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corbijn avatar image
corbijn asked

Voltage variance between SmartSolar 100/20, BMV712 and multimeter

Hi there,

I am in the middle of setting up my first pieces of Victron gear with my lifepo4 100ah 12v battery.

I love the features and the quality construction but I do have a question.

I am seeing different voltages across my victron gear and readings from a multimeter.

  1. BMV712 reads 13.34v
  2. SmartSolar 100/20 reads 13.33v
  3. Multimeter reads 13.28v

i have taken multimeter readings from various areas. The battery terminals, from the terminal and the shunt and from the mppt terminals. All readings are 13.28v

I have seen comments that there could be an incorrect fuse in the BMV712, but I’m also wondering what could cause this?

I have no long runs of wire and I have checked the crimping on my connectors.

My primary concern is the the mppt charger will stop charging too soon.

Thanks in advance for your help.



MPPT SmartSolarBMV Battery Monitorvoltage
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3 Answers
Jmarc avatar image
Jmarc answered ·

0.01v difference between mppt and bmv is negligeable. This is less than 0.1%. Assuming the mppt was charging, its voltage will always be slightly above the BMV.

As far as your voltmeter, unless you know it has been recently calibated, I would assume it is not as accurate as the mppt and bmv.. It is not bad. The difference is 0.5% which is average for low cost voltmeter.

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corbijn avatar image corbijn commented ·

Yeah ok - this is a decent multimeter but it may be off. I will definitely check that. I'm not too worried about the discrepancy between the two victron devices.


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marvs avatar image
marvs answered ·

I have a system that includes a CCGX and by using the ESS function, the voltage, current, and temperature that is read by the Shunt is shared and used by all of the connected devices. Look at synching your devices.

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corbijn avatar image corbijn commented ·

I did see that, I will explore more how the option works. Thanks for the tip :)

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marky01 avatar image
marky01 answered ·

Are the devices close to each other ? perhaps use VE. Smart networking via Bluetooth

I have a smart solar MPPT and smart shunt, both these devices use VE. smart networking,

The Shunt sends voltage data to the MPPT

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Related Resources

Additional resources still need to be added for this topic

MPPT product page

VictronConnect manual

PWM or MPPT

MPPT calculator

MPPT codes

Victron BMV battery monitors product page