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mark-todd asked

Victron quattro 12/5000/220 inverter turning off / on every five seconds under load "fault now found!"

Victron quattro 12/5000/220 inverter turning off / on every five seconds under load. (only when cold)

i have the above inverter, with new 840ah of AGM Batteries (6 x 6v run in 3 x 12v banks) , all new wiring 95mm2 to the inverter from the batteries.(2 x + and 2 times - ).........there is also 1.2kw of solar panels and a Rutland 914i wind turbine. when the inverter is turned on it will cycle on and off repeatedly....no fans come on (although the fans do attempt to move when cycling off)...............if i plug into shore power and turn the battery charger on even for a few minutes, unplug from shore power and it will work fine all day until switched off for any length of time. sometimes also setting everything to default via ve. config, will start it working. i have tried another main board, removed the psu and re-soldered any obvious dry joints.....still doing it. firmware is 1933159.(on both boards)...........anyone any ideas??

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mark-todd avatar image mark-todd commented ·

meant to say....there are no error lights. its as if the battery low setting is kicking in and shutting down then re-starting.

the load applied is a 3kw electric kettle........I've just discovered if i plug in a smaller load (a 1.2kw halogen heater) it will invert without shutting down.........however there are no fans coming on on the inverter. (is this normal for light loads??)

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mark-todd answered ·

Found the fault.....it was a blown capacitor on the power supply board!20220423-183058.jpg20220423-183105.jpg


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snoobler answered ·

Are all your 6V the same voltage under the 1.2kW load?

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mark-todd avatar image mark-todd commented ·
I've never checked, but assume they would be......they are wired in series then in parallel. all cables are the same length. all cables and batteries are new.

at the moment i have the unit set up at home on a bench.........not ideal but for testing purposes i have 2 lead acid batteries set up totalling 170ah..........still the same, inverter switches off/on under heavy load. (obviously i can't test for more than a few minutes with this sort of Ah batteries.) could it possibly be the kettle has a much higher draw than 3kw when first switched on? if i just use the heater it works fine........

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snoobler answered ·

Definitely check your 6V at absorption just prior to float.


3000W @ 12V with inefficiencies is going to be close to 300A. What voltage do you measure at the inverter's DC terminals when this load is applied? At the battery?


What are your inverter's DC cut-off voltages?


Have you triple checked that all connections are properly torqued?

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mark-todd avatar image mark-todd commented ·

inverters cut off is set very low at 9.5v.


ve bus says batterys at 13.1v rested.

at battery terminals it says 13.2v,and the same at the inverters dc terminals.(rested)

under 3kw load inverter terminals are 11.2v,and batteries 11.3v

udc after load 13.1v


Uout 230v

Iout 11.4A

power 2619

udc ripple at rest 0.0v,at load is 0.5v


again this testing is not under ideal conditions, using very low ah battery's (170ah) and 75mm2 wiring. (although wiring is less than 2ft long to batteries)

as stated previously, it only goes into this off/on state if left turned off for any length of time.

if i have just had it on charge (even briefly), unplug 240v power and switch to inverter, then 9 times out of 10 it will work ok......................


i shall leave it switched off overnight then re-test in the morning when i know it will cycle again........will be interesting to see the voltages then.

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mark-todd avatar image mark-todd mark-todd commented ·
i didn't need to wait until morning to trigger the restart......just did it now.

inverter when cycling was:

udc 12.8v

idc 275A.

ripple 0.5v

at battery volts 11.14v

at dc cables at inverter 10.92v

udc at rest 12.7v


after 20 seconds of plugging into mains and battery charging via the inverter, it was unplugged and inverter worked fine again.

batts were at 11.36v when inverting and inverter dc connections at 10.87v (obviously with these battery's the drop will be pretty sharp compared to the boat battery bank which has never gone below 12.5v when inverter was under similar load)

udc shortly returned to 12.7v when load turned off.

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snoobler avatar image
snoobler answered ·

Nothing further to suggest.

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mark-todd avatar image mark-todd commented ·

ok...thank you for your help.


to anyone else having this problem;

As a test, i have turned off the inverter, and have a separate battery charger to the batteries, left for an hour (batteries at 14.5v soc) and under load inverter started cycling again.......switched on internal battery charger for 20 seconds, unplugged 240v,put load on and inverter working fine!! ........................anyone any other thoughts??

power supply issue perhaps??

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