Victron 100/30 voltage measurement

[Mick C]

Originally Posted by admiralslater

I just bought the victon temp / voltage sensor today. The instructions state that it can be attached to any battery in the bank , what does the group think . Also if the 712 has temp sensing does it relay that to the mppts .

I thought it said something like “the middle batteryorthr one likely to be the warmest”??

[admiralslater]

I just checked and it said any battery, which struck me as odd but then again I am not that good at this stuff

[Mick C]

Cool, put it on the battery you think will get the hottest. Somethings one surrounded by other batteries for example.
Mick👍

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by thomm225

Understood, but my sails/cruises are much shorter and playing with the panels gives me something to do. Plus sometimes I need the power like now since I only have the two 12 volt batteries in parallel

I'm still messing around with my Victron Controller also and my PWM controllers. My panels are different also with my old 65 watt, two 20 watt panels, and the Renogy 50 watt panel that I bought this past Summer with the MC4 connectors

I'm all over the entertainment factor. Why else go out for a day sail.

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Paul L

I'm all over the entertainment factor. Why else go out for a day sail.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

My "cruises" are coastal within 100 miles or so of my marina and time is a factor so it's all go all the time or anchored and enjoying

This includes the kayaking, fishing, and hiking (and the high you get from extended sunlight)

It's fun just to be away from an area of 1.6 million people, sail for 4-8 hours and be totally alone for miles with your fishing rod drag set and relaxing...…

that is until the drag starts screaming...…..

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by thomm225

I'm not sure what you're getting at here.

My "cruises" are coastal within 100 miles or so of my marina and time is a factor so it's all go all the time or anchored and enjoying

This includes the kayaking, fishing, and hiking (and the high you get from extended sunlight)

It's fun just to be away from an area of 1.6 million people, sail for 4-8 hours and be totally alone for miles with your fishing rod drag set and relaxing...…

that is until the drag starts screaming...…..

Sounds fun

[thomm225]

Originally Posted by Paul L

Sounds fun

OUTBOUND YACHTS!

So a friend of mine stopped by to see how my bottom job etc was coming along last night.

He's excited about the new(er) Hunter 35 he's buying. His present boat is a Catalina 27 but the wife wanted more room and wheel steering. He said he couldn't believe the owner was selling $20,000 below what the boat was worth so we discussed Hunters in general.

I was like....do you plan to sail around the world? He says no. Just the Bay and maybe the Bahamas one day

So I say the boat will work great for you then. They are fast and very nice down below.

Then he wanted to show me his new slip which was near a friend of mine's very salty Westsail 32 that I wanted him to see.

So since we both love boats we had to go over and look at more. There was this big boat maybe a pilot/trawler looking thing and the guy inside was watching a big screen TV. We both agreed we could live on that one....

But he wanted to show me the boat that he had watched them putting a mast on. So I'm still thinking about the room on the other boat until he pointed at the boat we came over the see.

I was like......GEEZ! This boat will have speed the other one with the big tv could never dream of. This boat is simply awesome

The more I looked at it the more I liked it.

Then I saw the model name. OUTBOUND YACHTS! Awesome boat and I was thinking I know there's some guy on Cruiser's Forum with one of these.

[dmkkeng]

Interesting read, a lot of opinions and discussion for .2V. I have several meters and devices for measuring voltage, none of them are exactly the same, the variance is approximately .2V. The solar controller is the only devise that allows me to set exact parameters when it comes to Absorb and Float voltage, as well it has the functionality to calibrate the voltage readings. My AC charger has as setting for Flooded, AGM or GelCel batteries. My alternator has no settings. So regardless of how accurately I set-up my solar controller it doesn't match the other devices, that difference can easily exceed .2V. Yes I set-up the controller to match the battery manufacturers specifications as a starting point. However, there is such a variance in how each individual system is used, that you may need to experiment with the various settings to optimize your system for your purpose. In other words what works best for you. Voltage is not always an accurate representation of the charge status of your batteries however specific gravity is. That is what I use to ultimately determine what is happening in terms of battery charge. One example is my AC charger setting for Absorb is .5V lower than the manufactures specification however that difference doesn't appear to have an affect on charging the batteries. However ,there is the potential for other scenarios where the .2V could be significant.

[tanglewood]

Re the Victron Bluetooth voltage sensor, do you get any sort of warning if the connection is lost? Does the charger then revert to ambient temp?

And if one is using a Quattro or similar that has a wired remote voltage sense, is that shared with the MPPTs over the various Victron coms buses?

[FlyingScot]

My BMV-712 has the optional temperature sensor. It mounts directly to the positive battery terminal. My Xantrex RV2012GS (2000 watt inverter / 100 amp charger) has the temp sensor that mounts directly to the negative battery terminal. These are hooked to the outer most posts on my three series connected FF Oasis L15+ batteries.

The BMV-712 sends both voltage and temperature to all 4 controllers.

It also shows the sensed battery temperature and voltage.

Victron was even smart enough to have two wires come from the battery sensor (one to power the shunt electronics and the other as the temp sensor lead). This keeps the installation neat and saves one more ring on your positive terminal. Although it took me a few minutes to figure this out as I was looking for a 3rd connection spot.

As far as the question about firmware upgrades, all the Victron stuff I own forces the firmware to be upgraded when you first start it up.

No complaints from me on Victron.

I extended my battery 100% SOC trigger to be both the tail current and 10 minutes of time.

My typical day is for the controllers to start charging in Bulk, swap to absorb, then float. Then as the sunsets they all drop back to bulk to add power as I continue to use 8-14 amps continuously. Float can start happening by noon on most days as the battery exceeds 90% SOC.

[Yellowjacket]

Originally Posted by noelex 77

I think this will prove to be a good solution, but there are reports of problems associated with an intermittent connection, presumably caused by a lack of range from the Bluetooth signal. Perhaps Victron will release a wired version.

One significant drawback is that it makes it more difficult to tell if the controller is maintaining absorption voltage.

Argh. Noelex is again correct. I just installed the Victron SmartBatterySense. On VictronConnect app, I see the SmartBatterySense report of voltage and termperature of my battery. Without moving, I see the Victon Controller report from the engine room.

However, the controller can't see the SmartBatterySense 12 feet away. Yes, I made sure both were on same network. My bluetooth earbuds can play my phone calls from that distance. Why can't the Victrons recommunicate?

This "feels" a little like a software issue rather than hardware. I'll test that by seeing if the SmartBatterySense can report to VictronConnect on my phone from the other side of the engine room.

If the SmartBatterySense is so severely limited as to distance, it does me no good. My Victon controller reports 12.36 volts where it's connected to the bus in the engine room. The battery sense reports 12.39 volts connected directly to one of two house bank batteries at 12 º C.

Another old Balmar voltage meter reports 12.35V. A newer Balmar SmartGauge jumps back and forth between 12.35V and 12.40V. I assume the Balmars report in .05 V increments.

So I'll assume Victron SmartSense is the correct meter at 12.39. How significant is the .03 V difference between the MPPT voltage at the bus and the voltage at the battery? Probably not much if it's consistent over time, and I can fudge it. But that's not so easy with temperature.

I'd hope the Victron SmartsSense would solve this, but I'm back to square one in terms of my MPPT knowing what true voltage is at the battery and battery temperature.

[Yellowjacket]

Update: Range of the Victron SmartBatterySense is perhaps five feet when temp sensor is on my battery, which is on the keel, and under my rather thin cabin sole. Tested with app on iPad and on Android phone.

[tanglewood]

Originally Posted by Erik Dolson

Update: Range of the Victron SmartBatterySense is perhaps five feet when temp sensor is on my battery, which is on the keel, and under my rather thin cabin sole. Tested with app on iPad and on Android phone.

Right, that just doesn't work. And do the Victron chargers report or alarm when they lose the connection to the SmartBatterySense?


I can just see having this all set up and working, then someone walks across the room passing between the Smart Sense and charger, and the connection is lost, but you don't know it. Now you charger is charging based on it's locally sensed voltage rather than the battery voltage. No big deal for lead acid, but possibly quite bad for LFP.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Erik Dolson

So I'll assume Victron SmartSense is the correct meter at 12.39. How significant is the .03 V difference between the MPPT voltage at the bus and the voltage at the battery? Probably not much if it's consistent over time, and I can fudge it. But that's not so easy with temperature.

0.03v is not of much significance, but if it is a consistent error it only takes a few seconds to adjust the Victron set points to cancel out the discrepancy. If there is some error due to voltage drop it will be a variable number, but you can still adjust the result so that under typical conditions the set points are as accurate as possible.

The loss of temperature compensation is more significant. There are two options without any additional Victron equipment.

1. Enable automatic temperature compensation. The temperature will be measured at the solar controller just before it turns on at the start of the day.
2. Disable automatic temperature compensation. Measure the temperature of the batteries and apply the compensation manually.

Personally I prefer 2. It helps to have remote display of the battery temperature although the adjustment is usually only done with a change of season, or significant change in location.

[Yellowjacket]

Noelex, I'd come to that conclusion that I coud at least use the temperature fuction of Battery sense and correct manually, but I'd not been able to find what the MPPT is using as it's base termperature at start up. Therefore, I didn't know what correction to use. My battery is pretty consistent at around 12ºC. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.