Solar app shuts down with 60% full battery bank

Busted_11B

I have a 2024 Tab 400 with lithium upgrade (400 Ah, 620 watt panels and 3000 Watt multi-plus inverter/changer).

The SmartShunt app tells me it's at 60% capacity but the VE.Bus Smart shows 0 amps and shuts things down. Anyone know whats up?

I am not electric or solar smart so please keep it on a Bert and Ernie level.

RMo

Does the monitor say you have 400ah in the battery or does it say you have 240ah (60% of 400ah)?  You might just need to calibrate your shunt/monitor.

Busted_11B

RMo said:

Does the monitor say you have 400ah in the battery or does it say you have 240ah (60% of 400ah)?  You might just need to calibrate your shunt/monitor.

It just displays 60% in a graph. "State of charge 60%" in the smart shunt app, in the Bus Smart app it displays volts and amps and temp inverting/charging or off. 

Busted_11B

Here is a screen shot of normal operation, instead of 95% it was 60% and instead of "Inverting" it said off and battery low or something like that but also show almost zero Amps.

RMo

Do you have a meter to check the voltage of the battery directly?  You can compare this to a State of Charge chart for LiFePo batteries to get an idea of the battery’s actual state of charge and see if it is really 60% or if your monitor is inaccurate.  Be sure to check the battery “at rest” with no load.

pthomas745

We have numerous examples of badly set up Victron items, especially with how the Shunts and Solar Controllers are not properly set up for charging lithium batteries. 

Before this can be figured out, we need to see: the setup pages from each of those devices: the SmartSolar and SmartShunt.

And, @RMo has the most basic advice: if all these fancy toys aren't playing well together, a multimeter will answer many questions.

So, if you can, send us screen shots of those settings pages, and we will see if we can get Kermit in here to help!

Marceline

Busted_11B said:

Here is a screen shot of normal operation, instead of 95% it was 60% and instead of "Inverting" it said off and battery low or something like that but also show almost zero Amps.

At 13.12v, the SOC (state of charge) of a  lithium battery is about 40%. So your Smart Shunt is giving you an incorrect SOC. If your SmartShunt was reading 60% at some point, then your battery was likely dead dead dead.

In the settings for the Smart Shunt there is a default setting that synchronizes the SOC to 100% when the SmartShunt is powered up. I think that what's happening is that either NuCamp or the dealers are dropping partially charged batteries into the campers, and the SmartShunt is treating that as 100%. 

AFAIK the only solution is to get your batteries back up to a real 100% charge (13.6v) by whatever means and then go into the SmartShunt settings and manually synchronize it to 100% only when you're sure that the batteries are fully charged. My understanding is that the inverter consumes a fair amount of power, so to accelerate the charging process I'd turn it off. If you're not able to connect to shore power, I'd turn off everything that consumes a lot of power (like the fridge) and get as much sun as possible on the solar panels. 

Busted_11B

Thank you Marceline. I will start me generator in the morning and run it all day with full sun. Hopefully this will take me to 100% and then I will synchronize.

Marceline

Busted_11B said:

Thank you Marceline. I will start me generator in the morning and run it all day with full sun. Hopefully this will take me to 100% and then I will synchronize.

Hopefully someone can chime in with instructions on how to turn the inverter side of your Multiplus off. It may be as simple as toggling it off in that VE.Bus screen. Sorry - I don't have the Multiplus so I can't be more helpful.