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snoobler avatar image
snoobler asked

Why is my Batrium allowing low current charging when Charge state is off?

Custom NMC 14S 48V bank.

Successfully configured WM5 to control system for a few months. Relatively happy with it.

Issue is with cold temp charging. Obviously, I want to restrict charging to 0A below freezing. To give myself some margin, I have specified 5°C as a limit, i.e., if below 5°C, charge is not permitted.

When below 5°C, the MPPT 250/100 will power loads, but "charge" is throttled to between 0.2 and .05A (starts at 0.2A and increases to 0.5A as temperature approaches 5°C).

The Batrium Shunt and my BMV-702 report identical values.

Consistent with their poor support as of late, Batrium says, "not our problem, contact Victron."

It's my understanding that when my MPPT says "External control" it's ONLY doing what the BMS is telling it to do, so if it's sending 0.2-0.5A to the battery, this is a result of whatever criteria the BMS is feeding it.

Any ideas?

MPPT ControllersCCGX Color Controlbatrium
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Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Stefanie (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·

Tbh, I have no idea about Batrium. But one idea that comes to mind is that it could be a balance current rather than a charge current. Otherwise it's as you said, the MPPT is fully controlled by the BMS (assuming Batrium implemented its driver well).

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hardy-tuner answered ·

I‘ll change soon from rec-bms to battrium wm5 and can try this Config, but the other Question is: how is your dvcc configured?

Which power source using WM5, contactor and infrastruce of your installation?

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snoobler avatar image snoobler commented ·

Given Batrium's supply and support woes as of late, I'm not too keen on them. I've been having issues with cell voltages jumping up or down 0.1V (sometimes WAY lower - 0.5V) long enough for VRM to capture it The upper ones are squashed by Autolevel set to 0.10V, but the lowers linger. You can see when I have Autolevel off:


1667456905331.png

They claim this is related to the balancing method, and it will be fixed in a future patch. The majority of the time, balancing on the affected cell is inactive at the time of occurrence.

ANYWAY...

BMS power taken at:

1) battery (+) and load side of BMV.

2) USB cable from a battery powered Mini PC

Batrium WiFi has been completely unreliable for me.

DVCC:


1667309809182.png


1667309853244.png

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snoobler avatar image
snoobler answered ·

I'm pretty sure this is a Victron issue. I went into DVCC and set the charge limit to 0A. I'm still getting up to 0.5A of charging:

1667580936954.png


DVCC is at 0A:

1667580973691.png


Batirum is commanding 0.0A:

1667581024044.png


So the question is now, why is my GX allowing up to 0.5A of charge current to the battery when it's set to 0A?

This is a concern for ANYONE with Lithium batteries.


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CCGX Product Manual

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MPPT 150/60 up to 250/70 Manual