Victron sine wave problem while charging

I recently had both a new Victron Quattro inverter charger and a new Splendide washer/dryer installed on my boat. The other day when I went to do a load of laundry for the first time while running the generator, the washer wouldn’t start. I called Spendide’s (excellent) technical support, and they determined that that the washer was going into pause mode because there was a problem with the sine wave in the power supply. They had me turn off charging from the Victron, and lo and behold, the washer fired right up. So I can do laundry or charge on the hook, but not both. Any idea why this might be? Shouldn’t the inverter just be passing through the generator power when it is not inverting? Why would charging make a difference to the sine wave being provided to the washer, which is not even on an inverted circuit?

The washer is running directly from the generator, or through the Victron pass-through relay? What is the amp limit set to on the Victron?

Many small gensets have a very poor sine wave shape which gets worse when more heavily loaded. You can only see it on an oscilloscope, but perhaps the Spendide is objecting to that.

The inverter should be just passing power through. It's more likely that the issue is with the power your generator is putting out while under a heavier load. I'd bet that if you stopped charging, but turned on some other big loads, you might see the same issue with the washer/dryer.

I would like to know as well.
You were asked to turn off the charger but still ran the GEN which powered the washer, correct. Like you said the inverter/charger should pass through when inverting, which should be the same after the charger is off as it was before. Does not make sense.

One thought, any chance the washer polarity is opposite to the input at Inverter/charger. The hot and neutral reversed.

When you are on shore power, set up the same charging and washing scenario. See if you have the same issue. This will help you to determine if it is the generator or the Victron.

StevenK brings up a very often missed issue with reverse polarity.

rslifkin said:

The inverter should be just passing power through. It's more likely that the issue is with the power your generator is putting out while under a heavier load. I'd bet that if you stopped charging, but turned on some other big loads, you might see the same issue with the washer/dryer.

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Agreed.

I recently had some generator issues. They were fuel related in my case. When loaded up the generator would sometimes start to fluctuate slightly in speed and the voltage would start to get wobbly.

The interesting part for me was watching the inverter handle the pass through from the generator. It would tolerate voltage fluctuations down to about 100v before shutting off the generator power source.

If you have a smaller generator it's possible that it's being overloaded as DDW suggests. You can set a maximum amperage input on the inverter/charger to easily manage this.

Twice now the size of the generator has been suggested as the problem, please OP what is the generator size and make.

The generator is a 21KW Onan. The charger is drawing about 2KW when the problem occurs, so it seems unlikely the generator is being overloaded. But I will try loading it up with the air con with the charging off and see what happens.

Could actually be under loaded. Try again with more of load just to rule out the possibility of an under loaded generator fluctuating.

I doubt it's overloading, it may just be that with certain loads or certain amounts of load the output isn't clean enough if the splendide is picky. Or the governor could be out of adjustment allowing too much frequency droop as you add load.

I had a similar problem with a Splendinde. In my case I could be on either generator or shore power, and if the Mastervolt inverter was turned on the Spledinde wouldn’t work. Oddly, if I ran the splendide off the inverter with no shore or gen, it worked fine. My conclusion was that the splendine was very particular about the power waveform, and the charger load from the Mastervolt was enough distortion to mess up the washer. I have run into a variety of appliances over the years with similar incompatibilities.

Everyone will point the finger at the other products, and do so with zero actual information or diagnosis, and assure you that their product is working correctly. The reality I think it that they are overly sensitive to the power waveform which is pretty pathetic considering they target marine and rv markets where inverters and generators are prevalent.

I’m not familiar with your exact inverter but I understand that many of the newer models monitor the “pass through” voltage from dock or generator and boost if needed. Perhaps the generator speed is a bit off and the inverter contribution triggers the Splendide shut down? Just a WAG.

I was at anchor GEN running doing a load, hot water, charging and cooking. Have run washer off shore power pass through inverter In each case the power passes through the inverter and just inverter.

What about the washer neutral wire location, inverter buss bar? Does the washer run with just the inverter?

A few things I can think of that may have an effect. Make sure weak AC is disabled and also try "accept wide frequency range" settings. Easy to check and try.

So the washer works fine with the generator loaded up with other draws or totally unloaded. It’s specifically having the charger connected that causes the problem. Also doesn’t seem to matter if it is bulk or absorb. Will try again when the batteries are fully charged and the charger is on float to see if that makes a difference. I don’t see how charging or not charging could affect polarity and I don’t have equipment on board to look at the wave form.

Barking Sands said:

A few things I can think of that may have an effect. Make sure weak AC is disabled and also try "accept wide frequency range" settings. Easy to check and try.

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What are these settings?

Sababa said:

What are these settings?

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Here is a good rundown of the settings. Although Weak AC typically stifles charge capacity it may or may not have an affect on pass through. Same with accept wide frequency range, usually this is when the Quatto/MP will not accept AC power. But it may be enough under the conditions you say to have a momentary issue? Not really sure. But if you read the forums enough...occasionally finicky issues are solved with these settings, especially off gen power.. There are other settings on this list you might check as well. How to Program a Victron Multiplus/Quattro

So the problem is specific to a single outlet. Washer works fine off the nearby non-inverted water heater outlet with the genset running and charging, and also off an inverted outlet in the next cabin through an extension cord. I’m guessing it has to be something to do with the wiring in the panel—maybe some sort of cross talk between the washer and the charger breaker? Has anyone heard of such a thing? Other ideas?

Sababa said:

So the problem is specific to a single outlet. Washer works fine off the nearby non-inverted water heater outlet with the genset running and charging, and also off an inverted outlet in the next cabin through an extension cord. I’m guessing it has to be something to do with the wiring in the panel—

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Or an outlet that's going south?

-Chris

Inverters can really dirty up the power line they’re hooked up to. Especially the ones that sync up with the incoming power so they can take over in a couple milliseconds.
The splendide must be inverter driven too? Some power line filtering might help if it turns out there’s nothing wrong with the outlet circuit.

Sababa said:

So the problem is specific to a single outlet. Washer works fine off the nearby non-inverted water heater outlet with the genset running and charging, and also off an inverted outlet in the next cabin through an extension cord. I’m guessing it has to be something to do with the wiring in the panel—maybe some sort of cross talk between the washer and the charger breaker? Has anyone heard of such a thing? Other ideas?

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Interesting. To really get to the bottom of this you will need to see how the inverter/charger and this circuit are related. Possibly they share the circuit. More likely the circuit wires are zip tied to each other some where that is causing the interference.

ranger58sb said:

Or an outlet that's going south?

-Chris

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Except if it was the outlet, why would having the charger on make a difference?

Sababa said:

Except if it was the outlet, why would having the charger on make a difference?

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Is this outlet on the same circuit as the outlet that has no issue?

tiltrider1 said:

Interesting. To really get to the bottom of this you will need to see how the inverter/charger and this circuit are related. Possibly they share the circuit. More likely the circuit wires are zip tied to each other some where that is causing the interference.

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I like this theory and will check it out when I have some time without guests aboard to open up the panel. In the meantime, I’ve just got them both plugged in to the water heater outlet for now.

tiltrider1 said:

Is this outlet on the same circuit as the outlet that has no issue?

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Nope, different circuits.

Sababa said:

Nope, different circuits.

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That narrows the scope of the problem. If there is a different outlet on the same circuit as the problem outlet, give it a try. This will help zero in on the problem area.