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jekkos asked

Phoenix 12/500 undervoltage reset

Hi,


I have a Phoenix 12/500 which I tried to use with a 500W load. The app showed that the inverter was under high load but the voltage drop on my battery was significant, it went from 11.5V to 10.1 or lower.


So at that point the undervolt protection kicked in. After this the inverter seems to be stuck in the 'OFF' state. I have tried now to charge the battery to at least 13V hoping the inverter would turn back on, but no success so far.


I saw the 'charge detect' setting that is on 14V on factory settings, and tried to lower this to 13V, but that didn't help either. Is there any way I can reset the transformer from this error state? The battery voltage should be high enough now to use it again with the inverter.


Thanks

Phoenix Inverterinverter current draw
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jekkos answered ·

@Matthias Lange - DE Thanks for the useful info, I checked the app and this sequence indicates a 'calibration or parameter error'.

The help text says that I should try to update to the latest firmware, which I have already done last week. I have also tried to reset to factory defaults, but that didn't help.


Is there anything else I can try? eg reflash the firmware in some way to reset the paramter config?


Thanks

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jekkos answered ·

@MichelG @Matthias Lange - DE I fixed it in the end by reflashing the latest firmware file using Victron Connect from Arch Linux. Not really straightforward but it seemed to be a software issue in the end.


The device has 220V output again, thanks a lot for the hints

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michelg answered ·

Hi, 500VA, not Watt ... So more or less 350-450W in ideal conditions. You overloaded it. Just switch off the inverter (middle position of the switch I-0-II) and recharge your battery. When fully recharged switch on the inverter (remember that I position is searching for a minimal consumption of 15W to wake up the inverter, position II is more adapted, at least in my situation).

Michel

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jekkos answered ·

Hi indeed,

I think the drop was too deep and the undervoltage protection kicked in. I saw some low voltage warnings in the app while I was monitoring the load.

I'm charging the battery fully now as I thought that maybe this protection will reset once the inverter sees a higher voltage on the input terminals.

So if I turn it on now the red led flashes intermittently, according to the manual this is due to under/overvoltage.

The battery is at 14.4V now and still charging, but the inverter still shows the red LED flashing. I can stil connect to it over bluetooth and it sees the same battery voltage as the charger that I use on AC, but the output is stuck to Off.

Not sure if disconnecting the terminals will make any difference? I'm not too eager to do this as it's a bit of a hassle, and to do it safely I probably need to disconnect the battery terminals first

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michelg answered ·

Usually, it disconnects 3 times, then you have to reset it. Take a look at the manual :

https://www.victronenergy.com/upload/documents/Manual-Phoenix-Inverter-800VA-and-1200VA-EN-NL-FR-DE-ES.pdf


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jekkos answered ·

Thanks for the manual refernce @MichelG . What is interesting is the description of the LED status.

It seems that my inverter is blinking the red and green one in counterphase, this is not a sequence that I can find in the manual.

So the red goes on intermittently and then green, but they do not blink at the same. I can't find any error description for this sequence in the manual

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Matthias Lange - DE avatar image Matthias Lange - DE ♦ commented ·

Use the Victron Toolkit App to identify the blink code.

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