Victron Battery monitor - Flashing Charge Battery indicator but reading 12.8v

Started by mal1958, October 11, 2016, 06:48:40 PM

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mal1958

Hi I have a 2014 Mk3 Tvan.   It has the Fullriver 105ah AGM battery.

We were away in it about a month ago.  All was fine when I cleaned and packed it away in the carport.

The battery was fully charged and I had turned the main switch off.   So based on my understanding the battery should loose no more than about 3% in the month.

On Sunday we lost all power to our home due to the storm here in Melbourne.  I needed to charge my phone, so I thought I would charge it in the Tvan where I have a USB charger.

When I opened the Tvan up, the Victron battery monitor was reading 12.8v and the battery charge indicator was empty and the words Charge Battery were flashing.   

It was too late on Sunday to do anything so I left it unto Monday.   

On Monday (we still had no power) so I connected up my portable solar panels (160w) to the Anderson plug on the front of the Tvan.

(The Tvan solar panel is covered by the carport roof so doesn't really add any charge)

I left them for no more than 45 minutes.   The sun was patchy at this stage.

When I came back the battery indicator was showing fully charged and was reading 13.4v.

Now I am not sure but I don't think 12.8v is a flat battery and that 45 minutes is not sufficient time to fully recharge the battery particularly when the solar panels were putting out only about 2-3amps.

I have read in the Victron user manual that the battery monitor can get out of sync.  You need to do a charge above 13.2v to resync it.
Of course the description in the Victron manual is sufficiently vague and again I am not sure.

So after this long winded explanation, did my battery monitor get out of sync or do I have another problem that I will need to investigate.


Cheers,
Mal


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William_Foster

Mal,

Did you ever find a solution to this? I am having a similar issue.

Yours sincerely,

William
2018 Tvan Scout
2013 Toyota Hilux SR5

mal1958

Hi William,
The key point about the problem is that the battery was not flat.    It was just the battery monitor had some how got "confused" about the state of charge of the battery.

I recall I had the problem happen a couple of times after my post but it has not happened for quite some time now.

I did a couple of things that have seemed to stop the problem reoccurring .   
A) I followed the procedure in the Victron instructions and "reset" the battery monitor as though starting from new.
B) just to be sure of the state of charge of the battery, I used the built in battery charger to do a full recharge.
C) I now leave a 20watt solar panel (with regulator) permanently connected to the Anderson plug when the Tvan is not being used.

I hope that this helps.

Cheers,
Mal






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William_Foster

2018 Tvan Scout
2013 Toyota Hilux SR5