Display isn´t showing any battery power after installing solar charger

[louipedersen]

Hi every one,
Then I finally got my watt-hour solar cells, my Vitron 75/10 charger and two pieces of Vitron smart sense and I was feeling quit satisfied with it all, but after the installation of the vitron solar charger on the rear pleasure battery, the display has shown the following and I have no idea why. Both batteries are charged.
Are there any of you knowledgeable people who have experience with something similar or have an idea of what might be causing it?
Thanks in advance

 

[WelshGas]

Hi every one,
Then I finally got my watt-hour solar cells, my Vitron 75/10 charger and two pieces of Vitron smart sense and I was feeling quit satisfied with it all, but after the installation of the vitron solar charger on the rear pleasure battery, the display has shown the following and I have no idea why. Both batteries are charged.
Are there any of you knowledgeable people who have experience with something similar or have an idea of what might be causing it?
Thanks in advance

View attachment 122003

The connection to the rear battery should be solar +tve to Battery +tve. Solar -tve to Chassis ground, normally the battery clamp bolt.
The battery +tve has a 100 amp cube fuse. If that has blown and you have connected below it then the rear battery is isolated from the California circuit. This fuse is fragile.
So how have you connected and is the cube fuse OK?

 

[louipedersen]

Hi WelshBas,
Oh, I see. I connected the Vitron battery plus to the batteri plus pole and the Vitron battery minus to the battery minus pole. The solar plus went to Vitron pv plus and solar minus went to Vitron pv minus.
I checked the fuse and it was blown. I hope when I get a new fuse and have connected minus battery on the Vitron to the chassis ground, it will work again. Thanks for your help

 

[yossarian]

It will be helpful if you post a screenshot of the victron app on your phone.

 

[Azteccamper]

The connection to the rear battery should be solar +tve to Battery +tve. Solar -tve to Chassis ground, normally the battery clamp bolt.
The battery +tve has a 100 amp cube fuse. If that has blown and you have connected below it then the rear battery is isolated from the California circuit. This fuse is fragile.
So how have you connected and is the cube fuse OK?

I’m sure Roger @solarcampersolutions instructs you to go +ve to +ve and -ve to -ve terminals?

 

[WelshGas]

I’m sure Roger @solarcampersolutions instructs you to go +ve to +ve and -ve to -ve terminals?

That works for the T5 and T6 but not the T6.1 which has a battery monitor attached to the -tve pole of each leisure battery , which if bypassed by connecting the solar -tve direct to the battery -tve can cause problems.

 

[Azteccamper]

That works for the T5 and T6 but not the T6.1 which has a battery monitor attached to the -tve pole of each leisure battery , which if bypassed by connecting the solar -tve direct to the battery -tve can cause problems.

Ahhh. Cheers for the reply @WelshGas

 

[louipedersen]

The 75A fuse on the battery plus pole was blown, so I changed it. I have connected the minus from the solar to the bolt infront of the rear batteri (instead of the minus pole on the battery). But it did not help. I have removed fuses to the control unit (4 pieces) and a fuse to the display, but nothing changed. I removedthe IBS sensor on the minus pole on both batteries, and even disconnected all three batteries...But stil it shows 0h in the display.
I am running out of ideas, any suggestions?

 

[yossarian]

any suggestion

It will be helpful if you post a screenshot of the victron app on your phone.

 

[WelshGas]

The 75A fuse on the battery plus pole was blown, so I changed it. I have connected the minus from the solar to the bolt infront of the rear batteri (instead of the minus pole on the battery). But it did not help. I have removed fuses to the control unit (4 pieces) and a fuse to the display, but nothing changed. I removedthe IBS sensor on the minus pole on both batteries, and even disconnected all three batteries...But stil it shows 0h in the display.
I am running out of ideas, any suggestions?

Ok, you’ve sorted the connections and replaced the cube fuse.
What is the output from the Solar panel v & amps and the output from the Victron?

 

[louipedersen]

Hi,
Here is a screenshot from the Vitron app:

 

[yossarian]

If you click though to the smart solar device you should see something like this:

 

[yossarian]

That will help us debug the problem. Make a note of the sun conditions.

 

[yossarian]

What we can see so far is that your connections between your batteries and all three victron devices appear to be OK.

 

[louipedersen]

Here is a screenshot of the solar charger and the display. It was a cloudy day without much sun.

 

[louipedersen]

 

[yossarian]

So what we can see there is that your control panel is showing a charge of 2A but your solar controller is showing 80W which equates to about 6A charge.

The missing 4A is not going into your fridge because that's not on. Do you have something connected to the 12V leisure batteries?

There's also a discrepancy of 0.2V between your solar controller and your control panel which might be just due to resistance in the various wires or a change in sun conditions between readings.

So what could cause the current and voltage discrepancy?

• Changing sunlight conditions between readings.
• Resistance between solar controller and the two batteries (voltage differential only).
• Unaccounted for load on leisure circuit.
• Batteries no longer in parallel due to a break in the circuit. Usually this is the cube fuse.

AFAIK the control panel should show the sum of all charge currents and the average voltage. If you're still with me then you'll realise that the discrepancy in Amps can't really be blamed on the cube fuse.

How to proceed?

• Accept that the 'h' reading on the control panel does not give you any useful information.
• The bar graph on the control panel is generally accurate particularly if your van is a MY 21+. On earlier vans it's accurate if the cube fuse is not blown.
• You could obtain a multimeter and take voltage readings of each battery.
• Post back with a photo of the rear leisure battery's terminals so we can see how your IBS has been wired.

 

[louipedersen]

Okay, thanks. I Will get a multimeter and measure the voltage om each batteri. Here is a photo of the rear batteri.

 

[yossarian]

From that photo your van appears to be an early version with the miswired sensor. This means that your control panel will misreport your battery status anytime that your cube fuse is blown.

When replacing the cube fuse it is possible to blow the replacement if there is a large voltage difference between batteries.

Newer vans seem to come with a 100A cube fuse.

 

[yossarian]

No need for the multimeter. If the other smart battery sense is connected across the other leisure battery then the current path is intact.

 

[yossarian]

At this stage I'd suggest simply unplug the two pin connector from each sensor on each negative pole. Leave for a minute or two, reconnect then wait 10 or 15 minutes and see if your control panel looks more normal.