Solar Charge controller - repair attempt. Victron smart solar 100 / 50

[HarryN]

Hi, I was given a victron smart solar 100 / 50 that was not operational.

One of the challenges of these units is that they cannot tolerate an accidental reverse battery polarity connection and this kills them off pretty fast.

In this case it was accidentally reversed in a 12 volt system, so now it is part of my toy box.

My goal is to see if I can get it operational again, then use it on one of my test stands to do some experiments / learning in a 24 volt configuration.

I build plenty of 24 and 48 volt small power systems and usually embedded settings based systems vs items that customers can play with the settings. One of the reasons that I don't usually use Victron except for custom builds where they do their own settings.

I mostly use other brands of charge controllers, so it is might be fun and useful I can get it to the state of basic functionality / programming, running maybe 5 amps through it. (so 10% of it's rating )

Thanks to @RV8R for the toy donation.

Harry

 

[HarryN]

There are a few youtube videos where people have opened them up.

I had expected to find more than this to be honest.

The 100/50 is filled with epoxy like many extended temperature / marine type electronics, so dealing with that is part of the process.

Here is a photo of it marked - ready to cut.

2 of the videos show it cut down through the top, roughly along that black line.

1 video shows it cut horizontally like the other line that I marked - using a 2 x 4 as a reference height for convenience.

 

[HarryN]

I was not able to open it (easily ) just removing screws, but perhaps I should try again knowing that it is really just glued / epoxied together.

Suggestions?

 

[phmilo]

We get these through the shop now and then (we're a Victron repair center). I've tried disassembly, it doesn't go well. The potting and bonding are very strong. The cut method will work but it leaves you with a damaged case. Most of the time, a RP event will damage the FETs and it's not really worth repairing them.

 

[pollenface]

There is someone on this forum who has opened one up and replaced the internal fuse. It looked pretty savage when they were done. Probably a lot of careful cutting with some kind of dremel tool I guess.