Victron SCC & battery Sensor

[Cosmini]

hi folks,
does anyone have any experience with hooking up a Victron Energy Smart Battery Sense Long Range (link below):

Amazon.com

to a Victron Energy SmartSolar MPPT 100V 30 amp 12/24-Volt Solar Charge Controller -- is a smart battery sensor like the one above fairly beneficial for charging a 300A 12V LiFePO4 battery @ a current of up to 30Amps

thank you kindly,
Cos

 

[rmaddy]

The Victron SCC has a setting that allows it to stop charging your battery if the battery temperature gets below the set value. This is very helpful with LiFePO4 batteries. But the SCC doesn't have its own battery temperature sensor. It can get the temperature, via Bluetooth, from a Victron BMV-712, a Victron SmartShunt, a Victron MultiPlus, or the Victron Smart Battery Sense that you linked.

The benefit of allowing your charge controller to stop charing your LiFePO4 battery if it gets too cold is fairly obvious. The benefit is independent of the capacity and voltage of the battery and independent of the size of the charge controller.

If there's a risk your batteries could get near or below freezing, then getting the SCC setup to stop charging is a good plan. Choose the best source for that temperature based on the other components that you have. Though I would go with at least the SmartShunt if you don't already have a shunt in your setup. I'd only do the Smart Battery Sense if you already have some other shunt.

 

[Cosmini]

many thanks for the thoughts, @rmaddy.

yes, I understand about the temperature, although not a huge concern here in sunny South Florida, about freezing.
My initial concern is that the Victron SCC seems to stay "too long" (relative, I know) in absorption mode before going to bulk, even though I tweaked and increased the absorption charge voltage to 14.6V and float voltage to 13.5V, per manufacturer advice (and battery charge level is at 40-50%, currently). Is there any way to troubleshoot this "stay" in absorption mode? I'm adding another panel, for a total of 400W/12v total/30Amps max charge, to see how that impacts the charging, if any.

thank you kindly, again,
Cosmin

 

[rmaddy]

Show the Battery settings from VictronConnect for your SCC. Enable Expert mode so those settings appear as well.

 

[Cosmini]

Show the Battery settings from VictronConnect for your SCC. Enable Expert mode so those settings appear as well.

The charge setting was originally set to #7, LiFeO4.

 

[rmaddy]

All of the equalization stuff should be off for LiFePO4. They are in my setup. I originally chose the LiFePO4 preset and then tweaked the Absorption and Float voltages. The equalization settings are all disabled when I look at mine. And temperature compensation should be disabled for LiFePO4.

Run VictronConnect. Go to Settings -> Battery. Under Battery Preset choose "Select Preset" and then select "LiFePO4". That should disable all of the equalization stuff. Then you can tweak the voltages again.

Under Export Mode the only thing I changed was the absorption time. The default was 2 hours. I changed mine to 15 minutes. Do what works for your specific batteries. The absorption duration should also be fixed by default. I see yours is set to adaptive. I'm not sure what is best in this case. It may depend on your batteries and your typical discharge patterns.

 

[Cosmini]

great, thanks for the confirmation @rmaddy.
Yeah, initially I had the Victron SCC set to "rotary" so I could NOT make any changes to the #7 setting for LiFeO4. Then I created my own profile setting. It looks though that using a manual profile, then changing to LiFEO4, now let's me edit the profile params and tweak them accordingly, per your confirmation. thanks bunches again!!!

Cosmin