I thought I'd post my experience today in case it helps anyone else, because at one point I thought it may have been a showstopper for my first campervan adventure in this vehicle.
For context, I'm a UK user, and this will be my third campervan, I'm also an Electronics engineer by trade, but this one stumped me.
I'd fitted a 100Ah Eco-Worthy LiFePo battery, allied with a Renogy 30A DC-DC/MPPT charger in my van, DC charging options were from a 200W Solar panel or the vehicle's smart alternator.
Before coming away on this trip, I had charged the battery from my domestic mains so I know I had a full battery.
My electrical loads in the van include an LED Light strip, a Lavaner Pro 2kW diesel heater and a Alpicool CRX50 fridge.
All seemed well for the first 24hrs with everything working, when I left for a hike today, the eco-worthy app showed about 98% capacity and about 23hrs projected supply time, so i wasn't expecting problems by leaving the fridge on a medium power setting.
On my return, the fridge was showing a low voltage error - and when I turned the lights on, they flickered before going off completely at the same time as the Alpicool fridge - I now believe this is because they were running from solar generationpower only through the Renogy charger.
The eco-worthy app could see the battery and it seemed stuck at 98% and in standby mode.
With Gemini AI's help, I went through a bunch of fault finding tasks as the suggestion was a locked BMS, the Renogy charger reported an over-discharged battery, and the best suggestion was to charge from a LifePo charger, however the campsite doesnt have EHUs and my Eco-Worthy LiFePo charger was at home - a 2hr drive away, the app suggested the battery still had ~98% capacity but none of that energy was being delivered to the load devices.
The problem turned out to be software switches accessed through the app, they are hidden in an advanced mode which is only enabled by registering with Eco-Worthy who provide a validity token.
Once enabled, access to the additional menu, is by clicking several times on the battery name on the home page, this shows up as a Wrench/Ajustable Spanner icon in the top right.
And to confirm Gemini's synopsis, both charge and discharge switches were open circuit, because as soon as I closed them, the battery came out of standby, started charging from the solar generation and then from the alternator when I started the engine, after letting the battery fully charged to 100% I then started turning on my load devices - and everything continued to work.
Gemini seems to think that the fridge spiked the load current during one of its run cycles, and the battery responded by stopping all charge and discharge functions, however in my early research, it wasn't clear that there were these software switches in the battery BMS, nor that access to them required permission to access the advanced menu.
After 3 hours of trying lots of hardware type activities, i.e.checking connections, fuses, shutting down the Renogy charger in a specific order, i was about to finish my trip and head home, thinking I had a faulty battery.
So, I hope this helps anyone else that may have the same problem, it's also a useful Aide Memoire for me if/when it happens again.
Best regards
