Victron Battery Monitor Problem

[AnchorageGuy]

My Victron 600 Battery Monitor has worked flawlessly for years. This morning I was doing my usual check and found the SOC and accumulated AHs used are not showing and just the dash lines. Actually, the only thing it's showing is voltage and amps either coming in or going out. No other info. Anyone else run across this with the Victron? Chuck

[JayH]

I've never had that problem, but if it's showing Amps & Volts (the only inputs) then I'd assume some kind of internal corruption. You could ask Jaggat (service@victronenergy.com), but I'd reset it to factory defaults, reprogram it, and see if that helped.

[AnchorageGuy]

Thanks Jay but there is nothing in the small and short manual that I can find to reset to factory defaults. Chuck

[JayH]

In my manual it is the R DEF setting. Hit Setup, cycle until you find "R DEF", and then hold "Select" for 5 seconds. You'll have to reconfigure it with the bank size, Peukert coefficient, and Charge Efficiency Factor. So maybe write those down beforehand.

[JayH]

Something else you might try before the factory reset is to manually sync it. Maybe it lost voltage or something and just got confused. The manual sync resets the amp-hour counter. Same as above, but look for "SYNC" instead. You're effectively telling it that your battery is full, so hopefully it is.

[AnchorageGuy]

tried the sync and now factory reset. It won't do either. Just cycles back and forth between voltage and total AH for the back when I hold down the select button. Chuck

[JayH]

Have you tried unplugging it, waiting 30 seconds, and plugging back in? If none of that works, I think you may need to email them. Do it tonight since they're in The Netherlands, you'll probably have an answer in the morning.

[AnchorageGuy]

I have disconnected the power, unplugged the phone type cord, tried reset and sync. no change whatsoever. I have sent an email, so I guess I will wait. Thanks. Chuck

[boom23]

Just give it time. It must have lost power and lost historical data. Check that the settings are Ok and give it some time.

[DeepFrz]

If it lost power then you probably have a bad connection somewhere. Check out all the connections while you are waiting for a response. Of course it could be an old fashioned electronic failure.

[Rubikoop]

My BMV 600 did the same thing. I eventually discovered corrosion on the tiny circuit board that's attached to the shunt. I think there were two small screws on the shunt that remove the "guts" of the shunt. The electronics behind there were green and fuzzy after about 4 years. Before installing a new shunt I disassembled it and sprayed Corrosion block liberally. Not sure if it helped but I felt better.

You're not seeing amperage and can't do a sync because the display isn't communicating with the shunt or the shunt has failed. Maybe unplug the flat wire and closely examine both ends. Also check the cable along its length to make sure it hasn't been damaged.

Good luck.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Rubikoop

My BMV 600 did the same thing. I eventually discovered corrosion on the tiny circuit board that's attached to the shunt. I think there were two small screws on the shunt that remove the "guts" of the shunt. The electronics behind there were green and fuzzy after about 4 years. Before installing a new shunt I disassembled it and sprayed Corrosion block liberally. Not sure if it helped but I felt better.

You're not seeing amperage and can't do a sync because the display isn't communicating with the shunt or the shunt has failed. Maybe unplug the flat wire and closely examine both ends. Also check the cable along its length to make sure it hasn't been damaged.

Good luck.

I wonder if that's what happened to mine.

My BMV 600 dead failed last year, like every other piece of Victron gear on board at one time or another.

I checked the cable with a multimeter and found voltage on one conductor, so decided that it was the gauge and not the shunt.

I sent it back to the Victron dealer in the UK, who simply sent me an entire new set with gauge and shunt (I've had a lot of trouble with my Victron gear, but I must say, the service and support has always been excellent). I was surprised and disappointed when the new gauge also didn't work.


So I just forgot about it for a while. My new Zeus chartplotter has a very precise voltage display. With experience, I have been paying more and more attention to voltage and less and less to calculated consumption of amp/hours.

Counted amp/hours are compromised as a measure of battery SOC because of two reasons:

1. Because of Peukert's coefficient, an amp/hour drawn quickly draws down the battery more than one drawn slowly.

2. It is really hard to know what your real battery capacity is.


Using voltage is compromised because a heavy load (or charging) will reduce or decrease the voltage compared to the battery's real SOC. But my battery bank is large enough that it is not hard to find moments when there has not been a load on it more than a fraction of a percent of C, and experience has shown me that these measurements are accurate; besides that, any error will be on the conservative side (understating SOC).

I have also learned, from watching the voltage, to see exactly where the batteries are in the charging process -- important when you are off shore power and can't just charge and charge for indefinite periods of time.

You can also tell a lot from the dip in voltage from a known heavy load (microwave or kettle through the inverter, for example).


I've got about a year now with no battery monitor and I think I don't miss it at all now. I've had the best year ever in terms of electrical life -- summer cruise was a month off the grid with five people on board, and we just never lost a single moment worrying about electricity. My 1 1/2 year old Trojans, which have been killed dead twice since they were new, have more capacity than new according to my Argus battery tester, and are performing magnificently. My Kohler generator is running perfectly.

So who really needs a battery monitor? I'm not sure it's worth the trouble, once you've learned to read system voltage.