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jacob avatar image
jacob asked

Slow fuse setting for blue solar?

how come the electronic fuse of the blue solar is so Quick? There should be a slow fuse setting. It renders my high capacitive devices, that previously worked fine on a cheap 5$ solar charger, useless. The blue solar insist on cutting off, when applying my devices, even though the have no load yet, besides the initial capacity. I know I can bypass and go directly to the battery, but I want the fuse in between. A slower fuse. Did I mention the 5$ charger with a fuse that worked perfectly with my devices? Now I have a very expensive device, that renders my add on devices useless.

chargerfuses
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JohnC avatar image JohnC ♦ commented ·

Are you coming off the LOAD terminals of the mppt?

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jacob avatar image jacob JohnC ♦ commented ·

Yes, this is directly of the load terminals

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2 Answers
JohnC avatar image
JohnC answered ·

Yeh. Call it a 'weakness' or 'better circuitry', but it's picking up spikes and overloading. I don't know if it's actually a self-resetting fuse, but I doubt it. Take a deep breath and workaround it.

Add a relay, maybe even one with an integral 'real' fuse, eg.: https://www.autobarn.com.au/narva-relay-12v-4-pin-30a-blade-fuse-68060bl

Switch it with wires from the load terminals, and it could be mounted on the +ve batt wire coming out of the mppt. That would retain the low-batt protection functionality of the load terminals

Or just come straight off the batt. Sorry, but it is as it is.

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jacob avatar image jacob commented ·

Thank you for the answer. Being as advanced as the MPPT is, I would suspect this to be a software thing, and was hoping for an update that would provide a setting for the slowness of the fuse, spike protection or whatever you would call it.

The blue solar is fine, but I am not impressed about Victron s lack of answer. Good folks in the community answers, but Victron has no ears for technical trouble. And no, I don’t think their sales channels are listening either, at least no to me. How come there are no way of getting in “technical” touch with Victron. They seem very self sufficient and closed.

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JohnC avatar image JohnC ♦ jacob commented ·

They're watching Jacob. I can assure you that everything you write is seen (and hopefully taken in) by at least one Victron staffer. And if there's incorrect or misleading posts made, the contributor will likely be educated either directly or by email and be asked to fix them. Nothing sinister there, just a quest to keep it all true. Nor do they dodge the bad news.

Your issue is actually well known and accepted. It's quite minor in the scheme of things, but sometimes if you wanna get 'excited', add an email address to your profile and they may deal directly with you for serious issues.

Or just type @JohnC (or someone else) for personal attention. Just to show you how - now I'll get an email, ha!


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tilo avatar image
tilo answered ·

A simple workaround could be to add a ferrite in the cable between the charge controller and your electronics. The ferrite will reduce the inrush current spike. It worked for us when we tried to connect a Victron Orion DC/DC converter to the load output of a MPPT charge controller. The inrush current of the Orion blocked the load output of the MPPT. With a cable loop through a small ferrite (which is quite cheap) it worked.

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jacob avatar image jacob commented ·

Thanks, that is a great suggestion, I will try that!

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jacob avatar image jacob commented ·

Which kind of bead would you recommend and should I only wrap one of the parallel wires between the device and the MPPT or simply clamp both?

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tilo avatar image tilo jacob commented ·

You can use a prewired one (called inductance), or just the core ferrite and do some loops with your cable. Maybe less loops than in the foto are enough. We used a prewired 100mH 3A for a 24/12-5A Orion DC/DC converter), like the one in the foto. It had an outer diameter of 24mm. Price about 1,50 USD.

Just one cable is enough, you don´t need for both sides.

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