u/SqueezeMyLemmons

Last night I was in a lightning storm at 8000’ and woke up at 2am to my power being completely off in my van. I thought it was my dcdc charger that I finally used after months of installing.

My dad had said it could have been an EMP
but I wrote it off as kind of crazy sounding. I thought “I’m a floating system, why would that matter since I’m not ground to earth?”

Well upon further googling, I found out that nearby lightning strikes can cause a voltage spike in your 12v system, which will cause your smart lipo’s BMS to shut off your battery.

I started the van which began charging the battery via my dcdc charger and everything came back to life and has seemingly been just fine.

Has anyone experienced anything like this before? I had no idea it was even possible. I was worked up for hours wondering what they hell would cause my system to just shut off when it had plenty of charge

I had a strange occurrence last night while in my van. Woke up at 2:30am to find I had no power at all. I have a WattCycle 314 battery, victron 1200w inverted, Victron Orion dcdc charger, and Victron MPPT.

When I went to bed I had ~58% or so. When I woke up and realized I had no power at all (battery monitor was off and everything), I started the van thinking the dcdc charger will charge things. Everything came on within seconds and I still had 55% battery. Since then everything has been fine.

The system has been working great since dec/jan or so. I haven’t needed the dcdc charger since solars been awesome and I have more battery than I need. I have it turned off in the victron app as well as a dedicated cut off switch that I usually keep off.

This week however, I’ve camped out in near full shade with little solar. I was getting a little low so I turned on the dcdc charger and drove around for an hour or so to get a boost.

When I parked, I didn’t turn off the dcdc charger in the app or turn the switch off.

I’m wondering if the dcdc charger sensed my starter battery was low and maybe triggered the entire system to turn off? After power was restored, I turned off the dcdc charger via the app and it’s been good since.

Side note: there was a good lightning storm with lightning very close (within a mile) and I have no idea if that could mean anything. My dad says it was an EMP from the lightning but that seems farther (but I don’t know shit about EMPs)