Victron 602 shows battery always charging

S

ssobol

Active member
I put in a Victron 602s battery monitor. With all loads off and on a single battery the Victron shows a current of ~+.33 amps (it varies a little). The meter thinks that the battery is charging and calculates the SOC with this information.

I checked the current with a DVM and it shows zero current when the 602 is showing positive current.

I adjusted the Ith setting to .30 in order to make the battery SOC more accurate. However, now with small loads (less the .3 amps) the meter does not use these to calculate the discharge of the battery. With LED lights and the like, there are times that the battery load could be below the threshold the meter will use to determine the SOC.

Is there an another adjustment or do you think my monitor is defective?

As far as I can tell the monitor is working correctly in all other aspects.

Thanks.
 
I'd suggest to perform the ZERO and SYNC. My guess is that it needs to be ZERO'd. Disconnect the negative from the shunt and perform the ZERO function. The SYNC is done with the battery fully charged and in the float mode.
 
When I first hooked up my 600, I had this "phantom draw" showing on it that I couldn't figure out. After disconnecting everything, it was still there. What the...? Then I realized I had not zeroe'd the meter. Did that and it was fixed. So perhaps your "odd value" might also be cured by doing that? (As suggested above.)
 
Agree.

From manual

1.2 Synchronising the BMV
For a reliable readout, the state of charge as displayed by the battery
monitor has to be synchronised regularly with the true state of charge of
the battery. This is accomplished by fully charging the battery. In case of
a 12 V battery, the BMV resets to “fully charged” when the following
“charged parameters” are met: the voltage exceeds 13.2 V and
simultaneously the (tail-) charge current is less than 4.0 % of the total
battery capacity (e.g. 8 A for a 200 Ah battery) during 4 minutes.
The BMV can also be synchronised (i.e. set to “battery fully charged”)
manually if required. This can be achieved in normal operating mode by
holding the + and – buttons simultaneously for 3 seconds, or in setup
mode by using the SYNC option (see sect. 3.4.1).

also,

If the BMV does not synchronise automatically, check that the
values for the charged voltage, tail current, and charged time have
been configured correctly.
When the voltage supply to the BMV has been interrupted, the
battery monitor must be resynchronised before it can operate
correctly.

It looks like the Zero command is needed for using shunts other than the one included with the BV. Did you use a different shunt?
 
I used the shunt that came with the 602S so I didn't think I needed to zero the unit. I'll try that and see what happens.

Perhaps the instructions need to be amended to say to zero the unit on installation (regardless of which shunt is used).
 
I "zeroed" the monitor and it seems to have set the current correctly. Hopefully it's all good now.

Thanks for the pointers.
 
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