question

Dave van Dongen avatar image
Dave van Dongen asked

Why is there no built-in State of Health measurement?

Almost all Victron systems use batteries.
Obviously the most important thing to watch in the short term is SoC (State of Charge) and to measure this we have the BMV's (battery monitor) or now built-in function in the MultiPlus and the CCGX to display.

But in the long term you also want to know the State of Health of your batteries. Why is this now being measured/calculated/predicted byt Victron equipment???

It's not that hard. I see 2 possibilities:
- Program an interval (every 3 or 6 months) where the battery is completely drained and then charged again automatically. The remaining capacity can be determined and displayed as a % SoH.

- Do regular calculations during cycles in every day use. For every cycle the voltage drop in that cycle in relation to the battery capacity used in that cycle can be measured and mapped. In this way a constanty updated indication of % SoH can be calculated.

It would be good to be able to reset the SoH calculations when a new battery is installed. Or even the SoH status of 2 sets of batteries can be stored, in case a battery is changed back.

I think it would be very useful to have an indication of SoH status of the batteries (and maybe even a prediction of when the batteries would reach a SoH of 80% capacity, when they are usually replaced. End users then know how the use of their batteries is affecting their lifespan and can plan a replacement moment, which avoids surprises.

MultiPlus Quattro Inverter ChargerBMV Battery MonitorCCGX Color Controlbatterybattery capacity
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3 Answers
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered ·

I appreciate the suggestion, but I don’t think your proposed methods to get the figures will work as it is;

1. The BMV has no method to dump the batteries potential into a load. There is no reliable load that can receive the energy of the the battery capacity for all systems, Nor do I think many users will be pleased if this did happen automatically.


2. There is not lots of free memory and processing power unused in the current BMV hardware. The same reason why there is no 30day history like the MPPTs of SOC and Ah transacted.

It would be nice if there was, but I think it has now been decided that the BMV should stay as affordable as possible, and if more advanced programming, memory, processing is required, that it is best done on a GX device instead.

So there may be some potential there, for a BMV connected to a GX device and VRM to do some more advanced analytics. This is also an area where there is LOTS of ideas for how things could be better.

Victron is extremely focused on GX / Venus / VRM development. There are nearly weekly updates.

Victron is also SUPER supportive when there are developers who want to help with a very nice to have feature like this. A lot is available with public’s API’s and open source code, more specific info can be made available when necessary.

I will let the current developers know of your suggestion, and I hope one day it is so.

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Dave van Dongen avatar image Dave van Dongen commented ·

Ok, I included the BMV, because I think it could be useful for the BMV in the future as well.

But I see this as a good feature for the ESS system. The MultiPlus/Quattro and CCGX together have full control and enough processing power to execute option 1 and 2. It is not very processing power intensive.

On option 1: many ESS users drain their batteries almost completely (soc 10% on lithium and 50% on lead acid) on a almost daily basis anyway.

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Dave van Dongen avatar image Dave van Dongen commented ·

I would actually suggest the SOH indication specifically for the CCGX and VRM. Not soo much so for the BMV.
I hesitate if this is a "nice to have" feature. SOH is quite important for end users and installers to know, if you have any long term vision. (past 1-2 years)

Victron equipment is all about protecting batteries, so it is quite essential to have an indication of the health of the batteries. With too rapid deterioration, you can adjust some features to limit more wear and tear.

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Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ Dave van Dongen commented ·

Hi Dave,

As there are so many different setups possible, calculating SOH is almost impossible to implement, getting the SOC right is already difficult in some systyems.

To Calculate SOH on a single system can be easy, depending on what kind of system it is (off grid, ESS, etc)

Basically: fully charge battery, then discharge fully at a given current until empty, the BMV will have counted the Ah's = capacity.

A good installer will do this when commissioning a system, as it is a good way to check all functions, and to see if the BMV is setup correctly.

Yearly SOH check can be done the same way, during regular maintenance.

An automatic SOH indication is impossible for most systems, as the battery needs to fully charge and discharge to get this number.

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hamid-patel avatar image
hamid-patel answered ·

On the portal if you click on the battery icon it shows both SOC and SOH.

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Dave van Dongen avatar image Dave van Dongen commented ·

Hi Hamid Patel, thank you very much for your answer.
Sorry, but I can't seem to find this. On which portal do I have to look? VRM? And on what page of the VRM portal? Dashboard? And where on this page is this battery icon?
Sorry, I looked everywhere, but I can't seem to find the SOH indication for the battery.

Thanks in advance for your answer!

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Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff) avatar image Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ Dave van Dongen commented ·

Hi @Dave van Dongen, @HAMID PATEL

The SOH is sent by some CANbus connected batteries, that's why the field exists, as you know it is not sent by the BMV's

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Dave van Dongen avatar image Dave van Dongen Daniël Boekel (Victron Energy Staff) ♦♦ commented ·

Ah, I understand where that SOH is coming from. Thanks for your reply, Daniel.

Would be nice to have some basic form of SOH calculation on batteries that don't calculate the SOH themselves. It's not very complicated to calculate and would be great for lead-acid batteries, etc.

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hamid-patel avatar image
hamid-patel answered ·

On the remote console ,on the device list the battery shows.Click on this icon.

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