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Florian Mettetal avatar image
Florian Mettetal asked

PowerAssist how does it work? Boosting starts well below Current Limit! Batteries cant charge! help!

Theres a foot of snow and its freezing out. I need to heat multiple buildings to keep pipes from bursting. And though my hydro (shore) power is producing ~30amps the "power assist" keeps turning on at about 50% of my current limit rather than as the description says, to supplement power demand after the 30amps! (Quattro: 2x10Kw (240V SplitPhase)


State A: Load near Limit - battery discharges at 2Kw! (1000Watt available load)

Battery State: 45% SOC and Discharging

Input Current/Limit: 16/29Amps (3800W / 6960W)

Output Load: 6000Watt


State B: Load around 50% - battery doesn't charge! (2500Watt available load)

Battery State: 45% SOC and Float

Input Current/Limit: 18/29Amps (4500W / 6960W)

Output Load: 4500Watt



I've tried changing the power assist boost factor value from 2 to the minimum of 0.3 which I would assume is 9amps. Isn't it supposed to give me an additional 9amps? so I can boost up to 39amps but have a load of up to 30amps?

Well I have a consistent load above 15 amps and the quattros keep draining from the battery rather than using the available load!


Now that my batteries are below 50% the occasional load spike will shut off the quattro system! And the batteries are continuining to discharge. By the end of the weekend the system isn't going to work anymore! I would be better off without the quattros! (and this has been pretty much my entire experience w/ the product).

quattro 10kvapowerassistshorepower
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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·
@Florian Mettetal

Do you have dynamic current limit on as well?

1 Like 1 ·
snoobler avatar image snoobler commented ·

@Florian Mettetal

Worth a read

https://www.victronenergy.com/live/multiplus_faq

1 Like 1 ·
Florian Mettetal avatar image Florian Mettetal snoobler commented ·
agreed! its whats made me think to try again w/o weak AC
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justinford avatar image justinford commented ·

If you are running two inverters to get you the 120/240 split phase, you need to set the inverters to 30amps limit in order to get the 120v 3600w limit. The inverters can not assist annd charge the bank at the same time.


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Florian Mettetal avatar image Florian Mettetal commented ·

Thanks for the responses!

The batteries I'm using are EG4-LL previous version w/o the Victron BMS compatibility.

I changed 2 settings and turned off a couple heater loads and the system recovered over the weekend and the batteries were charging much more often

- battery charge strategy to "adaptive" from "fixed There is an additional "smart battery charge" option which I have not enabled but might add on to look into.

- weak AC mode



Alexandra avatar image@Alexandra
Do you have dynamic current limit on as well?

I've read to use weak AC if dynamic current limit doesn't fix an AC connect problem, Assuming that I don't have dynamic current limit enabled, I'll try enabling it and disabling weak AC and see if this is a better state.

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Charlie Johnson avatar image Charlie Johnson commented ·
Have you approached your Dealer for technical assistance.


BTW, changing the Power Assist Factor from the default 2.0 is not recommended under any circumstances unless directed by Victron.
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JohnC avatar image JohnC ♦ commented ·

@Florian Mettetal

"Battery State: 45% SOC and Float"

Can't be in a system set up right. Where's this data from, and what are the batteries?

-1 Like -1 ·
Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ JohnC ♦ commented ·
@Florian Mettetal

I am wonder the same as @JohnC

You dont have a problem connecting to generator, only the poroblem of the system not deciding to charge, so battery type or rebulk off set is at play here.

Did you click or check lithium batteries then change the voltages to suit your better?

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1 Answer
snoobler avatar image
snoobler answered ·


Is the Grid set to NONE?




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