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Victron Touch Screen why is it doing this?

Ariel188

Ariel188

New Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2024
Messages
72
Location
Brookings OR
Hi all,

The percent of my system charged keeps going down, down, down. It was at 100% a couple months ago, but now it's stuck at topping off at 77%. Even with full sun or generator, it will NOT go above 77%! It will not go to Absorption or Float ever anymore...... It just tops out at Inverting or bulk.

This is becoming an issue as the % keeps dropping and dropping over time......

It's a 48 volt system, with four 12 volt chin 300 amp hr batteries that are tired together in series with battery balancers.

How can I fix this issue, and get my charge to 100%? When I have excess power, I still never see absorption/float. It's stuck at inverting.... wasting power from my solar panels not going into my batteries......

Like right now, I have FULL sun on the panels, and it went from charging over 2000w to changing only 350 watts because it got to 77% but still says inverting. When it stopped charging in the past it would say absorption and then float, then you know your are truly at 100%.......

I hope that makes sense. Thank you so much!
 
Ariel188 said:
It's a 48 volt system, with four 12 volt chin 300 amp hr batteries that are tired together in series with battery balancers.
Click to expand...
It sounds like the battery balancer isn't working.
Or maybe you aren't actually talking about a battery balancer.
Do you mean "battery balancer" or BMS's?
 
Ariel188 said:
Hi all,

The percent of my system charged keeps going down, down, down. It was at 100% a couple months ago, but now it's stuck at topping off at 77%. Even with full sun or generator, it will NOT go above 77%! It will not go to Absorption or Float ever anymore...... It just tops out at Inverting or bulk.

This is becoming an issue as the % keeps dropping and dropping over time......

It's a 48 volt system, with four 12 volt chin 300 amp hr batteries that are tired together in series with battery balancers.

How can I fix this issue, and get my charge to 100%? When I have excess power, I still never see absorption/float. It's stuck at inverting.... wasting power from my solar panels not going into my batteries......

Like right now, I have FULL sun on the panels, and it went from charging over 2000w to changing only 350 watts because it got to 77% but still says inverting. When it stopped charging in the past it would say absorption and then float, then you know your are truly at 100%.......

I hope that makes sense. Thank you so much!
Click to expand...

How many amps are flowing into the battery when it "tops out at inverting or bulk"?
 
timselectric said:
It sounds like the battery balancer isn't working.
Or maybe you aren't actually talking about a battery balancer.
Do you mean "battery balancer" or BMS's?
Click to expand...
They are actual battery balancers. I had to pay someone $1800 to come put them in, back in Oct I think it was....
 
shopman said:
A full description of every piece of equipment you're running will help someone answer your question. Aside from the batteries, we don't know what you have.
Click to expand...
two 3000 watt inverters 48 volt, and all the other standard stuff. I didnt install it, so I do not know. Thank you.
 
Ariel188 said:
two 3000 watt inverters 48 volt, and all the other standard stuff. I didnt install it, so I do not know. Thank you.
Click to expand...

We need the models.

If they are victron multiplus the SOC can show 0% and the batteries can be full charged if the solar controller is doing the charging.

Are you seeing reduced capacity?
 
Checkthisout said:
We need the models.

If they are victron multiplus the SOC can show 0% and the batteries can be full charged if the solar controller is doing the charging.

Are you seeing reduced capacity?
Click to expand...
Yes multiplus! What do you mean seeing reduced capacity? Like is the % going down fast? If so, I would say not super fast no, but maybe faster then it used to.
 
Ariel188 said:
Yes multiplus! What do you mean seeing reduced capacity? Like is the % going down fast? If so, I would say not super fast no, but maybe faster then it used to.
Click to expand...

So it's going to be difficult to help without knowing what you have and how it's setup.

If solar is charging the batteries, then the inverters showing the state of charge easily gets out of sync with the battery state of charge because the inverter only sees current leaving but never puts any back in.

There is no problem.
 
Do you have a Victron SmartShunt or battery monitor? (BMV-XXX)

If so, the issue could be as simple as the "charged voltage" setting being set too high. It should be set to ~0.3-0.4V lower than your absorb charge setpoint. If it is set too close to the Absorb setting, it can potentially never calibrate to full and gradually run off 1% at a time.

Note that this pertains to both charge controller and inverter absorb setpoints. So if, for some reason, one of these has it's absorb set lower than the other, "charged voltage" will need to be 0.3-0.4V lower than the lowest!
 
Ariel188 said:
A friend installed it all
Click to expand...

The shunt has been installed incorrectly. The charger leads are not going through the shunt, so it can't see the charging.

The shunt may also be programmed incorrectly.

The % charge can't influence the rate of PV production. The system doesn't give a shit. The MPPT is running according to its absorption voltage.

PV behavior suggests you are almost certainly getting fully charged.

Can you post an image of your screen?

It may also be that you've specified the inverter battery monitor as the default. This battery monitor can't see the input from PV by design.
 
740GLE said:
Duhh, a friend installed it!!

I’m gonna toss out a guess and predict a SCC error.

I love these guess the issue with minimal information provided.
Click to expand...
What is SCC error?

had a friend (different one) come over with a voltage meter here are the volts of each battery:

Bottom right 13.28
Top right 13.3

Bottom left 13.29
Top left 13.3

Here are photos of the victron screen over the last severla days. it WAS charging over 2800 watts UNTIL it hit 78% then the changing drops a lot and goes down to 300 or so.......

When the generator is on (the red box) it charges about 2100 until it hit 78% then it goes up and down struggling then drops to drop to 300 but will never go to 79%........

PLEASE NOTE: The system has been running for about a year and a half but the screen was jsut installed about 7 months ago and was wokring with the % until recently (about 3ish months ago?)
 

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Good news.

1712037424131.png

LFP battery charging at 0.7A @ 55.7V is pretty darn close to fully charged, and your PV charger is clearly powering the AC loads.

Note that the only time the inverter does not say INVERTING is when it's actually CHARGING from AC shore power. When loads are powered by solar, the inverter is still inverting.

If you use Victron Connect and connect to your MPPT, you should see it cycling through bulk/absorption and float as the day progresses.

It also keeps 30 days history:

1712037723110.png

Note that YOURS should report bulk/absorption and float times. Mine is under BMS control, so I only have a single bar.

  1. Recommend you post your MPPT settings with the expert switch turned on.
  2. Recommend you post your Shunt settings.
  3. What event precipitated this when it stopped working 3 months ago?
Please take a picture of your compartment. I suspect someone moved a wire to the wrong side of the shunt 3 months ago.
 
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