I've Had It With Victron Equipment

[goboatingnow]

As an electronic design engineer, the last thing I want is field repair. Nobody today can effect repairs with the same quality as an automated pick and place machine. Then add in the lead-free requirements , conformal coating , EMI certification. Nope dont want you touching it. Sorry. Ill sell you a complete board no problem.

The days of fixing TVs repair men are long gone folks, live with it. Some , pseudo-professional routing around with a 50w soldering iron is today just nonsense. Even if you could do it , its not cost effective at 100$ an hour to repair a 200$ item. For the few "real experts" that like to take things apart, actually know what they are doing and fix them , sorry your just collateral damage, in the scheme of things

Dave

[goboatingnow]

In response to your above comment on my 2nd blog - look at the pictures in the following links of melted batteries, then you will see why I say core melt down. If the currents work together as well as you say - then there would be very little heat in the internal battery reaction.

If you have not experienced it - consider yourself lucky or educated enough to understand battery technology.

I hear of this scenario almost every day in my job and dispute anybody who says otherwise. Now with the implementation of big Lithium Iron cells coming into use and the ignorance with chargers and battery use amongst users - if you place a standard Lithium Iron battery on a regular charger designed for flooded lead acid cells, you might as well "run for the hills", as Lithium Iron cells are current charged devices, where most primary cells like AGMs, VRLA, etc are voltage charge devices. A standard battery charger is a voltage charging device, which will see a Lithium Iron cell as a short circuit.

Lots of money unfortunately does not offset ignorance in these situations.

The following links will illustrate what happens to a battery when thermal runaway, or "core melt down" takes over. I've seen it first hand with a number of batteries, where people try to charge while cranking an engine or pulling massive loads from the cells at the same time and then blame the poor old charger for the battery destruction - when its simply not understanding how to use their equipment ( batteries included ).

I design systems around LI-ion , I know exactly what can happen if you dont know what you are doing. ( runaway is not common, with proper circuit design BTW). BUt what you said in your original post was electrical hog-wash and just serves to mislead people.

stuff like this

Lithium Iron battery on a regular charger designed for flooded lead acid cells, you might as well "run for the hills", as Lithium Iron cells are current charged devices, where most primary cells like AGMs, VRLA, etc are voltage charge devices. A standard battery charger is a voltage charging device, which will see a Lithium Iron cell as a short circuit.

is absolute utter clap-trap. LI is charged as a CC-CV ( in effect CV) all batteries are "current charged" in fact Li-ion with a cell voltage of 3.7V charging at 4.2V max , could easily be safely charged( in a 4 cell pack) in a conventional charger as the absorption voltage is well below the knee voltage of Li-ion. ( LiFepo4 is lower of course). Its just it actually wouldnt charge the batteries fully of course.

PLease stop spouting things you know very little about, Ask by all means ( or visit the long running LI threads on CF). And stop referring to the Dreamliner, theres no actual report out yet and some of it maybe manufacturing faults in a batch of YUASA batteries. Li-ion is all over the world, and being used safely every day.

Dave

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

The guy has already shown he has no understanding, let alone education on anything he writes about in this thread. friction causing meltdown... LMAO!

Still, we need to write responses like yours and mine so that the non-tech readers also understand this. There's a whole bunch of conspiracy plot- or fantasy-fans already CF member writing BS about electric or even electronic systems so he will fit in just fine.

I purposely did not chime in on the "China Syndrome" comments but do you you guys for doing so.....

[CharlieJ]

Dave #47:
+1

[goboatingnow]

is worth nailing some common misconceptions too.

Electronic products today are , in general , more reliable then they ever have been, theres no 3 year or 5 year life expectancy. This is simply demonstarted , by looking at TVs, all my recent TVs have gone to the scrap heap , fully functional, my current Sony will easily do 10 years ( an LCD HDMI). yet 40 years ago , you were lucky to get 5 years from a "tube" . All my recent ( last 20 years) laptops were stuck in a drawer fully functional, ( yes often mechanical problems) etc.

The fact is I can design electronics that will outlast human life and work in environments that would be instantly fatal to humans.

Most electronic product failures, today are caused by poor design, not the underlying " vunerability" of the product. MAybe in Victrons case the design is running too close to the edge, or is being used in environments not properly accomadated for by the design engineer. ( often design engineers dont even know all the side effects of the circuits). The fact that Victron may have a premier reputation does not protect itself from the odd design goof.

Dave

[Maine Sail]

Originally Posted by goboatingnow

I design systems around LI-ion , I know exactly what can happen if you dont know what you are doing. ( runaway is not common, with proper circuit design BTW). BUt what you said in your original post was electrical hog-wash and just serves to mislead people.

stuff like this



is absolute utter clap-trap. LI is charged as a CC-CV ( in effect CV) all batteries are "current charged" in fact Li-ion with a cell voltage of 3.7V charging at 4.2V max , could easily be safely charged( in a 4 cell pack) in a conventional charger as the absorption voltage is well below the knee voltage of Li-ion. ( LiFepo4 is lower of course). Its just it actually wouldnt charge the batteries fully of course.

PLease stop spouting things you know very little about, Ask by all means ( or visit the long running LI threads on CF). And stop referring to the Dreamliner, theres no actual report out yet and some of it maybe manufacturing faults in a batch of YUASA batteries. Li-ion is all over the world, and being used safely every day.

Dave

Thanks Dave.... There seems no end to the voodoo posted on the net as absolute "truths" that are not anywhere even close to a "truth".... Now, I am off to take apart a Victron to find those "anti-friction" components......

Which components in this unit are the "anti-friction" devices...

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Maine Sail

Thanks Dave.... There seems no end to the voodoo posted on the net as absolute "truths" that are not anywhere even close to a "truth".... Now, I am off to take apart a Victron to find those "anti-friction" components......

Which components in this unit are the "anti-friction" devices...

It is clearly the unit in between the two Tesla Coils !

[mrm]

Certainly those two round thingies Lemme'splain: by creating vortexes (sp?) they give you a spin thus avoiding all friction. Also see 'Total Perspective Vortex'[1].

Or could be they are drum brakes, creating a counter-friction in the system?

Who knows... this is all science-friction


[1] Douglas Adams: "Hitchhiker's Guide to The Galaxy".

[s/v Jedi]

When you look carefully at the lower circuit board, you can also see that the unit deals with friction by using two special batteries: one has two negative poles while the second one has two positive poles. This way, by separating the positive and negative energy, you simply prevent any friction!

[Fuss]

Originally Posted by mrm

Or could be they are drum brakes, creating a counter-friction in the system?

Hard to tell with the plastic wrapping still on!

[Paul Elliott]

You guys are brutal! I use dielectric grease to reduce the electrical friction in my designs.

By the way, I've got a wall full of patents, and they each have at least one unique and valuable new idea. I'm quite proud of many of them. And they weren't "stolen" from me by the companies I've worked for. These companies paid me well to do my job, and they rightfully own what I developed while in their employ. Honest capitalism is not theft.

[hellosailor]

Kimbal, try rereading what I wrote and see if your reply to it makes any sense at all.

YOU are the one saying it is normal for these vendors to supply no schematics. YOU are the one saying they are unavailable and that's normal.

So why on earth would I waste my time trying to locate those schematics when you are certain they don't exist? I have no interest in them. I never suggested they exist.

I only said that for a vendor not to make them available, was deplorable, unusual, and a good reason never to do business with that vendor.

Mayube they are available and you're just trying to paint those vendors with a bad brush, I don't know. I'm not going to worry about it. Either what you said is true, or those vendors can say otherwise, directly.

Its not my job to defend them, that between you and them.

As others point out, field repairs these days are becoming impossible as discrete components either become micro-sized, or aren't used, in favor of custom chips and assemblies. Sometimes, the correct way to fix things is by replacing them.


Maine-
Isn't it obvious, the yellow pigment used in the many conponents in the lower picture is the secret antifriction ingredient? Everyone knows yellow is faster, just watch some NASCAR races. Of course red would be even faster, but then the box might burn up from overspeed.<G>

Dave-
Since you're in the Li-thi-whatever end of things, tell me, is it true that Airbus, who are partly French owned, diverted the Yuasa batteries that have grounded Boeing's Dreamliners, and sabotaged tha batteries, in order to divert sales to Saft, who own the "NiCad" patents, and are also French owned? (I thought they were Israeli but a recent Airbus release claimed Saft are French.) Or is that just a scurilous rumor started by Chinese government-sponsored hackers, who have already stolen so many Boeing patents?

[Dockhead]

Back to the original topic --

Somewhere earlier in the thread, I wrote that every single piece of Victron equipment on my boat had failed at least once, except only the humble Victron BMV 6005 battery monitor . . .

Well, guess what?

Man am I getting sick of this!!! Am I cursed, or what?!

[s/v Jedi]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Back to the original topic --

Somewhere earlier in the thread, I wrote that every single piece of Victron equipment on my boat had failed at least once, except only the humble Victron BMV 6005 battery monitor . . .

Well, guess what?

Man am I getting sick of this!!! Am I cursed, or what?!

Good, now you can replace that with the Maretron N2K DC monitor

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by s/v Jedi

Good, now you can replace that with the Maretron N2K DC monitor

Ekh, then I would have to power up the whole network just to check my battery state. Yes, I have admired the Maretron DC monitor, which has some pretty cool features, but it doesn't replace the simple battery monitor which every boat needs.

So I'm sending it in for service.

I keep remembering what the electrical guy in Cowes told me years ago -- Victron gear is lovely, but the El-Cheapo Sterling stuff actually fails much less often. These words are ringing in my ears now.