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Connecting two Victron charge controllers?

JonL

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Sep 18, 2020
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Is there some kind of sequence on connecting two charge controllers by Victron? Everytime I try to connect them together, everything freezes, and I can’t get any panel to bring in electricity. And a fuse stops working or the other charge controller doesn’t recognize the system?
Or the software connect on my iPhone doesn’t recognize the other charger, so I delete from Bluetooth, only to find I can’t get it back again?
There must be some kind of sequence on two or more charge controllers by Victron. I’ve looked everywhere for it and cannot find this information!
Has anyone else encountered this, or is there a correct way to do one charge controller and then slowly add more? ?
I’m using ANL fuses, perhaps these are the wrong type? There’s some kind of short going on here.
I have six 100 amp hour battle born batteries wired in 24 V.
 

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How are you trying to connect them together?

"Fuse stops working"? Fuse blows?
 
How are you trying to connect them together?

"Fuse stops working"? Fuse blows?
I didn’t see any breakage on the fuses, but I noticed when I change them out I could get life back into my charge controller! As far as connecting them together, it’s no different than what I’ve done in the past. I was beginning to wonder if perhaps the fuses weren’t the right kind. I am using ANL fuses.
 

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Looking at the larger charge controller manual, they talk about hooking up an RJ45 UTP cable to another charge controller, in my case I don’t see one in the smaller charge controller. But they have something called a VE.direct.
it would be nice to have a video explaining how this works? I realize the settings on both chargers have to be exact.
Overall the thing is not explain very well in the manual, as they take for granted everybody some kind a tech genius!
 
IIRC, VE.Can isn't a feature on all MPPT. VE.direct is the current means of connecting to a GX device, but I don't think they connect to each other. You might be able to connect via VE.Smart (bluetooth), but I believe the only current way to get two of them talking is via GX device.

However, you should be able to hook them up to the same battery without any communication between them. You don't even need to have them programmed exactly the same.

I don't know why the fuse would fail.
 
Like I said, this is my largest builder yet, as before I only used one charge controller. Not sure what’s going on or why it won’t work. But I thank you for your input! ?
I already have the VE smart. Bluetooth dongle.
It only seems to fail once I am hooking up the second group of pv panels, but they aren’t on the same connection?
 
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Yeah, the two arrays should be completely separate from each other and only connected to their respective charge controller.
 
You should be able to configure two MPPT chargers to act as a single coordinated charger over bluetooth. The advantage is that the master controller dictates the configuration. They will pass through the charge modes at the same time, ie bulk, absorption, float. You will not get coordinated current, that requires something watching over them, GX etc. See the document below. I have a niggling memory about some particular bluetooth revision hardware having problems though.

*edit*
If I read my own link I'd have seen that they mention that. ?

 
You should be able to configure two MPPT chargers to act as a single coordinated charger over bluetooth. The advantage is that the master controller dictates the configuration. They will pass through the charge modes at the same time, ie bulk, absorption, float. You will not get coordinated current, that requires something watching over them, GX etc. See the document below. I have a niggling memory about some particular bluetooth revision hardware having problems though.

*edit*
If I read my own link I'd have seen that they mention that. ?

Wow! Thanks for all your help – looks like you’ve been digging quite a bit. I’ll have to do some investigation today.
This site has been a godsend! I wish I could help people too, but I still have a lot to learn.
 
Well I checked all the numbers on the charge controllers, they seem to be OK. I’ve started to think about perhaps The possibility of a short in the system. I noticed that even when I turn off the battery power, the charge controller still has the blue light flashing.
So I removed the inverter and then the power disappeared. I was able to get the charge controller to recognize itself in the connect software, but it won’t except the password?
I had already deleted it from the iPhone Bluetooth list, and now I get nothing. ?
 
Success! Finally got everything working except the battery monitor won’t show up in connect app?
Anyway this is what I did. First I took out all the fuses and disconnected everything and waited 10 minutes. Then I connected the first charge controller and then the second charge controller, finally realized I had to change the reset the puk on the small charger. Then I made sure all the settings were the same on both charge controllers.Then I hooked up the first fuse to the big charge controller and once I saw that it was working, I connected the fuse to the second charge controller! Both had separate strings of PV and both were working ! Then I rewired everything else one by one two my inverters. It all seem to work still.1603494387858.png
 
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those charge controllers are very finicky about being connected to battery before pv.
i installed breakers on both the pv and battery lines so i could easily cut power sequentially.
 
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