Anyone else had issues with Victron SmartSolar dropping connection on the VE.Direct cable?

Yeah, had this exact problem on my static van setup last summer. Victron SmartSolar 100/30, kept dropping the VE.Direct connection to the Cerbo GX every few days. Thought it was the cable at first, swapped it out, made zero difference.

Turned out the USB adapter on the Cerbo end was the culprit — not the cable itself. Replaced it with a proper Victron VE.Direct to USB-A cable rather than the cheap adaptor I'd been using and it sorted it. Mostly.

Still get the occasional dropout tbh. Suspect it's temperature related — my comms cabinet isn't ventilated brilliantly and when it gets warm in the van everything gets a bit flaky. Haven't properly diagnosed it yet, keeps dropping off my to-do list.

Few things worth checking if you're having the same:

• Cable seating — these connectors aren't the most robust, make sure it's properly clicked in both ends
• Firmware — had an older firmware on the MPPT that was apparently a known issue, updating helped slightly
• Cable length — anything over about 10m seems to cause grief for some people

Anyone found a definitive fix? I've seen some posts suggesting it's a grounding issue but that feels like a rabbit hole I don't want to go down without more info. Also curious if anyone's seen this with the Bluetooth dropping too or if it's strictly the VE.Direct side — mine's rock solid on Bluetooth which makes me think it's definitely a hardware/cable fault rather than the MPPT itself playing up.

@ZFS_OffGrid had almost the exact same grief on my shepherd's hut build last year. Turned out to be a dodgy VE.Direct cable rather than the MPPT itself — the connectors on the genuine Victron cables look fine but the crimping inside can be intermittent under vibration or temperature swings.

Few things worth trying:

• Swap the cable first, they're only a few quid
• Check the firmware on the SmartSolar is current via VictronConnect
• If you're using a long run, keep it under 10m

I ended up switching to Bluetooth monitoring as a backup just so I wasn't constantly paranoid. The Cerbo still drops occasionally but nowhere near as often since the cable swap. Might also be worth checking your Cerbo GX firmware — there was a version that had known VE.Direct stability issues a while back.

@ZFS_OffGrid worth checking the firmware on the SmartSolar itself — I had a similar gremlin on my garden office setup (150/35 talking to a Cerbo GX) and it turned out the MPPT was running firmware that had a known VE.Direct stability bug. Updated via VictronConnect over Bluetooth and it's been rock solid since. Victron's changelog is buried on their website but worth digging through. Also, are you powering the Cerbo from a stable source? Mine went wobbly when battery voltage dipped below about 11.8V overnight — the Cerbo gets a bit confused and starts dropping connections left right and centre. Chucked a small dedicated supply on it and the drama stopped immediately. Two separate issues masquerading as one, which is classic off-grid troubleshooting isn't it — you fix one thing and suddenly you can actually see the next problem underneath it.

@ZFS_OffGrid worth ruling out ground loops before you go chasing cables or firmware. If your Cerbo and SmartSolar are pulling their negatives from different points in the system, you can get all sorts of weird comms instability — VE.Direct is pretty sensitive to noise on the ground reference.

Had this exact grief on my Transit build. Cerbo was grounded at the battery, MPPT chassis-grounded to the van body. Subtle voltage differential was enough to cause periodic dropouts every 3–7 days like clockwork.

Single-point grounding at the battery sorted it completely. Sounds almost too simple but it's often the culprit when cables and firmware check out clean. Run a dedicated negative back from the Cerbo to the same busbar and see if the pattern changes before pulling everything apart.

Ran into this exact saga on my boat last winter — spent a good fortnight convinced it was the cable before I found the real culprit: the VE.Direct port on the SmartSolar itself had a very slightly bent pin. Barely visible to the naked eye, but enough to cause intermittent dropouts under vibration.

Worth getting a jeweller's loupe or decent magnifying glass and having a proper look at both ends of the connector before you go too deep down the firmware rabbit hole. On a boat obviously vibration is the obvious suspect, but even a static van gets more movement than you'd think — thermal expansion, people walking past, etc.

@GoldenNomad makes a fair point on ground loops too — I'd work through that checklist methodically rather than throwing solutions at it randomly.

@CallumHobbs a fortnight chasing a cable — genuinely painful, been there.

One thing nobody's mentioned yet: check the VE.Direct port itself on the SmartSolar for corrosion or debris. On my static van near the coast the connector had a thin film of oxidation on the pins that was causing intermittent contact. Looked fine visually but a cotton bud with isopropyl sorted it immediately.

Also worth checking whether it drops at a specific time of day — mine was coinciding with peak charge current and I eventually traced it to a loose crimp on the 12V supply to the Cerbo causing a slight voltage dip. Nothing to do with the VE.Direct cable at all.

Victron's own forums are actually decent for this stuff if you haven't already looked — their community team does respond.