question

leverg avatar image
leverg asked

Cerbo switches off at night ?

Hi all,

Question regarding the Cerbo. Somehow the Cerbo seems to switch off at night. This has happened 2 nights after each other now. The batteries are both full and the modem is connecting fine as the modem is able to ping a reply. So that works fine. The modem is on the same battery as the Cerbo.

The starter battery is also on, because i am able to query the alarm and it responds back.

The only thing i,ve changes is that i,ve installed a multiplus and added the Cerbo touch 50 screen.


Strange... Is there some kind of power save setting ?



cerbo gx
2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

5 Answers
leverg avatar image
leverg answered ·

Ok, I,m stupid. the main battery switch of the accesoires circuit was completely off. It,s quitte heavy to switch on.

So why did I not see that ? Both ciruits (Start and Accesoires) have a Lynx. The lynxes are powered ( led and circuit breaker leds) by a 5v adapter. ( Meanwell DIN 12-5v).

In between the lynxes is a Cyrix. This cyrix will connect both circuites when a voltage higher than (13v I think) is generated. This will during the day allways be the case due to the solar panel.

So Both lynxes started up the moment i switched the main battery switch on and the solar panels were activated by the Victron Connect App. The Cyrix kicked in and connected both circuits. Then I must have forgotten to switch the main Acccesoires switch on. I did see all the lights go on of the lynxes.


Well, thats,s all folks, thanks for helping out.

1 comment
2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

wkirby avatar image wkirby ♦♦ commented ·

Excellent news! Glad it's working now.
That was a head scratcher for sure.

0 Likes 0 ·
wkirby avatar image
wkirby answered ·

The only power saving setting is for the Touch50 its self.
The Cerbo does not have a sleep mode or anything like that, that would be pointless as I'm sure you'll agree.
It's rather strange that it only loses connectivity at night.
The only things I can think of are that there is some sort of Voltage drop over the power cable which supplies the Cerbo, whereupon at night the Voltage to the Cerbo goes too low. Night time battery Voltage will be lower than daytime battery Voltage. At the next opportunity, someone would need to measure the Voltage at the power terminals of the Cerbo.
Is there some other gadget which is turning off at night which disrupts connectivity to the Cerbo?

Long shots I know, but that's all I have for now.

2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

seb71 avatar image
seb71 answered ·

First thing is to establish if it really switches off or it just loses connection.

Very different situations.

2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

leverg avatar image
leverg answered ·

Below the graph. Seems that after sunset there is a voltage drop, however not below 12v.

First pic is 7 days. Last pic is showing the days where it goes wrong.

cerbo2.jpgcerbo.jpg


cerbo.jpg (73.3 KiB)
cerbo2.jpg (92.1 KiB)
2 comments
2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.

seb71 avatar image seb71 commented ·

It does not seem to be a Internet connection problem, because once the Internet connection is re-established, Cerbo should upload the data and fill those gaps. It looks like there was no data collected.


You could boot into the backup firmware. Maybe the running one is corrupted.


If not, it could be a hardware issue (some bad data cable or a defective Cerbo).

Also, since you say that this problem appeared right after adding the display and the inverter, disconnect the Cerbo display and see if the issue remains or not.

0 Likes 0 ·
wkirby avatar image wkirby ♦♦ commented ·

Interesting. According to the graph, it seems to happen at the same battery Voltage on each occasion. This adds a little bit of weight to my idea about Voltage drop.
I mean that the Voltage at the Cerbo power input terminals drops below the required operating Voltage. This Voltage is not necessarily the same as the actual battery Voltage depending upon how significant the magnitude of the Voltage drop between the battery and the Cerbo is, if any.

I'm with Seb71 in that the Cerbo is actually switching off as there are no stored records. So it is unlikely for there to be any issues with data connectivity.

0 Likes 0 ·
Kevin Windrem avatar image
Kevin Windrem answered ·

Could you run Cerbo off the starter battery to see if it runs through this period and collect valid battery data?

Cerbo should work on voltages down to 8 volts so the wiring voltage drop would have to be huge to get below this.

If there is nothing in the path between the battery and Cerbo that could explain a power loss, I'd look into the possibility of a temperature-related issue. Could even be a bad fuse/fuseholder or a loose wire.


2 |3000
Toggle Comment visibility. Current Visibility: Viewable by all users

Up to 8 attachments (including images) can be used with a maximum of 190.8 MiB each and 286.6 MiB total.