[RE-wrenches] Outback Charge controllers resetting to default settings

[Tyrone Houck]

Thank you! This likely just saved one of my customers(at least!) the cost
of a new fm100!

Tyrone Houck
Oregon Solarworks LLC
CCB #204937 LRT #076
541-787-1366
tyrone at oregonsolarworks.com



On Sat, Apr 11, 2026, 8:51 AM Richard Nicol via RE-wrenches <
re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:

> Reviving an older topic with a new learning regarding FM100 resetting to
> defaults after a shutdown event.
> Memory is battery dependent rather than solid state.
> There is a button cell battery (2032), on the circuit board attached to
> the lid, with the leds on it. Three phillips screws hold it in place.
> Apparently Outback knows they have had batches of these batteries.
> [image: image0.jpeg][image: image1.jpeg]
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Jan 10, 2026, at 2:18 PM, Nick Lucchese via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
> 
> Yes, it keeps happening to me as well. At least 8 times now. The first
> couple times I blamed myself and thought I had made the rookie default
> settings mistake I see on other's sites but now I know better. Only the
> FM100. Just got back from a site that resulted in the client's Radian
> shutting down due to battery volt sense faults from it. First time it has
> caused shutdowns though. Looks like her Blue Ions had been sitting at 57.6
> for months now. Unfortunately she has Hughesnet that almost never works
> with Opticsre otherwise I would have caught it. Extremely frustrating, I've
> easily eaten enough service calls and equipment failures for Outback over
> the years that I could have paid off a Toyota Yaris. No exaggeration.
>
> Nick
>
> On Fri, Jan 9, 2026 at 2:58 PM Zeke Yewdall via RE-wrenches <
> re-wrenches at lists.re-wrenches.org> wrote:
>
>> Has anyone else had issues with outback charge controllers resetting to
>> default settings?  I just had a FM100 do this (and shut the whole system
>> down because the default settings were too high of voltage for a 15 cell
>> LFP, so the battery turned itself off for protection).  The logs show that
>> the values were set to 0 from the proper settings, then to the default
>> settings from 0, on site.  But no one was on site.  I changed them back
>> remotely via opticsRE, and it logged me as changing them back, as it should
>> have.
>>
>> Occasionally in the past I've had similar things happen, and always kind
>> of chalked it up to the customer perhaps messing with the system, but this
>> time I know that no one was there to adjust it locally at the time that it
>> says it was changed.
>>
>> I have another site this week that does not have opticsRE, that the FM100
>> may have reset to default settings as well.  Same thing -- lithium
>> batteries shutting off from overvoltage all of a sudden.  I am still
>> investigating that one.
>>
>> Zeke
>>
>> --
>> Zeke Yewdall
>> PV Engineer
>> NABCEP #031508-89
>> zeke at darkforestsolar.com
>> 303-523-3592
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