New Victron / Seplos Battery install issue

[wgoldie]

Hi, Hoping someone may be able to point me in the right direction.
Over the past few months have been installing the following: Multiplus 2 48/5000, Seplos 280Ah battery, Venus OS running on Raspberry Pi with display. 230v is connected to AC In, ESS enabled with CT clamp connected to the 3.5mm plug in inverter to monitor grid.. These are installed in garage and connected to a consumer unit in garage. This is in addition to a seperate Solaredge PV system that was installed last year. I will eventually fit a current sensor to the Solar PV output to show PV but that'll be in the future.


Fired the whole thing up yesterday morning and all was working as expected. Battery charging when producing excess solar and then supplying house load when insufficient solar. Charged car from battery at 3kW to check for any cables or connections getting hot. All ok.


During the afternoon I inadvertently touched the main breaker test button in the consumer unit and everything shut down. Switched everything back on and now for some reason the display is showing a PV Inverter connected with around 7kW and the Grid is now showing -7kW. Reset everything and have went through all the settings to see if anything had changed. In the device list it is showing PV inverter on Input 1. I can’t remember what it showed earlier but fairly certain it wasn’t an inverter. This also shows 7kW.


Apart from this the system is still working as it should and when I check the MyEnergi app all values are pretty close to the ones shown on the Victron display, apart from this spurious 7kW.
Did a scheduled charge during the night and all looks good. This morning solar is charging battery and we are not consuming from grid so apart from this strange issue pretty pleased with the result of three months or so research, DNO applications, building battery and installation. Huge learning curve though!

Any suggestions as to what to look for next or what could be causing this? I'm not very familiar with Victron and this is my first foray into DIY battery storage.



Thanks in advance.

 

[binky]

I'm not familiar with Victron, but it maybe just sorting itself out after you confused it, which can take a little while sometimes.

@johnb2713 may be able to help as he has a Victron.

 

[wgoldie]

Perhaps. Been working fine today, battery fully charged from solar, apart from the spurious 7kW! I may reinstall the Venus OS on the Pi tomorrow, see if that makes any difference. @johnb2713 has helped me before so may drop him a direct message later.

 

[binky]

Perhaps. Been working fine today, battery fully charged from solar, apart from the spurious 7kW! I may reinstall the Venus OS on the Pi tomorrow, see if that makes any difference. @johnb2713 has helped me before so may drop him a direct message later.

please avoid PM, it helps other people learn from your issues. Sharing of knowledge is what makes forums useful.

 

[johnb2713]

Perhaps. Been working fine today, battery fully charged from solar, apart from the spurious 7kW! I may reinstall the Venus OS on the Pi tomorrow, see if that makes any difference. @johnb2713 has helped me before so may drop him a direct message later.

Hi,
I havent done anything with Venus OS, it sounds like youre up and running again so just a glitch of some sort, an offset in the program?

 

[wgoldie]

I reloaded the OS but no difference. May have to try and look in VE configure for any clues.

 

[wgoldie]

Managed to solve the above issue by downloading and then uploading the Inverter settings using the Remote VE Configure files. Didn't change anything in them and the spurious PV Inverter disappeared. Possibly the PV Inverter assistant within the settings got confused.

 

[johnb2713]

Managed to solve the above issue by downloading and then uploading the Inverter settings using the Remote VE Configure files. Didn't change anything in them and the spurious PV Inverter disappeared. Possibly the PV Inverter assistant within the settings got confused.

I had a couple of weird incidents with the Seplos BMS, it only happened after I added the Victron Multiplus II to Home Assistant. The battery SOC would suddenly nosedive to zero or just above zero stopping the inverter running. I had to change parameter 59 (SOC) in the Seplos BMS even though the correct value was displayed. Changing it resulted in the % SOC being changed, I could find a value based on voltage to give me the correct SOC. It did this about 7 or 8 times until I removed the Victron from HA then it was all good! There wasnt a direct connection from HA to Seplos the only possibility is it was via the Victron Inverter.

 

[wgoldie]

That's interesting John. My next step is to get the battery info into my HA set up but I'll leave that till I'm happy with the system as is It's only been running for 2 or 3 days. I don't have a data connection between the Seplos and Victron. The Inverter / battery kit supplier said they utilise the voltage side of the Victron to show it full according to 55.2 absorption voltage. That is how I have it set up but the battery percentage displayed in the Victron is quite a bit higher that that indicated in the Seplos BMS. I assume, and I don't know much about this aspect at the moment, that the reading differs due to the lower absorption voltage. This is something I'm going to have to research. Have to get my A3-2 commissioning form filled in and diagrams sent away first. Still on the learning curve!!

 

[johnb2713]

That's interesting John. My next step is to get the battery info into my HA set up but I'll leave that till I'm happy with the system as is It's only been running for 2 or 3 days. I don't have a data connection between the Seplos and Victron. The Inverter / battery kit supplier said they utilise the voltage side of the Victron to show it full according to 55.2 absorption voltage. That is how I have it set up but the battery percentage displayed in the Victron is quite a bit higher that that indicated in the Seplos BMS. I assume, and I don't know much about this aspect at the moment, that the reading differs due to the lower absorption voltage. This is something I'm going to have to research. Have to get my A3-2 commissioning form filled in and diagrams sent away first. Still on the learning curve!!

The guy at offgrid garage suggests running the Victron without a data connection to the BMS is the correct way to do it, I havent had the courage to give it a try yet. Please keep us all updated how it goes, especially interested in battery to HA if you do that.

J

 

[Ronski]

Possibly the PV Inverter assistant within the settings got confused.

I'm pretty sure you shouldn't be using the PV Inverter assistant, you've mentioned you're using ESS, which is mainly for grid tied systems, the PV Inverter assistant is for off grid, and its purpose is to alter the frequency of the AC output to limit or shut down an AC connected PV inverter. The ESS assistant actually has this functionality built in, but its only useful if your Victron system stays working in the event of a power cut, which it doesn't sound like yours does.

If you're not using a data connection with the battery does you're system have a shunt?

I run my Quattro 48/10000 without a data connection to my 29kWh of batteries, but I do have a shunt

PS. How are you powering the Pi?

 

[Ronski]

ESS enabled with CT clamp connected to the 3.5mm plug in inverter to monitor grid..

What's the bit in bold mean?

 

[wgoldie]

The PV assistant along with ESS assistant were pre-installed when I got the inverter. Although it is all working now I will remove that assistant in case it causes any more issues. The external CT clamp connects to the Inverter using a 3.5mm plug. As soon as you plug in the 3.5mm jack plug, the internal current sensor is bypassed. This has been replaced in later models with a terminal block as the plug proved unreliable. I think the shunt may be worth thinking about in the future but at the moment I will run the system and see how it goes over the next few months.

 

[Ronski]

I use an ET112 energy meter to monitor my SolarEdge production, grid usage uses the Quattro's built in energy meter (grid flows through the Quattro), which is out by about 5%, I may one day get another ET112 to use for grid monitoring. I'm very pleased with my system.