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Victron used to monitor/record Epever voltages over 30 days

pollenface

Solar Wizard
Joined
Nov 14, 2020
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2,319
Location
Perth, Australia
Just an example of the weird stuff I get up to in my workshop. Using a spare Victron 75/15 Smartsolar as a bluetooth voltage monitor.

Why? I wanted to temporarily view the historical data of how the Epevers (4210AN & 2210AN) perform over a number of days as well as check the lows overnight.

(A little bit of dirty battery guilt below...)


75-15 used as battery monitor.jpg
 
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sorry, I am not seeing the 75/15 on your list. It looks like 100/20 amps
or am i missing something?

AHAHAH! I see it! Neat Idea. I suspect it doesn't show you solar input or anything like that.
 
...and here are the results over 30 days.

The Epevers (4210AN & 2210AN) are set to boost @ 14.2v and float @ 13.7v (equalization disabled) and still evidently spike upwards of 15v momentarily.

Note that my 12v system is only used to run a couple of 9w led lights for a few hours after the sun goes down and keep other random 12v batteries topped up (in cars & motorbikes).

We've had a mixture of clear cloudy, overcast & rainy "spring" days over the last few weeks.
 

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Hadn't thought of doing that. I have a spare 75/15 sitting around. I'm testing my new 100/50 against the epever 8415AN a week at a time not that we actually have some cloudy weather with our house Enphase solar as the control. I'm just not convinced that the Victron is "All that"...
 
I'm just not convinced that the Victron is "All that"...

Oh, I am.

I have used them side by side for a couple of years, in my opinion Epever Tracers are agricultural in comparison and have lower speed MPPT processing which causes voltage spikes during heavy inverter loads and cloud edge effects. They simply cannot compensate for surges in inverter load/sunlight fast enough. The spikes upwards of 15v momentarily effect inverter output causing 2-second blackouts. I'm speaking from experience with only the lower end 100v Tracers, I'm unsure how the upper models perform.

Apart from that they are very robust and perhaps suit the experienced user. I keep them because I might need them in a post-apocalyptic scenario :)
 
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...and here are the results over 30 days.

The Epevers (4210AN & 2210AN) are set to boost @ 14.2v and float @ 13.7v (equalization disabled) and still evidently spike upwards of 15v momentarily.

Note that my 12v system is only used to run a couple of 9w led lights for a few hours after the sun goes down and keep other random 12v batteries topped up (in cars & motorbikes).

We've had a mixture of clear cloudy, overcast & rainy "spring" days over the last few weeks.

Have you tried setting up a custom USER battery and lower the, ‘Over Voltage Disconnect’, ‘Charging Limit Voltage‘ and the ‘Over Voltage Reconnect’ To under 15v?
 
custom USER battery and lower the, ‘Over Voltage Disconnect’, ‘Charging Limit Voltage‘ and the ‘Over Voltage Reconnect’ To under 15v?
How do the disconnect and reconnect settings effect charging, since these control the load port?
Charging limit voltage seems an odd setting, since boost volts and equilisation volts should control the charging voltage.
Are you suggesting Epever charge voltage settings are unreliable and an upper limit needs setting to protect against unwanted high voltages?
The default setting is 15.0 volts only slightly higher than nominal boost volts 14.2 to 14.8 volts. The problem volts seen are higher than this.
 
Epever says you need to address them differently and wire them together when they are used in parallel, presumably so that they don't have spikes like this.

It appears as though you haven't got them sharing data so I would expect the issues you are seeing.

If you turn one epever off does your over voltage issue cease to exist?
 
Epever says you need to address them differently and wire them together when they are used in parallel, presumably so that they don't have spikes like this.

It appears as though you haven't got them sharing data so I would expect the issues you are seeing.

I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt this answer.

When just connected together (addressed differently) via RS485/Modbus the charge controllers do not "share" any data with each other unless there is some kind of other (Modbus) "master" device also connected to the same (Modbus) bus. Otherwise the charge controllers only "listen" for requests from a (non-existent) "master" device.

The "solar station" desktop computer software or mobile phone apps can be used to send those "master" commands to the bus, but in my observation they only send (write) commands as a result of user actions - and (read only) queries to monitor the status of the devices.

You might be referring to connecting the units via the PAL-ADP-50AN...

1699888606780.png

I got a couple of the PAL-ADP-50AN to experiment with. Based on the product description and (Modbus) traffic I've captured between the PAL_ADP-50AN and the charge controllers, I believe this device only helps with a few specific cases;
  • Setting parameters on all connected devices
  • Coordinating equalization charge cycles
  • Coordinating charge termination
  • Load balancing between charge controllers (By reducing output current as part of coordinating charge termination)
Those are cool functionalities, but in most cases not necessary (With the possible exception of large flooded lead-acid banks that actually need that equalization charge coordination).

It's all low speed coordination - happening at the RS485 baud rate of either 9600 or 115200 with response times and timeouts measurable in at least the tens of milliseconds range. That is, there's no high speed coordination of the MPPT loops or anything like that going on. (contrast this with something like the Victron Multiplus inverters which have to do high speed coordination to synchronize their output waveforms.)

Maybe the functionality of load balancing between charge controllers could help a bit with reducing the chances of spikes under changing cloud cover and/or rapidly varying system loads. However, I don't think it would solve the problem if the Epever SCCs are incapable of dealing with a given level of rapidly changing irradiance or power demand.

Note: I'm no EE, just an interested amateur. That said, if you have information to contradict what I've said here, please cite your sources (where relevant) and explain what you expect to happen in terms of MPPT event loop cycles and the state of the SCC's internal (output side) PWM voltage regulation.
 
You state that the comms are likely for:

  • Coordinating charge termination
That's where I think the comms would stop the issue the OP has found with his system.
 
How do the disconnect and reconnect settings effect charging, since these control the load port?
Charging limit voltage seems an odd setting, since boost volts and equilisation volts should control the charging voltage.
Are you suggesting Epever charge voltage settings are unreliable and an upper limit needs setting to protect against unwanted high voltages?
The default setting is 15.0 volts only slightly higher than nominal boost volts 14.2 to 14.8 volts. The problem volts seen are higher than this.
I wasn’t aware the disconnect and reconnect settings control the load port.
epever support suggested dropping all the charging voltage by 0.2v and reduce the boost and equalising time to 60 min.
with a comment to “ have a try”. My question to them was for the sealed battery settings.
 
Have you tried setting up a custom USER battery and lower the, ‘Over Voltage Disconnect’, ‘Charging Limit Voltage‘ and the ‘Over Voltage Reconnect’ To under 15v?
Yes.

The charging limit voltage can be set equal to boost and yields the same result. This relates to the temp compensation ceiling. It's actually a cool feature.

Over voltage disconnect/reconnect are related to the load terminals.
 
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