question

iand avatar image
iand asked

Feature request - solar/wind priority change back to sustain mode once batteries are full

Is it possible to change solar/wind priority so that after 7 days (or reaching the minimum voltage/SoC threshold) when it switches out of sustain mode and charges to 100%;

That it doesn't then stay in this mode forever but then reverts back to sustain mode after a programmable time, enough to allow cell balancing for LFP banks?


Otherwise it's of little use for cases like mine.

My boat moored in winter where solar can't keep up with the entire demand (almost all DC), but can supply some of it to reduce shorepower use.

Right now after 7 days (or sooner) the batteries would get charged to 100% SoC and stay there, so any available solar can't be used to recharge the batteries.

If the boat is moored for months in winter this makes the solar priority mode pretty much useless.


This should be very simple to implement given what's already been done.

solarfeature request
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iand avatar image
iand answered ·

Any comment from anyone at Victron as to whether this could be done, while the feature is still presumably being worked on?

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iand avatar image iand commented ·
Anyone? @Matthias Lange - DE
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iand avatar image
iand answered ·

It would be nice to have a comment/answer from Victron, I know I'm not the only customer with this requirement.

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iand avatar image
iand answered ·

It would be nice to get a response to this, the same issue has since been raised in other threads too.

Any response -- positive or negative -- would at least show that Victron are listening. Come on guy(s)... ;-)


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pwfarnell avatar image pwfarnell commented ·
Agree with you on this, making it more akin to the storage mode where you can set the repeat absorption interval and it does not stay there but goes back to storage voltage afterwards.
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Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) avatar image
Guy Stewart (Victron Community Manager) answered ·

Hi @IanD,

Your explanation makes perfect sense, and I'll forward it on, but I will say that this might not be so simple as it seems.

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iand avatar image iand commented ·

Thanks Guy :-)


I'd have thought that all would be needed is to make the "sustain mode" timer programmable instead of being fixed to 7 days, and the same for the "100% SoC" timer (instead of it being effectively set to infinity).

On another thread there was a comment that some change to the system seemed to have restarted the "7-day sustain" timer, so it must be possible... ;-)


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Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) avatar image
Dirk-Jan Faber (Victron Energy) answered ·

You probably should be able to do this using the "Settings control" node from Node-RED.

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iand avatar image iand commented ·
I could in theory, but my boat is supported/monitored/debugged/updated by the boatbuilder, and does not have the large OS and Node Red installed.


I would have thought that the functionality I'm requesting would be commonly needed once the updated OS with solar/wind priority becomes widely used; what has been rolled out so far doesn't really do what is required... :-(


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