Programming Victron solar controller?

Photomom

FedEx just dropped off my Victron  75|15 charge controller!  

The day after I ordered it someone from Battle Born Batteries called to ask if I wanted them to program it or if I wanted to do it myself. They said it would be easy to do, I just needed my battery’s charging parameters. Okay, sounds interesting.

My battery doesn’t say anything about “charging parameters” and the Victron manual doesn’t provide any guidance. How/where do I find this information?

I have the run of the mill group 27 lead acid deep cycle RV battery that came with my TaB.

BrianZ

Have you tried looking on the battery manufacturer's web site?  They should be able to tell you the desired voltage settings for Bulk, Absorption and Float charge settings, and any other settings like temperature compensation.  As I recall, the latter setting was given by our manufacturer as a voltage per cell, but Victron wanted for the whole battery, so I multiplied by 6.
P.S.
Here's our settings for our 12V flooded battery which I saved offline under the demo menu for user-defined settings..

Trojan stated the temp compensation was 0.005 V/°C per cell, so I multiplied 5mV x 6 cells to get 30mV.

DesertDweller

I e-mailed my battery manufacturer for the charging info. 

@Photomom I have the same solar controller as you.  Mine is the "SmartSolar" model so it has built-in bluetooth so the iOS or Android app can communicate with the controller itself.  Is yours the SmartSolar or BlueSolar controller? 

Photomom

I guess I’ll have to email and hope I get more info than shown on the web page.



I did get the Bluetooth version (are you kidding? I love me some techy gadgets.) it is just above freezing and is very windy so we’re going to attempt to connect up the battery today. Will hook up solar when we get a sunny day, could be a while.

Here’s the thing I don’t understand. Nobody “programmed” the T@B converter and it charges the battery, and we didn’t “program” the battery charger we use in the garage in the winter. Why do we have to program this?

Photomom

Holy cow is it cold out there. We did get the solar controller hooked up to the battery using a pair of the SB50 quick disconnects that someone else used, and it only took one trip to Home Depot to buy a wire stripper big enough for 10 gauge wire. Then the app insisted that I do not one but two software updates so there I was outside dodging snowflakes and updating the software using my phone.

We are having trouble tightening the terminal screws on the solar controller so that the wires don’t pull out. We both tightened them up as much as we could but they seem to pull out very easily. 

ChanW

@Photomom, you might have inserted the wire in behind the 'gripper' (tech term there). IOW, I've found some connections that use the screw to press the wire against a 'saddle', and some that the screw pulls the saddle against the wire. 

I just went and checked mine, and these indeed pull the saddle up to grip the wire, pulling it all toward the screw head, when you tighten the screw.

Does any of that make sense?

With the controller lying flat on its back, try loosening the screw a whole bunch and looking in the hole where you'll be inserting the wire. You'll be putting the wire in above the metal 'saddle'. The screw will pull the saddle up against the wire when you tighten it...

ScottG

Photomom said:

...
Here’s the thing I don’t understand. Nobody “programmed” the T@B converter and it charges the battery, and we didn’t “program” the battery charger we use in the garage in the winter. Why do we have to program this?

My admittedly limited understanding is that certain types of higher tech batteries can benefit from a different charging profile. Even my cheapo solar controller has this ability. In my case I didn't tinker with anything because the default setting was fine for my plain vanilla group 27 wet cell.

I'm not familiar with the Victron and don't know if it has a default setting, but if it does I'll bet a nickel it will work fine for your similar set-up.

DesertDweller

The Victron web page has manuals which I found to be very helpful.  There is also a Victron forum which I have found help as well.  The Victron Connect iOS app does have a default setting which I understand from my research is suitable for most standard SLA batteries.  You can also change the temperature compensation setting.  Based on the info I received from the battery manufacturer, that may be the only setting I change.

Here is the link to Victron's site for manuals to the MPPT 75/15

https://www.victronenergy.com/support-and-downloads/manuals#item=manuals-smartsolar-mppt-75-10-75-15-100-15-100-20

Cbusguy

If it was snowing out,  I wouldn't charge it.    Lithium batterys are easily damaged by being charged in the cold.

Photomom

Cbusguy said:

If it was snowing out,  I wouldn't charge it.    Lithium batterys are easily damaged by being charged in the cold.

Lol, this is a good old lead acid deep cycle battery. 

Cbusguy

Needed more coffee,   I thought you were installing a battle born battery and programming your charger for it......you are doing the opposite.     

N7SHG_Ham

@Cbusguy I think all of the LiFePo4 batteries have charging protection for freezing, if it is cold the battery electronics auto disconnect so you can't charge them. You can use them way below freezing, just can't charge them.

Photomom

Cbusguy said:

Needed more coffee,   I thought you were installing a battle born battery and programming your charger for it......you are doing the opposite.     

No worries. I went looking for a place to buy a Victron solar controller, don't like to buy expensive electronics from some random merchant on Amazon. Discovered that Battle Born Batteries sells them, same price as everyone else, and they have EXCELLENT customer service. Would definitely buy batteries or battery monitor from them, but not ready for that yet.

pthomas745

I bought the Victron a few months ago and have been watching my battery on my phone like I'm bingeing on a TV show.

The only thing I had to "program" into my Victron is the amp hours (battery capacity in the settings menu).  The manual includes "recommended" settings for all the other battery settings, and I just left it at that.  I don't think the Victron cares what type of battery it is monitoring, it mostly just wants to know how many amp hours to measure for the State Of Charge percentages, etc.

The mention of lithium batteries on one page simply says that most of the parameters are applicable to lithium batteries ( I didn't read closely, but there is a page on lithium in the manual).

Cbusguy

@N7SHG_Ham  I am not 100% sure of the batterys internal bms setup.   All though I know a number of youtubers have added battery  voltage and temp cutoffs externally to the battleborn LiFe setups.    Now are they needed, I don't know.    

I would hate for someone to destroy their battery by not knowing any better.   This is one of the problems with lithium that give me pause,  so boondocking or dry camping and I have depleted my battery how do I charge them if it is cold......It would take a generator and the tank heaters to warm them up.......I am not sure you could manage it on solar with out a crazy investment in panels.   There I go again,  looking at worst case......big sigh

N7SHG_Ham

@Cbusguy, temperature control for charging is definitely needed with ANY LiFePo4 chemistry batteries, I think most have that built in including BattleBorn. https://battlebornbatteries.com/are-lifepo4-batteries-safe-lfp-batteries-need-a-bms-built-in/ Certainly any that claim drop in replacement would or should have a BMS system as part of the battery. Some don't though including I believe the Victron batteries when the BMS is an external component. The 400's should keep the battery in a more room temperature environment over say the 320's with it outside in the tub.

I plan to upgrade my 400 to LiFePo4 chemistry batteries as funds allow or when the AGM dies in a few years, for the 400 that would be around $2000 invested in two batteries!

Cbusguy

@N7SHG_Ham looking at that $$$$$$$ abyss as well.     Hoping to stumble into some cheap tesla cells and get 24 volt and 250 amp hours for about $1k.     Then a bit of engineering and battery management.    But not sure it is worth it yet as I am tethered to a 9-5 for a few more years.    the good news is the LiFe battery prices seem to be dropping,  hopefully by the time I am ready it will be a couple of hundred less than currently. 

jgram2

@Cbusguy In that time frame, Japan may be mass manufacturing hydrogen fuel vehicles instead of making them by hand as they are now. Then another 10 years for infrastructure of course.

Cbusguy

@jgram2 I was very excited by the watt propane fuel cell.    and after contacting them a few times.... they finally answered that they struck and exclusive deal with Hymer as in roadtek hymer for an exclusive north american distributorship.      Well since Hymer is now in Receivership,  I wonder if they will be made available to the DIY crowd.

I looked at the Efoy,  but at 5k it was not financially viable,  it uses methanol. and I forget the calculations but it was a couple of bucks per kilowatt and the membrane had a limited life expectancy.

But you are right,  who knows what the future holds?

Sharon_is_SAM

@pthomas745, with our BMV 700, I had to program the amp hrs and I adjusted the Peukert exponent from the default of 1.25 for most lead acid batteries to 1.12 as I had that info on hand for our AGM battery.   In doing so, it increases the reliability of the state of charge/capacity readings. 

pthomas745

@Sharon_is_SAM , thanks, that is good to know, since I have my eye on a new AGM....

Sharon_is_SAM

@pthomas745., I remember the Peukert factor adjustment had an effect, but not a huge difference.

BrianZ

I just changed our Peukert exponent setting in the Battery settings of our BMV-712 monitor from the default 1.25 to 1.19, based on online calculators which use two sets of manufacturer battery capacity specs at different discharge rates to calculate a Peukert exponent value.  I noticed that it decreased the percent state of charge by 2 percent.

TNOutback

Anyone know the battery settings in the controller for the standard Harris 6V batteries