Victron battery monitor Help!! (1 Viewer)

[Bart]

ok so I'm not sure if my monitor is not set up right of I have a problem with our batteries going down to 12.2v very fast
So ATM we are away and before we left the MH was on Ehu at home for 20hrs to charge batteries and cool fridge, the the batteries got further charged for 90mins with our B2B charger , so when we arrived yesterday our batteries read around 13v , then last night we used the TV , a few LEDs and the Truma blower from the gas heater , on the Victron monitor the ah shown as used is only 34.4ah , but yet now my battery voltage is all the way down to 12.29V with the Battery monitor also showing the SOC as 93.2%.
something is not right as to me as our battery bank is 3 x 130AH batteries ( less than 1 year old )
Amazon product ASIN B01DT5GA7Eso that adds up to 390AH with a max useable amount of say 180AH yet with just after using 34.4ah the voltage is near 12.29V ( and its very mild here today ) and with the SOC reading 93.2% . something is messed up, as a battery at 12.29v does not have 93.2% left in it
HELP!!!!!!!!!!!

Below is my SOC reading @93.2% then my Voltage @12.29V then my AH Used when is showing 34.4AH used

 

[Lorryman100]

Did you set up the monitor via the app or by usb?

 

[Lorryman100]

You have to tell the BM what Ah it is monitoring and when the batteries are fully charged before it can give you an accurate reading on battery usage. From the readings you gave it sounds as if it is set to the default 1 x 100Ah battery. On the app click on the settings icon and update the battery bank size.

 

[Bart]

Did you set up the monitor via the app or by usb?

I used the buttons as per the manual to change any parameters , so i changed the battery bank size to 390AH , and i'm sure i the default setting for the battery type was for lead acid sealed, also when my batteries were fully charged i then pressed the synchronize button.

You have to tell the BM what Ah it is monitoring and when the batteries are fully charged before it can give you an accurate reading on battery usage. From the readings you gave it sounds as if it is set to the default 1 x 100Ah battery. On the app click on the settings icon and update the battery bank size.

Did you set up the monitor via the app or by usb?

battery bank is aleady set as 390ah
do i need additional hardware to use the app ?

 

[tonyidle]

If the batteries were well discharged then 20 hours hookup is not going to bring them close to fully charged. 20 hours hookup will at best put back around 100 Ah. 90 minutes driving will allow a 50A (guessing) B2B to push a further 75Ah in. Your battery bank, to ensure full charge, needs close to 500Ah to be fully charged. Five days on hookup prior to use is about what's needed.

 

[PhilandMena]

Is it not the case that whilst you have a drain on the battery, the reading will be false, hence 12.29. This is how my battery monitor works. It looks like you have correct figures for amount of discharge and percentage of life left.

 

[PhilandMena]

If the batteries were well discharged then 20 hours hookup is not going to bring them close to fully charged. 20 hours hookup will at best put back around 100 Ah. 90 minutes driving will allow a 50A (guessing) B2B to push a further 75Ah in. Your battery bank, to ensure full charge, needs close to 500Ah to be fully charged. Five days on hookup prior to use is about what's needed.

That's a very good point Tony but surely the time taken to fully charge his battery bank is determined by his charger. 5 days sounds a tad excessive to me, a 20 Amp charger would do it in around 20 hours.

 

[Clarky]

I get exactly the same sort of readings on my Victron monitor.
I also began to think that there is a problem with my batteries after 36 hours on an aire in winter.
Will be interested in the answers from our resident experts.

Richard.

 

[Bart]

If the batteries were well discharged then 20 hours hookup is not going to bring them close to fully charged. 20 hours hookup will at best put back around 100 Ah. 90 minutes driving will allow a 50A (guessing) B2B to push a further 75Ah in. Your battery bank, to ensure full charge, needs close to 500Ah to be fully charged. Five days on hookup prior to use is about what's needed.

prior to connecting up to ehu my battery bank was sitting 12.3v , then once i connected the EHU i had about 21amps going into the batteries from memory.
i thought that as soon as the batteries had reached a certain voltage then they were fully charged, as my battery voltage off load before we left was near 13V from memory.
at what voltage should the sealed lead acid batteries charging drop down to a trickle charge of like only 2-3 amps.

 

[Bart]

If the batteries were well discharged then 20 hours hookup is not going to bring them close to fully charged. 20 hours hookup will at best put back around 100 Ah. 90 minutes driving will allow a 50A (guessing) B2B to push a further 75Ah in. Your battery bank, to ensure full charge, needs close to 500Ah to be fully charged. Five days on hookup prior to use is about what's needed.

Also Tony if what you say is the case would that give me the same symptons that i am getting , as in im only getting about 40AH usage between the batteries being at near 13V then dropping down to 12.29V.
Thanks

 

[Lorryman100]

Once the BM was installed I used the Victron app from the app store to set up the battery monitor. I do have the bluetooth dongle which is essential for updating the BM though this can be done by usb with the appropriate lead. Victron release updates quite regularly and once the iphone or ipad is in range it asks you to update the firmware through the app. To get the SOC at 100% I used the voltage from the solar panels as a guide to when the batteries were no longer taking a charge, I then set the SOC to 100%. Through the app I also set the combined battery Ah and the low and high alarms. The MoHo is in storage so I can't take any screenshots of the app showing what I have set up as my norm as it only works when the BM is in bluetooth range and with sods law the screenshots I did take were when the BM was fitted not from when in use. The below screenshot shows a positive of 0.20 Amps with the batteries at 100% and time remaining as infinite. This is on EHU as the battery voltage is 14.16 volts as the charger is putting in a float charge of 0.20 Amps. If there was a draw on the batteries then it would be preceded with a minus -.

The bluetooth dongle in my opinion is a must have simply for the ease of setting up, firmware upgrades and being able to check the state of the batteries without going into the garage where I had the BM mounted.

I kept everything together in the garage as I did not want to drill holes and feed cable through the hab area.

Broken Link Removed

 

[Lorryman100]

as in im only getting about 40AH usage between the batteries being at near 13V then dropping down to 12.29V.
Thanks

12.29 volts is about 66% battery state of charge, your original post stated that you have used 34.4Ah, about right if the BM is reading 1 x 100Ah battery.

 

[DBK]

A fully charged battery, with no load and after resting for a while should show a voltage of around 12.7 or 12.85 for a gel. Anything significantly higher doesn't necessarily imply it is fully charged as you get higher voltages during charging and for a while after charging has stopped.
I don't think you should read too much into your 12.3 volts, see how long it takes to get to 12.0 first. Letting it get down to this voltage won't do any harm.

http://www.energymatters.com.au/components/battery-voltage-discharge/

 

[Bart]

12.29 volts is about 66% battery state of charge, your original post stated that you have used 34.4Ah, about right if the BM is reading 1 x 100Ah battery.

but why would it be reading 1 x 100ah battery , i set it to 390ah when i installed it, and you can see what its set to when i press and hold setup for a few secs then select , and it will show you what setting it is currently set to

 

[Lorryman100]

Were did you put the shunt?

 

[Bart]

Were did you put the shunt?

The shunt is fitted 1ft away from the battery bank

 

[Bart]

when i get home ill put the ehu cable in for a week then re set the monitor , and re enter my bank amperage and re sync it , that way ill be 1000% the SOC is correct.
BTW on the subject of the SOC reading on the monitor , once the monitor has been set up correctly if the SOC reading on the monitor says 50% would that mean its time to stop using the batteries as in say you had a 100ah batteriy , you had used up the 50% useable amount of it ?
Or does 50% mean you have only used 25Amps of said 100ah battery ?

 

[Lorryman100]

Ideal, as long as it is fitted on the main Negative feed that wont be causing the issue as it will be taking the voltage and Amps readings combined from all the batteries.

Broken Link Removed

Only thing that I can think of is to start again with 3 fully charged batteries. Once you know that all batteries are fully charged you can then set the SOC to 100% along with the Ah size of the battery pack.

 

[sallylillian]

Showing 12.29 what have you got switched on or nothing?

 

[Bart]

Showing 12.29 what have you got switched on or nothing?

drawing 2.5amps , TV and a few leds

 

[Lorryman100]

You would manually set the low limit of the battery bank on the BM, I set mine to 70% which IIRC is around 12.3v. This gives me about 65Ah using 2 x 110Ah batteries. This then allows the BM to give you an estimate on Time remaining based on power being drawn from the battery bank. With 2 x 100w solar panels the most I have taken out of the batteries so far in a long weekend off grid is 30Ah, and that was in February this year with the heating on constantly.

 

[sallylillian]

Its hard to see but is the amps image that of used or current out live? If the latter then you may well show 12.29

 

[Bart]

@Lorryman100 yip mine is installed similarly with the output from the shunt leading to a Bus Bar where my negatives are drawn from

 

[Bart]

Its hard to see but is the amps image that of used or current out live? If the latter then you may well show 12.29

Hi the amps image ( the blurry one ) is a picture of the TOTAL amps used , BTW does this figure reset when the SOC reaches 100% ??

 

[Bart]

I'm just going through the manual online and checking my settings that i have set
atm i have no.2 set to 13.2V is that correct for the batteries i linked in my OP
here is setting no.2
02. Charged Voltage The battery voltage must be above this voltage level to consider the battery as fully charged. The charged-voltage-parameter should always be slightly below the end of charge voltage of the charger (usually 0.2V or 0.3V below the ‘float’ voltage of the charger). See section 3.7 for recommended settings.

 

[sallylillian]

Hi the amps image ( the blurry one ) is a picture of the TOTAL amps used , BTW does this figure reset when the SOC reaches 100% ??

Yes

 

[sallylillian]

I'm just going through the manual online and checking my settings that i have set
atm i have no.2 set to 13.2V is that correct for the batteries i linked in my OP
here is setting no.2
02. Charged Voltage The battery voltage must be above this voltage level to consider the battery as fully charged. The charged-voltage-parameter should always be slightly below the end of charge voltage of the charger (usually 0.2V or 0.3V below the ‘float’ voltage of the charger). See section 3.7 for recommended settings.

Depends on the float voltage set in your charger, you have one of those sargent thingys and I am not familiar with setting the charging parameters on them, @Techno, or someone will. The float and absorption should be set according to your battery manufacturers spec and then you set the charged voltage as you have identified.

 

[PhilandMena]

The Sargent charger floats at 13.6V with a max at 14.4V.

 

[sallylillian]

So set the charged voltage at 13.3 or 13.4

 

[Bart]

Thanks guys @sallylillian & @PhilandMena , not sure what type of charger is in our MH , it's just the standard one that comes with the bessacarr / swift
The partial image of the Sargent panel above is just an after market voltage display.
What would be a good option of a upgraded charger that would enable us. To quickly charge up our battery bank as much as possible overnight if we had to stop At an Aries to use an EHU ( or would said upgraded charger get restricted due to the low amperage from the EHU ?