Victron, lithium and 12v

[wildebus]

So here’s a thing that has been suggested if the new victron stuff and lithium battery is wired through the vans original system and that system thinks I have gel batteries and so is turning everything off because it thinks my battery is too low would this be possible and is there a solution just putting it out there as it’s all gobbledygook to me.
While driving home the van charged the battery back up to 100%

That is very unlikely to be the case.
It is true that some van electric systems do disconnect the electrics if the voltage is below a certain level. For example, a Sargent unit as fitted to the majority of UK produced Campervans/Motorhomes will disconnect the leisure battery at 10.9V (it could actually be 10.5V?). This is a very low voltage and one no one should really wait for anyway.
However .... I don't think a Schauldt EBL unit (such as the one you have) has any kind of low-voltage disconnection, and even if it did, the voltage of a Lithium Battery at all stages down to around just 10% State of Charge (SOC) is actually over the voltage of a fully-charged Gel battery and it is far likely the battery itself will be disconnecting due to low voltage before any MH system will disconnect.
The reading you are getting off the Adria Panel will be coming from the EBL Power Distribution "fusebox". That is being fed by the Lithium Lesiure Battery via a Midi-Fuse in the 4-way Fuseblock next to it. I would expect that display to have the full array of LEDs lit right up to '13.0V' position except when your battery is really low. (having said that, sometimes the voltage readings on these displays can be out (under) by up to 0.5V, so if no charging going on, at least the bottom 4 lit up, and never just the one like you have UNLESS the battery is near enough comatose).


Going back to post #4, did you check the setting for what happens when the Victron BMV-712 Battery Monitor recovers from a power outage?
Below are the three possibilities you will have, and "Keep SOC" is the one you want. If it is on "Set to 100%", then if the battery is turning off, this setting will result in an battery SOC that will be of no use as a guide. Check Post #4 (https://wildcamping.co.uk/threads/victron-lithium-and-12v.101968/#post-1489881) for how to check - and change if neccessary - that setting.

If the battery is getting pretty low, one reason why it can be turning off is if you have a sudden high load that is causing a voltage drop. If you turn on a Kettle, Microwave or other 240V mains devices, this can happen.

I suspect the Battery Monitor is still set to reset the SOC on 100% on a Power outage and restore - which is resulting in you getting an incorrect and wildly optimistic State of Charge reading - and you are getting to a low battery situation with the running of your non-compressor 12V Fridge.
What you could do is unplug the EHU and bring up the BMV Battery Monitor on your phone. Then have a look at the 'Current' value to see how much is being drawn - then turn the fridge on (or off if already on) and look at the difference - this will be the fridge load.
A COMPRESSOR Fridge will be on around 25% of the time at this time of year - maybe less. The 12V simple fridges often run constantly when powered up rather than turn off when at temperature, run at a higher current as well and can kill a battery within hours.
In that same display on the phone, there will be a 'Time Remaining' number in Days and Hours and maybe Minutes. That is the amount of time the battery will last if the current load stays like the number shown.

Turn on the fridge (if off) and then wait a little time (15 minutes ideally for the battery monitor algorithm) and check the 'Time Remaining' entry.
Bearing in mind we think the SOC value is not correct, take that 'time remaining' number, divide it by SOC - so if SOC reads 65%, divide by 65 - and then multiply by 100. That will tell you how long your battery will run the load - including the fridge - IF the battery was full. That will help determine if it is the fridge that is the main culprit to the power loss. (I feel it is most likely, but cannot be positive).

PS. You have to do this with the EHU off and no charging as if there is more charge going into the battery then out for the 15 minutes prior to reading the value, then of course your battery will last forever

I think you have an iPad, Annie? What you could do if you like is load up the Victron Connect app up on the iPad, then we could have a WhatsApp video call and you could point the phone camera at the iPad screen and we could run through some settings and information if you like? Would want to do this during the daylight hours though in case want to reset any power links or fuses, etc.

 

[campervanannie]

Annie, do you know what PDU you've got? (It's where all the spaghetti wiring goes to, it also has the 12V fuses on the back). Probably an EBL208, it's printed on the rear.
View attachment 147280

I’ll have a look later it does look something like that.

 

[campervanannie]

That is very unlikely to be the case.
It is true that some van electric systems do disconnect the electrics if the voltage is below a certain level. For example, a Sargent unit as fitted to the majority of UK produced Campervans/Motorhomes will disconnect the leisure battery at 10.9V (it could actually be 10.5V?). This is a very low voltage and one no one should really wait for anyway.
However .... I don't think a Schauldt EBL unit (such as the one you have) has any kind of low-voltage disconnection, and even if it did, the voltage of a Lithium Battery at all stages down to around just 10% State of Charge (SOC) is actually over the voltage of a fully-charged Gel battery and it is far likely the battery itself will be disconnecting due to low voltage before any MH system will disconnect.
The reading you are getting off the Adria Panel will be coming from the EBL Power Distribution "fusebox". That is being fed by the Lithium Lesiure Battery via a Midi-Fuse in the 4-way Fuseblock next to it. I would expect that display to have the full array of LEDs lit right up to '13.0V' position except when your battery is really low. (having said that, sometimes the voltage readings on these displays can be out (under) by up to 0.5V, so if no charging going on, at least the bottom 4 lit up, and never just the one like you have UNLESS the battery is near enough comatose).


Going back to post #4, did you check the setting for what happens when the Victron BMV-712 Battery Monitor recovers from a power outage?
Below are the three possibilities you will have, and "Keep SOC" is the one you want. If it is on "Set to 100%", then if the battery is turning off, this setting will result in an battery SOC that will be of no use as a guide. Check Post #4 (https://wildcamping.co.uk/threads/victron-lithium-and-12v.101968/#post-1489881) for how to check - and change if neccessary - that setting.

If the battery is getting pretty low, one reason why it can be turning off is if you have a sudden high load that is causing a voltage drop. If you turn on a Kettle, Microwave or other 240V mains devices, this can happen.

I suspect the Battery Monitor is still set to reset the SOC on 100% on a Power outage and restore - which is resulting in you getting an incorrect and wildly optimistic State of Charge reading - and you are getting to a low battery situation with the running of your non-compressor 12V Fridge.
What you could do is unplug the EHU and bring up the BMV Battery Monitor on your phone. Then have a look at the 'Current' value to see how much is being drawn - then turn the fridge on (or off if already on) and look at the difference - this will be the fridge load.
A COMPRESSOR Fridge will be on around 25% of the time at this time of year - maybe less. The 12V simple fridges often run constantly when powered up rather than turn off when at temperature, run at a higher current as well and can kill a battery within hours.
In that same display on the phone, there will be a 'Time Remaining' number in Days and Hours and maybe Minutes. That is the amount of time the battery will last if the current load stays like the number shown.

Turn on the fridge (if off) and then wait a little time (15 minutes ideally for the battery monitor algorithm) and check the 'Time Remaining' entry.
Bearing in mind we think the SOC value is not correct, take that 'time remaining' number, divide it by SOC - so if SOC reads 65%, divide by 65 - and then multiply by 100. That will tell you how long your battery will run the load - including the fridge - IF the battery was full. That will help determine if it is the fridge that is the main culprit to the power loss. (I feel it is most likely, but cannot be positive).

PS. You have to do this with the EHU off and no charging as if there is more charge going into the battery then out for the 15 minutes prior to reading the value, then of course your battery will last forever

I think you have an iPad, Annie? What you could do if you like is load up the Victron Connect app up on the iPad, then we could have a WhatsApp video call and you could point the phone camera at the iPad screen and we could run through some settings and information if you like? Would want to do this during the daylight hours though in case want to reset any power links or fuses,

At the moment I have put the van on EHU even though when we got home yesterday it was showing that the drive home had fully recharged the battery so here is what we run while away a small 12v compressor fridge as our 3 way is not working on gas we have a 700w camping kettle and a 800w toaster a 12v tv and we charge our phones and an iPad we have not had the need to charge my mobility scooter batteries as I don’t use it that much last time the system cut out it was showing in the region of 55% this time it cut out at 74% it recovered a small amount the following day as there was very little sunshine and the system came back on after turning everything off and back on again and charged perfectly with the engine running so all is ok for now. I’ll keep you updated.

 

[campervanannie]

Yep, I fink vat's wot I said
I just took the scenic route rather than the motorway

Yes you did but I was chatting to someone who had an Adria twin and had the same problem and when your face to face you can clarify what they mean normally I’m a scenic route person but on electrics my head needs to join the dots it’s all very confusing that’s why there are people you can pay to sort thing out and I love those clever people

 

[merl]

Just delving further into whether it's the BMS on the battery that's turning off OR the PDU on the van because ascertaining which one it is is crucial to sorting out the issue.
Does your battery have blue tooth Annie? If it does then you may be able to view historical data such as it shutting down.
During the shut down did ANYTHING work at all? Inverter? Step?

 

[campervanannie]

Just delving further into whether it's the BMS on the battery that's turning off OR the PDU on the van because ascertaining which one it is is crucial to sorting out the issue.
Does your battery have blue tooth Annie? If it does then you may be able to view historical data such as it shutting down.
During the shut down did ANYTHING work at all? Inverter? Step?

During the shutdown nothing worked the inverter shuts off completely.

 

[merl]

During the shutdown nothing worked the inverter shuts off completely.

OK, in that case then it's almost certainly the BMS in the battery that's shutting down and this is also causing the PDU to shut down too when it loses it's power.
The BMV will likely be resetting to on each shutdown so that's why the BMV is out of calibration.
So essentially it appears you're using too much power and flattening your battery and this is causing the other issues.

 

[campervanannie]

OK, in that case then it's almost certainly the BMS in the battery that's shutting down and this is also causing the PDU to shut down too when it loses it's power.
The BMV will likely be resetting to on each shutdown so that's why the BMV is out of calibration.
So essentially it appears you're using too much power and flattening your battery and this is causing the other issues.

I wonder if there is a fault on the fridge so next time I’m out I will leave that at home and we will see how it performs as in my head we are looking at the van electrics the issue could be a fault on the fridge as prior to using it we never had an issue.

 

[YeoBlade]

How many watts is the Fridge, Photo of label, I think it looks to be a combination of:

• Long term heavy load of compressor fridge (As David suggested)
• Calibration of BMV
• Calibration of SOC

Remove the Fridge load and as before, it's not a problem with the poor calibration as you consumption is minimal

(Caveat I use Renogy kit so Don't really know )

 

[Nabsim]

Just to try and get it clear in my head David/Merl. A Foster lifepo4 battery is 12.8 fully charged state after resting. The shunt is showing 12.8V with a small drain so my head is telling me the battery is well up, at least the 76% full that the Victron shunt is showing. Is that not so?

As to the problem itself I cannot help as I completely bypassed mt EBL when I added solar, b2b and lifepo4. I do know on my van there is no low voltage disconnect in the EBL that has ever shown up and I have killed batteries before I changed to lifepo4, my EBL will be an older model. So, the main differences to my van are Annie is still going through the EBL and her battery isn't dumb like mine.

 

[colinm]

Robinhood on OAL found that using having a 'drop in solution' with his Electroblok caused the BMS to occasionally shut down, his solution was to disconnect the charger in the Electroblok, fit a Victron mains charger and B2B, AFAIK this has proved to be reliable.

 

[wildebus]

Just to try and get it clear in my head David/Merl. A Foster lifepo4 battery is 12.8 fully charged state after resting. The shunt is showing 12.8V with a small drain so my head is telling me the battery is well up, at least the 76% full that the Victron shunt is showing. Is that not so?

not sure what a "Foster lifepo4" battery is?

A key difference between Lithium and Lead is that while a Lead Battery has a fairly linear line from fully charged to nearly flat, Lithium has a flattish line from fully charged to nearly flat.
A full Lead battery is around 12.7V (varies depending on technology) and discharged is considered as 10.8V (note 50% SOC is NOT flat, it is half full) and you could take a ruler and draw a line on a graph between the two points and see with a degree of confidence the battery charge for a given voltage.
However, that is not the case for Lithium - a fully charged Lithium Battery is around 13.3V and the battery voltage stays around that voltage level until it is maybe down to 20% SOC and then it starts to fall off the cliff, with 12.7V being on the cusp of just about dead.

Out of possible interest, here are some graphs from batteries I have had. First one is a Lead Carbon bank. The X-Axis is in Amperes consumed,

Don't know what the little glitch is at around 57Ah. I guess the load must have gone off and then returned? I didn't take my Lead down to fully discharged, but just to about 40% SOC.

And this is a graph of a LiFePO4 Battery.

Note these are taken from batteries that are in my own Motorhome and not in lab conditions, but they show the different characteristics. In this particular example, the voltage starts a very notable decline at around 10% SOC and when the voltage was 12.75V (which is full for a Lead), the Lithium Batteries SOC was just 15%.

As to the problem itself I cannot help as I completely bypassed my EBL when I added solar, b2b and lifepo4. I do know on my van there is no low voltage disconnect in the EBL that has ever shown up and I have killed batteries before I changed to lifepo4, my EBL will be an older model. So, the main differences to my van are Annie is still going through the EBL and her battery isn't dumb like mine.

Just to clarify a few things for those not familiar with an EBL ....
A EBL is the common term for an Electrobloc, a family of products made by Schaudt (now Lippert), fitted typically to German vans, plus some other continental brands outside Germany. An EBL is basically a combination of the following things:

• A Mains Charger
• A Split Charge
• A Fridge Feed (12V from Starter)
• A 12V Distribution System (A "fusebox", if you will)
• A Control Panel to turn off some of the 12V circuits supplied by the EBL

In Annies Adria van:

• The AC power lead is been pulled out the EBL - so no mains charger;
• The fuse has been removed for the "internal charger" - so no split charge;
• The Victron B2B is connected to an external Fuse Block that goes to the Lithium Battery and Starter Battery
• The Victron MPPT goes to that same Fuse Block
• The EBL Leisure Battery connection also goes to that Fuse Block.
  If you upgrade the electrics of a Motorhome to a Lithium setup, or indeed a better Lead setup, you would very rarely remove a device like an EBL that has the various circuits - TV, Water Pump, Lights, 12V sockets, etc, etc - from the installation as you would just have to put an equivalent device in its place. What happens instead is the EBL becomes a fancy 12V Fuseboard with all the charging circuits bypassed.
  
  
• Also, the Lithium Battery installed in this case IS a "dumb" battery. "Dumb" is not really the right term though. It still has a BMS internally that is doing the things that Lithium Battery BMSes do, it is just it has no external communications so it is not possible to connect to it via an Bluetooth app.

 

[caledonia]

Nabism meant Fogstar not Foster but you already know that

 

[wildebus]

Nabism meant Fogstar not Foster but you already know that

actually, I didn't make the connection

 

[Nabsim]

Sounds like Annies setup is the same as mine then with everything new bypassing the EBL. Fogstar give 12.8V for a Drift battery, I know lifepo4 will usually be higher but with the drain and no charging input it should stabilise down shouldn't it? What I was trying to say is, isn't that 76% SoC likely to be correct and not actually a low voltage tab battery?

 

[merl]

David/Merl. A Foster lifepo4 battery is 12.8 fully charged state after resting.

In my experience the resting (after resting completely for an hour) voltage for fully charged lithium is generally around 13.5-13.6 volts, I've never measured one lower than that but maybe they do measure lower sometimes because tinternet claims 13.2-13.6.?? Maybe 13.2v isn't truly 'resting' and there's a small discharge going on?
This is the problem with measuring voltage to ascertain the state of charge because if the battery isn't truly resting but is charging or discharging you'll get a skewed result and because the charge/discharge figures will depend upon the actual charge or discharge current it's really meaningless trying to quantify unless the battery is truly resting.
So in my experience a resting lifepo4 or one with a slight discharge of less than 100 milliamps measuring 12.8 volts would be quite well discharged, maybe 10-20% remaining and don't know what Fogstar's figure of 12.8v relates to I'm afraid, it certainly isnt the resting fully charged voltage for sure.

 

[wildebus]

My Lithiums resting voltage is 13.3V The Lithiums are electrically disconnected from the rest of the van via one of my VSDR Lithium Controllers so have no charge or load on them.

At some time in the recent past the Lithium went down low enough to shut down and so the BMV lost power.
The SOC is 0% as it is a Victron BMV-700 monitoring it, and it is only the Bluetooth enabled Monitors (BMV-712 and SmartShunts) that have the "retain SOC" option as Victron decided to store that part of the device firmware in the memory that is used/present for the Bluetooth hardware.
As I don't have the "Retain SOC" available, my prefered option is to just lose the SOC value rather than having it reset to 100%. I just haven't got round to resetting it again after fully charging it.

As far as resting voltages verses in use voltage, the amount of voltage sag depends on the size of the load relative to the battery charge, so as the battery drops in its charge level, the voltage sag increases. For a Lead battery, the sag can be quite significant. On a Lithium, it is less so, but it is still there and because the voltage of a Lithium Battery is relatively stable for most of its state of charge, this voltage sag is what makes it totally impossible to use a volt meter to judge the charge level of a Lithium battery as a fully charged Lithium with a small load can present a lower voltage than an at-rest Lithium at 20% SOC.
It is only at the point a Lithium is going to die that the voltage reading will be informational - and at that point it is a bit too late

 

[Peisinoe]

So bare with me on this one as it may not make sense away for 4 night 1st night all was well 2nd night battery down to 73% so all still ok 3rd night battery down to 60% everything went off when the battery was showing 54% thought something had tripped so went all through the system checking resetting where I could then found the reset button on the 12v trip thingy everything came back on by this time the battery with very little going in through the solar it got back up to around 60/65% then last night again when it got to around 53% it all tripped again so I didn’t mess this time as I was driving home so when I pulled into the services I thought I’ll just check on my phone and it had all come back on and the engine had got the battery back up to 60% anyone got any idea what’s going on or is my set up thinking my battery is flat below 54% and shutting its self down the only thing plugged in when it shut down both times was my iPhone charging.
Don’t get too technical in your replies as I am blond ( actually grey)

I had it on my a Roma battery & when I contacted the they said it's not the percentage it's the voltage. If it's below 12v it will turn off. When I rebooted the app sure enough it was low voltage & percentage dropped to zero. Computer said NO