100 Proof
"Please Lord, don't let me do something stupid."
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2021
- Messages
- 206
I'm helping a friend imstal and configure a solar system for his camper. He has installed the following components so far:
- Three 100-amp Battleborn batteries wired in series for a total of 300 amps at 12 volts nominal. -540 watts of Z-Amp solar panels on the roof.
-A Victron 50 amp charge controller.
-A 3000 watt Victron inverter with the built-in transfer switch.
-The 12-volt side is all wired up with 2/0 cables through a T-class fuse to the batteries with a total one-way length of approximately 30 in.
The A/C side of this appears to operate nominally when he's plugged into shore power and everything is coming through the transfer switch. However, when he tries to run A/C loads from the inverter when the shore power is disconnected, it seems to overload the system. He's getting an error message that says there's system ripple. I've read the Victron documentation regarding ripple, and his situation does not seem to be consistent with what they describe as the problem.
Specifically, when he tries to run the microwave off of the battery bank, with the bank at about 13.4V, it fires up for about 15 or 20 seconds, then the system errors out with the ripple message and the inverter drops offline. At that point, the battery bank voltage drops to just over 10 volts for several seconds, then it appears to reset and jumps back up to the mid 13s. It seems like somehow the BMSs are being overloaded, even though the total draw is well within the specifications of the battery bank.
I've successfully built other similar systems with other brands of batteries and h/w without issues. I'm perplexed. What else should we be looking at?
100 Proof
- Three 100-amp Battleborn batteries wired in series for a total of 300 amps at 12 volts nominal. -540 watts of Z-Amp solar panels on the roof.
-A Victron 50 amp charge controller.
-A 3000 watt Victron inverter with the built-in transfer switch.
-The 12-volt side is all wired up with 2/0 cables through a T-class fuse to the batteries with a total one-way length of approximately 30 in.
The A/C side of this appears to operate nominally when he's plugged into shore power and everything is coming through the transfer switch. However, when he tries to run A/C loads from the inverter when the shore power is disconnected, it seems to overload the system. He's getting an error message that says there's system ripple. I've read the Victron documentation regarding ripple, and his situation does not seem to be consistent with what they describe as the problem.
Specifically, when he tries to run the microwave off of the battery bank, with the bank at about 13.4V, it fires up for about 15 or 20 seconds, then the system errors out with the ripple message and the inverter drops offline. At that point, the battery bank voltage drops to just over 10 volts for several seconds, then it appears to reset and jumps back up to the mid 13s. It seems like somehow the BMSs are being overloaded, even though the total draw is well within the specifications of the battery bank.
I've successfully built other similar systems with other brands of batteries and h/w without issues. I'm perplexed. What else should we be looking at?
100 Proof