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kradenko avatar image
kradenko asked

Multiplus II trips earth leakage in house.

Hi,

I have purchased and setup a Multiplus II in my house as a "Big UPS". I made use of this setup: https://www.victronenergy.com/live/drafts:sa_system:backup3000. It has 4 x 12V at 120Ah AGM batteries in series to give the 48V supply needed.

As shown in that link above I have attached a wall plug to the AC Input and is plugged into a 15A wall socket. The output is connected to a new output DB board, which in turn connects to my PC and some stand lamps (Which we use when we have power outages). I have also limited the AC Input current to 10A as it is a 15A circuit.

My problem is, if I power it up, either in charger mode, or in normal mode it runs for a few minutes and then trips the houses earth leakage.

I will later get it integrated before the houses earth leakage, but for now I just need it to charge the batteries and output through the inverter.

Any idea how I can set it up to do this?

Thanks!

Multiplus-IIups
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3 Answers
ben avatar image
ben answered ·

Nope, no idea. But RCDs can fail. Have you tried a different circuit for the input?

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kradenko avatar image kradenko commented ·

I have not no, should I try another plug on the other side of the house maybe?

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ben avatar image ben ♦ kradenko commented ·

It seems like an easy enough thing to try, just to eliminate one possible source of trouble.

Is this is a whole house RCD that is tripping (and thus turning off everything else in your home)? What country are you in?

What is a "DB board"?

For the testing you've been doing, are you moving the loads (PC, lamps) manually to the new AC distribution, by plugging them in?

It will be hard for us to help you here with this general problem. I do encourage you to work (with an electrician possibly) to find out what is tripping the RCD rather than simply moving the whole setup outside of it, if possible.

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kai avatar image kai ♦ kradenko commented ·

+1 to working with an electrician to identify the issue. The RCD may be tripping because of the sum of leakages, non-linear loads and type of RCD (if the RCD itself is not faulty).

The electrician should be able to identify the issue(s), and you can move on from there.

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tigercjn avatar image
tigercjn answered ·

Could it be the earth relay that internally connects Neutral to Earth in some configurations? Could you have the Active and Neutral reversed?


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rh5555 avatar image
rh5555 answered ·

Reviving an old thread: I, too, have problems with the Multiplus II tripping a domestic GFCI outlet. My Multiplus is located in a (damp at this time of year) trailer which has a little earth leakage current of its own. When I add the Multiplus II into the system the total leakage gets to be too much for US standard GFCI breakers. Measuring the earth current of the Multiplus with an AC milli-ammeter I get 1.5mA, rising to 2mA when the ACOUT2 relay closes. I've now seen these values on 2 units (one made in the Philippines, one made in India), so it seems this is inherent to the design. For those of us in the US, where ground fault circuit interrupters trip between 4 and 5mA (at least mine do), it means you have to be very careful about controlling other leakage currents if you want to use a GFCI outlet to power your Multiplus II.

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Related Resources

MultiPlus-II Product page 

MultiPlus-II Manual

Multiplus-II GX Online Manual

MultiPlus-II 230V Datasheet 

VE.Bus Error codes

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