any thoughts as to what may be going on.
This happened to me also. I was running lead acid batteries at the time and the temperature compensation brought my battery voltage to 14.8 v for a whole day.
Did is shut to protect lip0 low temp. requiment?
@Andy. Have you checked that the AUX input of the smart shunt is set to NONE? Cross talk from the RUVI??
Yes, that is set to none since the beginning. I haven't connected the Ruuvi yet to the Victron system. The Pi has no working BT...
I had an issue about 2 weeks ago where both MPPT's stopped charging. I ended up changing from my own settings to the standard LiFePO4 battery and it has worked since. Two days sgo I also noticed there was an upgrade via VRM but not by VictronConnect. After the upgrade to both MPPT's I had an incompatibility message which went after I upgraded the BMV. How strange.
That's quite normal. I'm getting these incompatibility messages all the time when changing equipment around. They usually go away once everything has settled for a while... Do you use genuine VE-direct to USB adapters or DIY?
Thanks Andy- looks like it’s colder out your way than here. (If only that was the problem…)
Not great.
Someone suggested the DIY comms cables I'm still using. That could be it!
Hi Andy. Been having odd issues with my 150/70 TR as well over the last few days. Mainly issues with the VRM portal. So did a firmware update to version 1.61 from 1.59, and this morning had no output like you.
But as you did Found the BMS function turned on. Just turned if off and all is well my unit is about 3 years old. So thanks for the help and info. But i have no BMS problem per version 1.61.
Wondering if there was a version between the two that triggered the problem..
Thanks for sharing, Andrew. Yeah, I never saw a 1.60 firmware for these controllers either. Went straight from 1.59 to 1.61.
So, you had the DVCC turn on? Do you have a smart battery/BMS connected?
I had similar problem and cheap VE direct cable was the problem. It worked fine on cheap USB to serial cable with PL2303HXA chip but not the one with Prolific chip. You can see what chip it uses in device manager on Windows.
I discussed this with Victron and they said it is extremely unlikely that this would cause such a problem.
Hey can we do a test to see if we can use lead acid batteries and lifepo4 batteries for the same inverter of course using different charge controllers. Would it work.
Sounds like something was updated to show temp, but since the charge controller does not have a temp sensor it reads "-1" I do a bit of programming myself and use "-1" or "0" for a default number until its updated by the code. And since "-1" is less then 5 it shuts down to "protect" your batteries. In short Vectron shouldn't have turned the low temp shutoff on by default.
HI Andy. Is your off grid connected to grid as backup?
Andy, dich muss man einfach gern haben!
Dein email-statement ist absolut nachvollziehbar und korrekt.
Allerherzlichste Grüße downunder aus dem Herzen es Ruhrpotts:
Michael aus Dortmund
Herzliche Grüsse aus der Slowakei. Vielen Dank, dass Sie Ihre Erfahrungen und ein weiteres interessantes Video geteilt haben. Hat es geholfen, das BMS vom "Funknetz" zu trennen? Aber ich mache einen Witz daraus, es ist ein Beweis dafür, dass die Hardware buchstäblich eingefroren ist :D
All Victron equipment smells :) They use a blue epoxy type material and that smells all the time.
I installed today a Bluesolar 100/50 to test but tests will need to wait as I connected to a 12V battery to test and now I can not use it on my 24V battery. I did not know that at first connection it sets the battery voltage and can no longer be changed unless you have a VE.Direct cable or Bluetooth dongle so I need to get one before I can use it.
I wanted to open mine to see the internal construction and I was not able to thus I made a google search to see that it is glued with that smelly blue epoxy type compound used in may of Victron devices. It helps to dissipate the coil heat to the metal case (blue part) and probably reduces the coil vibration.
I have a 100/20 MPPT and after watching todays video found I had the exact same problem. Temperature of -1 and no charging turned off the temp as shown in your video and charging resumed again according to the devices the firmware is current and unlike your demonstration with VRM I didn’t get the option to update firmware via the VRM portal.
You only get the Update Option when bidirectional communication is enabled for VRM in your GX device.
It's weird it happened everywhere at the same time...
I had the same problem. Turned out it was a bat connection in the ve cable, plugged it back in firmly and temp -1 was gone
its getting temperature from the smart shunt ?
Die Geister die ich rief...
Mach deine Videos und gut ist es... incl. "Bombenfest" 👍
hello I saw that in your video, where you test the Daly Smart active balancer, it is for 16s battery banks but it also works on your 4S battery bank ?? or am I wrong to see and is it a Smart 4S active balancer? I hope you answer me in the meantime thank you. Angel
That's been discussed in the other video.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia 😭yes you're right ... I asked you the question there too but you don't answer me 😭 I'm sorry
Did you have to enable the dealer code in Preferences->Dealer to allow the developer forum engineers to access your installation?
No, they can do it anyway. That is just for the installer (if you had it installed by a company).
Does the VIctron need the battery to run? I ask as I have a small system and one issue is, the BMS cuts the discharge from the batteries, this in turns the MPPT charger controller off, so I have to do a little dance to allow the BMS to allow to discharge so the MPPT turns back on so I can charge my batteries... heh, hope that makes sense.. thanks for any feedback..
If the BMS turns off your battery, there is another problem with settings in the MPPT or BMS. The BMS should only ever disconnect the battery of one of the cells goes out of specs but not during normal charge and discharge operation.
Sir good day i just want to ask the different between high frequency inverter and low frequency inverter which is better?
That depends on your application. They both have their pros and cons...
I have a mobile fully Victron system.
The system has run faultessly untill it didn't. (low networked temp charge disconnect on all the networked chargers)
I reset the older 75/15 smart charger to factory defaults (yes, I did immediatly change the nbattery type to be correct for the system after the reset) and all came came back to normal.
- same low temperature not charging issue. ( I live in North Queensland and it does not get cold)
My system
- Victron 200AHr 12.8V smart battery (did its job and disconnected loads when the battery went flat)
- Victron Smart BMS 12/200 (did its job and disconnected loads when the battery went low)
- BMV-712 Smart (was beeping when I inspected the system today to an unlrelated jb on the trailer
- SmartSolar MPPT 75/15 fed from trailer roof panels below ( the networked chargers all worked after I did a factory reset to reset on this device)
- Victron BlueSolar MPPT 100/50 (not networked and not impacted by the system failure, it worked as normal when powered, was the only charger that would work and can be fed with external auxilary portable panels that are not normally connected, but do so via 50A Anderson connectors)
- Phoenix Smart IP43 Charger 50A (240V input) was not powered untill I checked the system this morning, when powered up, it refused to charge due to picking up low temp (-1 deg) from the network
- Orion-Tr Smart DC-DC Charger Non-Isolated 12/12-30 ( not powered during the entire event)
- 2 x175A semi flex panels on roof feeding the Smart 75/15 charge controller
- 50 liter fridge ( the primary load that runs 24/7 from the system. The system has no problem keeping up with the fridge)
- other loads for when we are fylly using the system include a xantrex 1800i inverter. (not relevent to the system failure)
I would be interested to know what the fix is and what Victron say currently waiting a call back from my supplier)
- the 75/15 charger is a few years old, I pulled it from a lead acid based 24 V system whilst I was waiting for the new one to come for the camper trailer. ( the new one has since arrived, but I had not got around to futting the new unit and putting the older unit back to the 24V lead acid system yet) Perhaps the solution for me could be to put the older charge controller back onto the lead acid system and the new one onthe lithium system?
My 75/15 stopped doing absorption three for four days ago. I did d factory reset and networked a smart shut (all Victron) … cycled controller but didn’t have network activated… so trying that I can look at days of history and see it too! So fix verified yet. Oct 12,22
The suspect it the shunt firmware at the moment...
Have you set the aux control in the smart shunt to temperature ?
It sits on None since I got the shunt 2 years ago.
What ever it is, it only happens when in network mode. All devices work fine on their own. Its like they don't recognise there is no temperature probe, but it doesn't happen all the time. I can go for months , then suddenly it happens. Leave network and it all starts back up fine . Thinking of buying the temperature probe to see if that resolves it
Why can't any company make anything that is bullet proof reliable anymore. I don't own any of the Victron pieces like your setup, but I know that Victron isn't cheap. BTW..... this is the 2nd time in about a year roughly that you have had an issue with those particular charge controllers. I've been using a Midnight Solar classic 250 unit for about 7 years and it has been flawless. Mind you though, it's not hooked up to wifi or the net at all. It's just been a stand alone, truly off grid charge controller.
Victron is pretty good. Much better than other companies out there. They are pricy but also provide a lot for that money.
How often does your Midnight solar gets software updates, new features, performance upgrades? At the end it's good that we have the choice. I like the OTA updates and VRM they provide. No one else does that sort of stuff.
And... the problem could be home made by using these DIY self-made communication cables. They are not isolated...
There isn't any updates of that side that I know of. But like I said, I'm offline for the power side. Also, I've had no need to monitor online. I've had no issues with my equipment. I was definitely impressed though to hear that Victron is on it when it comes to trying to improve anywhere needed. That is definitely a dying trait of most companies nowadays.
Also... you should have mentioned the self made cables being a potential issue. Definitely something that others need to be aware of as a possible hiccup causer.
I second this. Charge controller is something that should work not matter what. I saw many videos and reviews on Midnight solar. To my understanding quality, of the midnight units are far superior than victron. but they lacking the cool monitoring features like victron. I have few victron products. but next time I will try midnight products. And I hope they will upgrade their monitoring software and change that old font :)
Is there any benefit of running multiple smaller controllers than one large controller ? I got 6kw of panels waiting to install. and initial plan was to go with 2x 150/60 SCC. But now I'm thinking to get like 6x 100/20-48 controllers and parallel those. that way I can have much better redundancy. 6 is the maximum that I can plug to cerbo-gx. (atm using RPI4). My batteries are pylontech US3000C 15KW and inverters are from Meanwell (meanwell ts-3000). for now I'm using 1x pylontech us3000c with 1x 100/20-48 SCC and setup works perfectly for months.
Im using a setup with 2 controllers for 2 panels in parrell all attached to one battery, cant say theres any benefits as i havent got 1 to accomodate both panels and was thinking about a getting a single mppt to the job but after videos like this im starting to think i like my dumb charge controllers, one for each panel, which is probably hard to do if you want to do any series connections which im not at the moment but do see the advantages of the extra overhead, more felixble, i accidently had one unlplug and didnt notice for a while, these are cheap lead acid only profile charge controllers with only 2 leds, very basic but seem to work really well and do what they're say they do at the right voltages. Not much can go wrong which im starting to see the advantage of a dumber system, perhaps without lithium batteries since do i really need the energy density of lithium for space saving if I got room for a huge array of pannels?id go with a dumber battery chemisrty with less maintenance, although i wouldnt say lead acid is that chemistrhy perhaps salt or whatever. You know keep it simple, but to keep thinks simple you need to be smart so its not easy being simple.
Yes there is. (possibly)
Most Victron SCC's have just one tracker. (RS ones have 2 or 4)
If you have 2 x 150/60 you basically split up all your panels into two strings. That means that all panels in one string should be the same. (Same panel but also the direction).
Also a problem in a string will take out 50% of your capacity. (Also think about things like shadows on panels... But it depends also on the way you wire it).
If you go to 6x 100/20 you split up your panels into 6 strings. So a problem in a string will now only affect 1/6 of your panels.
I like redundancy. Several MPPTs, several inverters.
Also, my solar has different orientations and shading and to optimise that, I have the panels connected to different controllers.
Hi Endy, when did this happen to you? It's the same for me, all 3 regulators did not start in the morning from Sunday to Monday, i.e. from 9.10 to 10.10, but with the difference that it was at night when there is nothing on the roof and in the morning when the sun rises I look and the MMPT is still 0 so I go to look and my MMPT reports -176 c celsius I have 3xMMPT 250/85
Thanks for sharing. That was Sunday afternoon for me. Very strange it happend to a lot of people at the same time...
would you recommend this Waterproof Outdoor Surface Mounted 1-in-1-out 500V IP65 Solar PV Surge Lightning Protection DC Distribution Box Combiner Box ??????
Sure, if the combiner box is weatherproof, it can be sitting in the rain.
It depends on your requirements, so I cannot really recommend or not...
maybe you can answer me on this I bought Victron SmartSolar MPPT 250/100-MC4 can I get that data into my PC via a network cable it has 2 plugs with jr45
You need the VE.Direct to USB cable and Victron Connect software on your PC.
Thanks. Keep it charged.
Hi Andy. I have been enjoying your solar and Victron videos. I am curious what type of RCD are you using?
Thanks, Matt. I'm using the Clipsal RCBOs in my AC distribution. I've got them here on my website as well: off-grid-garage.com/electric-installation/
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I forgot to check there. Thank you. It appears that your RCBO trips on a "A" ground fault. I have been struggling with whether or not "A" is enough when running inverters or DC motors downstream and if it ought to be a "B". I will have normal domestic use motors running (eg washing machine) as well as larger woodworking machinery on my micro-grid. From what I can read here in Europe type "AC" are deprecated and "A" are installed as standard but it would seem that "B" would be most appropriate in this situation. Any thoughts? Keep the videos coming!
Had a very similar thing happen to me a few weeks ago. SCC normally shows battery temp from a BT smart battery monitor but the reading was -1°C. BT’d into the smart battery monitor directly and the temp reading was normal. BT’d into SCC and had to do SW update after which there was no difference. After I disconnected and reconnected the smart battery monitor from the network and rebooting the SCC, things eventually got back to normal. Not sure what the problem was but I’ve had no more problems.
Yes, that was the same problem as I had. Do you have a smart shunt as well?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia I have two systems, a FLA system with a BMV and a Lifepo4 system with a smart shunt. It was the FLA system that had the problem. Each system has it’s own 70/150 SCC.
Hi, can anyone tell me how to test how many amps I have left in my agm battery's? With a multimeter? I have 13.8v but I don't know how many amps, it's a 12v agm 110ah battery, thanks
Cannot be measured with a multimeter really. It needs a shunt which counts Ah in and out of the battery. Fully charge the battery, set the shunt to 100% and then discharge to 50% (55Ah) only and stop. Unless you hit the critical voltage at around 12.2V resting voltage before that.
I checked my mppt while watching your video. And same problem. It doesn't charge from two days now (less addict than you) I can see -18c on the app. I'm in NZ. I will see tomorrow morning if the charge is blocked only by the temperature cut off or not. I took some screen shoot. But my system is really simple, no vrm, a smart shut and a mppt 100/30.
Wow, it happend all over the world, it seems... so, just a smart shunt and an MPPT?
I have 3 chargers 150/35 victron and had the same problem back in January of this year. I fixed it by shutting off the solar input to each charger THEN shutting off the battery to each charger so ALL chargers were OFF at the SAME TIME. Then brought them all back up and turned the solar back on and BINGO problem was fixed and has never happened since. I noticed you didn't do this Andy you only reset each device 1 at a time. Try ALL your devices at the same time ;-)
Yeah, I did as well. What comms cables are you using DIY or genuine Victron?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia haven't got any comms cables yet, though when I do im planning on copying your raspi setup. Next phase of the project:-)
Hey Andy, I am very happy to meet you online and I am learning so much about LFP cells 😃👍
But I have a doubt 🧐 it will be a great experiment.
Can you test it for me 😊😊😊
The doubt is the cell if if I charge the cell at 3.4 volt fully charged and after that I increase the voltage can it push the AMS into the battery?
Thank you ❤️❤️❤️
Thank you. What is 'AMS' please?
3.4V is not a full charge unless you let it absorb for quite a long time...
Yeah I mean to say it is ampere.
Yeah I know the 3.4 volt is low and it takes a lot of time to absorb so you can try it with 3.5 volts.That can be very easy.
But there will not be so much room to increase the voltage after fully charging the cell.
And also thank you to listening my words 🙂😊
And please consider my writing because English is my third language 🤗
@@rajanikantamandal1205 Thank you. I charge to 3.45V which is just when the voltage starts to rise. Absorbtion does not take too long at this point so it may be something you can try as well...
Hello, unfortunately I also had the problem today. -20°C in the display. My charge controllers are all from 2022. Must now just live with the fact that the temperature compensation remains on off...
And already found the problem solution: Did not know that the Bluetooth unit is not updated via the VRM, but only directly via Bluetooth connection from VictronConnect can be updated. Once made everywhere an update (charge controller and SmartShunt) and everything is running again.
Heya, well that can happen at the end it is still electronics whiths can go faulty or needs upgrade's and with victron you know you have a relayable costumer survice
I've had issues victron products like battery sense showing wrong voltage and 75/15 lock on to equalize charge.
Did you report it through their community forum?
Hallo Andy wo sind die Kabelschuhe auf der Solarseite? ;-)
@@Reisefreund. Sorry mein Fehler im eifer des Gefechts falsch formuliert. Das mit den TR verbindungen ist mir noch nicht bekannt gewesen.
Very interesting. Temperature sensors basically never fail with a reading of -1C (or anything near -1C). A temperature sensor typically fails either low or high, where low usually reads less than -40C or high reads greater than 100C. So I would guess that Victron's firmware is not handling the failure properly and messing up the reporting. Or that the temperature sensor is reporting an software initialization value but never updating. But why one of the solar charge controllers that doesn't report temperature would cause such a mis-reading, that is very odd. If I were Victron I'd want to get that bad unit from you and figure out why the firmware got so confused.
So now the question is... what caused the failure in the first place? Unless you had thunderstorms in the area recently or other surge events, it should not have failed. You discussed the weather later on in your video... yes, a voltage surge is totally possible with broken clouds. A solar system can actually go from cloudy-levels of voltage to maximum radiance in mere seconds... literally maxing out the solar panels for a few seconds as the cloud clears the sun due to the sheer brightness of the clouds (that are near the sun) combined with the unobstructed sun.
It sounds to me like maybe a component burned out from over-voltage. As Victron said... a tolerance issue with the voltage. That could very well be. It is very common to see (for example) electrolytic capacitor failures when the caps are specified with too-low a voltage to handle surges. That could, in turn, destabilize the switching MPPT supply circuitry and prevent the charge controller from operating properly.
An example of this would be... say you had a DC input specified for a maximum of 125V. Normally an experienced circuit designer would use 250V electrolytic capacitors in a circuit like that. Note the huge difference there. Less experienced designers often make the mistake of specifying component tolerances that are too low. For devices that are under constant loads such as charge controllers, a 150V or even a 200V electrolytic capacitor would be too low. I'm guessing the component change is related to an issue like that.
They believe it's a software issue most likely with the smart shunt. There is no physical temperature sensor connected to the system but the smart shunt broadcasted this to the network. The AUX port in the Shunt is set to None (can be set to read a mid point voltage or a temperature sensor).
Greetings from sunny Portugal. The controllers have an internal temp sensor (so they know when to derate >40C) but this only shows on the display of the controller if you have one fitted. It does not show in VRM or Victron Connect which only show batt temp if you have one connected (selected in GX settings). Perhaps you could add a bat temp sensor to Smart Shunt or Master MPPT controller and share this in DVCC so the temps never show -1. I bolted mine to busbar where the biggest loads travel and it is useful information on VRM, the busbar varies 15 - 35C.
Would you recommend Venus OS over a Cerbo GX?
Im new to victron and don't want to have something that requires to much knowledge to set up.
Actually VenusOS is the operating system that runs on the CerboGX…. You can run the the OS on a raspberry pi too, as Andy is doing. I opted for the Cerbo too, because I want a fool proof stable solution, being a pi fool…
@@Krisdarnok Thank you for the answer.
I think I will go the Cerbo.
Cerbo provides you with all the right interfaces and connectors right away which are all isolated. It works out of the box.
The Raspberry Pi does the same but needs a lot more DIY upgrades and also scripting/programming to make it all work. It's not hard but still needs some extra time.
@@OffGridGarageAustralia Thank you for the answer.
is it because he doesn‘t like the Energy of the comming Shingles 😂 maybe you made the pact with the … 🙉 😝
Argh.. it will be a lot of energy!!!
Alway love the smell test. Did you think of a dry joint on the motherboard Andy or a resistor has become faulty? I found a replacement for your solar tester too. 800 W type mate.
so what is the replacement? smiles
@@mikedurham4448 Are for Obi one only.
No, nothing like this. It's not a hardware fault as such. just a few of these controllers have glitched out under certain conditions when using a 48V battery and 'high' solar voltage. They fixed that 1.5 years ago. Mine seems to be older so... they will replace both for free and take the other controllers back.
Cracked glass on a panel shorted when it was damp.
Andy I had this issue and it was them cheap usb connection wires to the Raspberry Pi running the venus os i had to reboot the pi for some reason i also noticed if u turn the power off to the raspberry pi it turns off the solar charge controllers...
OK, that did not make any difference to rectify my fault. Victron is looking into it ans suspect the software of the smart shunt atm. Do you have one in your system as well?
@@OffGridGarageAustralia yes I have the 100 amp Victron Smart shunt in my system along with the raspberry pi and 16 120ah lithium batteries
@@diysolaradventures7894 That's probably it, a possible software bug in its firmware...
Did you already disconnect the panels with the isolation problem on the back that were on the west roof (don't remember)? Maybe it's sth like a "ground short circuit" error or just another form of short circuit because of those panels? But actually the hardware revision idea also makes sense, but does not really explain the "temperature thingy". As i learned from another channel (Der Elektrotechniker) in big solar plants they use ground isolation measurement devices which also turn off inverters if ground isolation gets to low (in some of those videos from that channel it were either broken cables or faulty isolation on the back of the panels, especially in conditions with high moisture - if i remember right). So maybe if there is a bad ground isolation on the West Roof, somehow this might interfere with the Victron MPPT.
So i hope it's only hardware or firmware and my idea is totally nonsense - fingers crossed.
The temperature problem could come from the DIY cables I use to connect to the Victron gear. They are not isolated and especially with these high voltage spikes... could be the comms got somehow stuffed up by that.
Ich hab schon seit etlichen Monaten überlegt warum ich Dein Englisch so gut verstehe. 9:11 'Scheiß Viechkram....' 😏🤗 liebe Grüße aus Deutschland 🙋♂️
I think someone deserves a beer or 2
I was excited... 🍺
This same thing happened to me so I disabled the temperature feature that I use with the battery sence then I disconnected the charge controler, shunt and battery sence from the network I then restarted it all and created a new network name and reconnected everything and it's been fine since
My system is fitted in to our camper trailer
Thanks for sharing. It's most likely a bug in the smart shunt firmware. They are investigating.
Smart shunt = BMV without the display. You do have to be very careful about isolation when hooking up communications interfaces/cables. The temperature reporting sounds like the software is reading and interpreting a register wrong.
Same thing happend to me it's some software bug or error in comunication from SmartShunt or Multiplus-II, try set Aux input to temperature save and back to none or your correct setup in SmartShunt settings.
If it doesn't solve problem restart GX (RaspberryPI) and Multiplus-II
Last option restart SmartShunt
Yeah, discussed this with Victron and they said it is highly unlikely that the none-isolated cables are to blame for that. They are heading more into the direction of a bug in the smart shunt firmware.
Okay so today I have fitted the "optional" bmv temperature sensor. Part number ass000100000 . This now displays the battery temperature on vrm, also shows in ve network that it is communicating temperature over networked mppts. I'll report back if this resolves the -1 fault. Problem being the fault only appears randomly, some times month with no issue.
funnily, i had the same issue. Victron always says they thouroly test their firmware, and although i really like their products, i have seen several bugs over the last 4 years.