SmartSolar MPPT 100/30 does not use External Battery Current Sensing, while MPPT 75/15 does

Bit of an odd one I've stumbled across and wanted to see if anyone else has hit the same wall.

Running a VE.Smart Network across my motorhome setup — I've got a SmartSolar MPPT 100/30 paired with a SmartShunt for external battery current sensing. The idea being that the shunt feeds accurate charge data back to the MPPT so it can make smarter absorption/float decisions. Solid in theory.

Problem is, I've been digging through the Victron Connect settings and comparing notes with a mate who runs a 75/15 on his static caravan, and his unit is clearly picking up the external current sensing from the VE.Smart Network — you can see it influencing the tail current behaviour. Mine? Nothing. The 100/30 seems to just ignore it entirely, even though the network is set up correctly and the SmartShunt is broadcasting.

I had a poke around on the Victron community forums and it looks like this might actually be a firmware/feature disparity between models rather than a config issue on my end. Which is frustrating, because the 100/30 is the bigger controller — you'd expect it to have more features, not fewer.

Has anyone here confirmed this behaviour on their own 100/30? And more importantly — has anyone found a workaround, or is this just a case of waiting for Victron to push a firmware update that brings the feature across?

Really does affect how accurately the charge cycle terminates, especially with lithium where tail current detection matters quite a bit.

@Curly16 interesting find — I've seen similar behaviour documented (buried in Victron's release notes, naturally).

The 100/30 has a known limitation where it ignores external battery current sensing from a SmartShunt or BMV even when properly networked via VE.Smart. The 75/15 handles it fine because it's an older firmware architecture that was designed with that feature baked in differently.

Victron's workaround suggestion is to use the tail current setting as a percentage rather than relying on the networked current sense to determine charge completion.

Worth raising on the Victron Community forum directly — they do actually respond and it might push a firmware fix. Possibly already logged as a known issue depending on which firmware version you're on.

What firmware is your 100/30 running? Some users reported partial improvement after v1.61 but I wouldn't call it resolved.

Seen this exact issue on my narrowboat setup. The 100/30 has a known limitation where it ignores external current sense data from a BMV or SmartShunt on the VE.Smart Network — it only uses the voltage data. The 75/15 doesn't have this restriction.

Practical upshot: your 100/30 is effectively tail-current blind, so absorption-to-float transitions will rely solely on voltage thresholds rather than actual charge current.

Worth checking a couple of things:

• What firmware version is your 100/30 on?
• Is "Network mode" actually showing as active in VictronConnect, or just connected?

Some users have reported partial improvement after firmware updates, but I don't think it's ever been fully resolved. Victron's own documentation acknowledges it if you dig far enough. Might be worth raising it directly on their community portal — they do occasionally push fixes when enough people flag the same hardware limitation.

@Curly16 classic Victron — "VE.Smart Network" sounds like every device talks to every other device, until you actually need them to, at which point the 100/30 apparently puts its fingers in its ears. 🙈

Worth checking whether your firmware is fully up to date on the 100/30 before assuming it's

@VoltAlison nailed it — "Smart" apparently means it's smart enough to receive the gossip but too clever to actually act on it.