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pdreskin asked

Victron Multiplus 3000/50/12 not utilizing supplied solar to power or charge when inverting

My solar solar panels were supplying 443 watts of power and my fridge was drawing 297 watts. My 4 battleborn batteries (400 amps) started the day at 100% and was dropping rather than maintaining the charge. It seems that when the inverter is on (victron 3000/50/12) the solar panels using a victron smart solar charger 100/50 does not charge the batteries or contribute to the power being pulled. However with the inverter off the solar panels charge the batteries just fine. If anyone is familiar with this problem I'd appreciate some feedback.


Thanks in Advance!

MPPT ControllersMultiPlus Quattro Inverter Chargervictron products
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2 Answers
Mark avatar image
Mark answered ·

The MPPT acts independently to the Multiplus and does not know if it is providing power directly to the battery or partly to power the Multiplus.

If the MPPT can consistently provide more power than the Multiplus is consuming then it would not be possible for power to be drawn from the battery.

I suspect that the solar conditions through out the day were simply insufficient for the MPPT to cover the energy consumed by the inverter. It may have been good at one time when you checked but worse later...

If you brleive that the MPPT would somehow produce more power with the Multiplus off then simply turn it off at various times and test your theory. If anything the MPPT output power will be higher with the Multiplus on, not lower.

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Tom avatar image
Tom answered ·

My amp meter clearly shows a combined amp hour charge with both the Multiplus 24/3000 and MPPT charging. My MPPT and Solar is set up for 24-36 volts. Do you have your Mppt charger connected to the batteries directly or before the Multiplus? If you have it behind the Multiplus this may limit your charging based on the Multiplus software charging amp limits you have set.

All the schematics posted from Victron (VW bus example) show the MPPT wired before the inverter.

Also you may want to set out your solar and MPPT for 24-36 volts as it is much more efficient this way.

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