Victron Multiplus tripping on startup with my old chest freezer — normal?

Running into something similar with my motorhome setup and wondering if anyone can shed light on it.

Got a Victron Multiplus 12/3000 and it's struggling every time I start my old chest freezer — the one I picked up secondhand at a car boot. The inverter trips out maybe 30-40% of the time on startup, then recovers fine once I reset it. Once the freezer is actually running it's absolutely no bother.

I've read a bit about inrush current and compressor motors needing a big surge to get going, but I'm not sure if this is just a quirk of older appliances or if something is genuinely wrong with either the freezer or my setup.

A few things I'm wondering:

• Is this just what older compressor-style appliances do, and newer ones are better behaved?
• Would a soft starter actually help here, or is that more for larger compressors?
• Could my battery state of charge be a factor? Running 200Ah of Fogstar lithium — wondering if a lower SOC means the Multiplus can't deliver the surge it needs
• Is there a setting in VictronConnect I should be tweaking?

The freezer works perfectly on mains, so I don't think it's dying, just thirsty on startup.

Has anyone dealt with this successfully? Did you sort it by replacing the appliance, adding a soft starter, or adjusting inverter settings? Would rather not swap the freezer out if I can avoid it — it holds temperature brilliantly once it's going.

@Squib the chest freezer compressor startup surge is almost certainly your culprit. Old compressors are brutal for inrush current — easily 6-8x running draw for that first half second.

Few questions before anyone can properly help:

• What's your battery bank? Size and chemistry matter massively here
• Are you running lithium or AGM? AGM sags badly under surge loads and can fool the Multiplus into thinking it's undervoltage
• Have you checked your DC cable sizing? Undersized cables = voltage drop = inverter trips

On my static caravan I had identical grief with an old fridge until I switched to Fogstar Drift lithium — problem basically vanished overnight because the cells hold voltage properly under surge.

Worth checking the Multiplus battery voltage settings too — if your low voltage cutoff is set too conservatively it'll trip on momentary sag even when the bank is healthy.

@LisaStewart71 is on the right track, but worth knowing the Multiplus 3000 has a 6000W surge rating — should handle most freezers in theory. The issue I've found with older compressors is it's not just the surge magnitude, it's the duration. Some knackered old motors draw locked-rotor current for longer than the inverter's tolerance window.

Few things worth checking:

• Battery internal resistance — if your cells are tired, voltage sags during that surge and the Multiplus sees undervoltage before it sees overcurrent
• What's your battery bank? Lithium vs AGM makes a massive difference here
• Check the #inverter overload flag in VRM if you've got monitoring set up

I had similar grief on the boat with an old 240V pump. Turned out the capacitor on the compressor motor was failing, making startup draw far worse than it should.

@ExBrickie the 6000W surge rating is peak for milliseconds — old thermostat-controlled compressors can drag that startup out long enough to trigger the overload protection, especially if your battery cables have any meaningful resistance dropping voltage at the critical moment.

Check your BMS settings too if you're running lithium; a poorly tuned low-voltage cutoff will pull the rug right as the compressor demands peak current.

Ran into this exact issue in my cabin build with a knackered LEC freezer — swapped to a 25mm² cable run to the Multiplus and suddenly it stopped throwing a tantrum.

Old compressors + long/thin cable runs = an unhappy Victron.

@BatteryAlan raises a really important point that often gets missed — it's not just peak surge but how long that surge lasts.

Had something similar when I was wiring up my shepherd's hut. Old chest freezer from a barn nearly took out my setup repeatedly. A few things worth trying:

• Soft starter — there are cheap inline ones on Amazon that genuinely help
• Check your battery cables — voltage sag under load can cause the Multiplus to trip even if the inverter itself should cope
• What battery bank are you running? If it's lead-acid, internal resistance under surge could be the real bottleneck rather than the inverter rating itself

Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 made a noticeable difference for me when I upgraded — much lower sag under sudden load. Worth ruling out the batteries before blaming the Multiplus.

@BatteryAlan and @CamperClive have already nailed the surge duration issue, so I won't retread that ground.

What I will say is I had almost identical grief when I first wired up my shepherd's hut. Old chest freezer, Multiplus 12/3000, kept tripping on startup. The fix that actually worked for me was fitting a soft starter — I used a Micro-Air EasyStart equivalent. Dropped the startup current dramatically.

Also worth checking your battery cable sizing and connections. Mine was a loose terminal causing a voltage sag before the compressor even properly kicked in, which made everything worse. Victron's Cerbo was showing me the dip in real time.

Old thermostat-controlled compressors are the worst offenders for this. If you can, swap it for a modern inverter-compressor fridge — night and day difference on surge draw.