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jonvalentine avatar image
jonvalentine asked

Single cell in Victron Smart 90ah battery suddenly dies

Got 2 x 90ah Victron Smart LiFePO4 in series, then parallelled to 2 x Sterling 100Ah LiFePO4 that are also seriesed, so a 190Ah 24 system. At 2am I got a warning "low voltage alarm" on the BMV.

Looking on bluetooth, it showed the voltage in a single cell in one of my Victron batteries had collapsed. It was down to 0.2V (!!!) but seems to have recovered during the night, to 1.71v.

I immediately broke the series connection between the 2 x Victron batteries, therefore isolating them.

I confirmed the bluetooth with a multimeter, it showed the same battery voltage.

Is this battery with the low cell shot?

This is the battery with the low cell:

screenshot-20210820-093305.png


These are the notices:

screenshot-20210820-093329.png


This is the other "good" Victron battery:

screenshot-20210820-093402.png


Really, any advice will be appreciated.


Thanks, Jon

battery
screenshot-20210820-093305.png (81.2 KiB)
screenshot-20210820-093329.png (197.7 KiB)
screenshot-20210820-093402.png (73.5 KiB)
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Alexandra avatar image Alexandra ♦ commented ·
@JonValentine

It happens sometimes in a bank built like this.

Handy to have one of these

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2 Answers
Paul B avatar image
Paul B answered ·

To find out for sure put this battery on charge at say around 1 to 2 amps MAX so a very small charger and then charge the battery untill ALL cells are equal in voltage around 3.60 to 3.65 volts

especially the number 1 cell. The internal BMS will sort this but the current must be low - or you could control it voltage wise and keep all cells UNDER 3.60v this will mean you start off at say 13.3 volts and when amps drop to under 1 amp then increase the voltage to 13.4v and keep going until 14.4 volts is reached.


The possible cause is that the battery was never fully charged and fully top balanced. in the first place and you have one cell far lower than all the others

even your other batteries should be checked to make sure they are all fully topped balance at 14.4v and ALL cells at 3.60volts (keep balancing until they are


total fully topped balanced is at 3.65 per cell, I have sugest 3.60 as this will give a little bit of ley way, the battery will turn off if any cell voltage goes over 3.65v

As a side note you really dont know how balanced a battery is untril its at 14v or above then you will get a very good picture of all the cells and to the balanced status



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Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) avatar image
Thiemo van Engelen (Victron Energy staff) answered ·

Hi,

Did you also update VictronConnect to the latest version and update the firmware of the SmartLithiums to the latest version?

If not, I would advice you to do so, but only after charging the battery very slowly as described above.

Kind regards,

Thiemo van Engelen


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