Adding an Emergency Stop to a Victron Home Battery System

Steps

1. 1

   Step 1: Understanding the fire brigade rules for home battery backup

   The fire brigade prescribes that a home power system must be switchable in a maximum of two actions. As you know, we have a home battery with an emergency power function. When the fire brigade turns off the main switch, my entire house stays powered and everything keeps working.

   Can the fire brigade safely work on the house or touch anything? No, because everything remains supplied with mains voltage. Exactly for this reason, the fire brigade has the rule of a maximum of two actions.

   So instead of having to switch off the main switch and all residual-current devices one by one, we are going to place an emergency stop in the meter cupboard so the fire brigade can turn off one switch and a second one.

2. 2

   Step 2: How the Victron MultiPlus remote on/off connector works

   Now, the Victron MultiPlus has a remote on/off connector sitting at the bottom. This is nothing more than a connector with a small loop in it. How does this work?

   As long as these are connected, the MultiPlus can be switched on, which puts voltage on the AC output. When the cable is removed or broken, the MultiPlus will go off. Not just one MultiPlus goes off, but all three go off immediately.

3. 3

   Step 3: Testing the remote connection and cutting house power

   The cable is located right here at the bottom of the MultiPlus, so when I remove it, oh dear. Well boys, the system is back online. That just goes to show that breaking one little cable is enough to paralyze the whole house.

   And the only thing we need for that is one long cable between one of the MultiPluses and the meter cupboard, and in the meter cupboard we place an emergency stop.

4. 4

   Step 4: Preparing the emergency stop switch

   What does the emergency stop do? At the moment it is off, it will make a connection, so the MultiPluses can switch on. At the moment the emergency stop is pushed in, this contact will be broken and thereby also switch the MultiPluses off.

   With the result that the voltage to the house is also broken in one go. Hereby we can effectively use the main switch and the emergency stop to make the whole house voltage-free. As power wire, I use cheap speaker cable.

   I have a 10-meter length of this and I have the emergency stop. I loosen the screws and inside we see the actual switch sitting. This is normally connected, so that means this is connected in the normal rest state.

   At the moment the emergency stop is pressed, this button will push in and this contact will open.

   What I used

   Item	Amount	Notes
   speaker cable	10 meter	cheap speaker cable used as power wire
   emergency stop	1	switch with normally connected setup

5. 5

   Step 5: Wiring and mounting the emergency stop in the meter cupboard

   What am I going to do? I am going to feed the speaker cable into the emergency stop housing. I twist the small wires together and I connect these wires to the switch.

   That is it. No complicated wiring diagrams, just one little cable on one side of the switch, one little cable on the other side of the switch. Now I can pull this whole cable through the meter cupboard walls.

   Subsequently, I can attach the emergency stop in the meter cupboard. Ouch, a finger got caught in between. I try to tuck the cable away as well as possible and I put the lid back on.

   What I used

   Item	Amount	Notes
   speaker cable	1	routed through meter cupboard walls
   emergency stop	1	mounted in the meter cupboard

6. 6

   Step 6: Routing the cable to the shed and connecting to the MultiPlus

   There went the meter cupboard work. The cable has been sent from the meter cupboard through the trunking to the shed. In the shed, the cable enters at the top, runs through the cable trunking down here, and I now have it hanging down here by the MultiPlus.

   The cable is fed into the housing, the ends are stripped. Now we can take the connector out. Uh-oh.

   Now I will soon have trouble with the family. We have the green connector now. We can take the small cable out from between it and here we connect the green connector.

   What I used

   Item	Amount	Notes
   speaker cable	1	routed through trunking to the shed and stripped
   green connector	1	MultiPlus remote connector

7. 7

   Step 7: Finalizing connections and testing the emergency stop

   When the green plug has been put on, we can plug this into the MultiPlus. And it comes back. And after that I can close the housing right away, so put the covers back on.

   When this is done, we can of course test it once. We turn the light off, our whole house stays supplied with voltage by the battery. Now the fire brigade must be able to switch everything off in a second action.

   In this case the emergency stop, and now the whole house is voltage-free. This is indeed a requirement of the fire brigade that this can be done in two steps. This still needs to be labeled with a sign saying, attention, this house has an emergency power supply.

   So two steps, step one and step two.

   What I used

   Item	Amount	Notes
   green plug	1	plugged into the MultiPlus

8. 8

   Step 8: Conclusion and answering viewer questions

   So you see, a two-switch shutdown is very easy to realize. You do not need complex diagrams or multiple switches in the meter cupboard. One double-core cable is more than enough.

   Do you have any more questions? Feel free to put them in the comments. I try to reply to everything.

   I hope I do not have to switch the power off here anymore, so then the wife and kids stay happy too. Well, I hope to see you in the next video. Make sure to leave the power on this time, dad.

9. 9

   Step 9: Takeaways

   • Fire brigade regulations require home power systems to shut down in a maximum of two actions.

   • A home battery backup keeps a house powered even when the main switch is turned off.

   • The Victron MultiPlus inverter features a remote on/off port controlled by a simple wire loop.

   • Breaking the remote loop instantly shuts down all connected MultiPlus inverters.

   • A standard emergency stop switch wired with cheap speaker cable provides a reliable safety shutoff.

   • Clear labeling is needed to indicate that the house features an emergency power supply.