Another true story from the field.
Whilst camping off grid just before Christmas, met a fellow camper, wife and his 3 young children. Seems they had purchased a Jayco Swan OB nearly 12 months ago and this was only the second time they had used it. Loving wife decided to buy a Kick Ass 120 litre compressor fridge to meet the growing needs of family as 90 Litre Dometic 3 way was not big enough. Whilst looking at this great piece of kit, I asked how much current it drew when running, but the details are on the Kick Ass app which he had not checked up on. As the Swan only had the standard 120 W solar panel on the roof, and he had no other panels, he had no idea of what was happening. Unfortunately for them, there had been 4 days of showery weather and heavy cloudy skies and he had parked in the dimmest position in the park to get van out of sun, as "forecast" had been for 30C plus days of sunny weather. Actually max temp only reached 22C and min of 18C and very humid!. Decided he may need help - the Kick Ass fridge was on the lowest setting for fridge protection too. Checked inside and found that there was a 96ah Bosch Gel battery (standard??) connected in parallel with a Toyarama 150ah gel battery (added???) A Coast to Coast water tank gauge had been fitted which included a series of lights for battery voltage if button was pushed. The lowest yellow light was on too! When I asked about not knowing what was coming in, he indicated to me a Top Ray solar controller TPS 1230, which he said was not working. It was - but only voltage was showing at 11.9 volts. As afternoon light had gone (they had to use the internal light/s during the day because of where they parked too!) , I said I would be over first thing after breakfast next day to see what I could do for him and his family as they were hoping to stay a further 3 or 4 days.
Next morning armed with the necessary multimeter, spare wiring and slide on connectors, checked out the situation. The last light on Coast to Coast was still on but voltage on Top Ray controller was now down to 11.8 volts. Cleaned roof panel and with a bit of sunlight managed to get 2.5A charge going into battery which then rose to 12.0 volts. There was no indication of amps out because THERE WERE NO WIRES CONNECTED TO THE LOAD TERMINALS - same old story of Jayco not connecting up these wires!! This meant that there was no way output current could be monitored. My favorite subject in explaining my setup on this forum!!! Aaahhhhh!!
With the permission of fellow camper, decided to do a "field repair". Easily done when you know how and NO SMOKE either!! Opened up the back area behind the Setec ST 20 series III where all the connections were, removed the two wires (Bat Pos and the Bat Neg opposite it) and taped the ends even though they were insulated connectors. Then connected two wires using female spade connectors( bound with insulation tape) from Bat Pos and Bat Neg (the same terminals where wires had been removed) to the Pos and Neg LOAD terminals on solar controller. All done in a couple of minutes!! Top Ray solar now showing Amps IN and Amps OUT as well as voltage available. Found out that Kick Ass compressor fridge was pulling 3.8A on run, and the LED lights in the van pulled approx 580 ma each when on. Also decided to move up the battery protection to mid position to protect batteries a little more. The van had been in their storage shed for the last 6 months and power was only connected 36 hours before they departed from Hervey Bay - a 3 hour drive and also NO connection to TUG to charge batteries for compressor fridge. In fact compressor fridge was not connected until they set up camp although all food was loaded cold before they left home.Talk about unprepared!!
The next day a lot more sun but temp now up to 29C. The situation improved a little and family still had refrigeration when they left. Batteries would have been low!! Fellow camper took pictures of wiring with his camera and disconnected my wires, reconnecting original before departing. Thanked me profusely for my help and went away a lot wiser too. The moral of this story is to make sure you can monitor electrical usage and remember that every added piece requiring power needs to be considered in the whole scheme of things. As @mikerezny said in an earlier post, if you have compressor fridge, you need to chase the sun for max power and if fixed panels on roof, have a portable solar panel properly connected to back up the roof panels. @Drover has been boasting about his arrangement like that.
For all those members with Top Ray (Camec) solar controller TPS 1230, and no wires connected to the load terminals ( and therefore no display for amps OUT), this is an easy fix and I intend to do a really clear instruction with easy to follow wiring diagrams so you too can have the benefits of what this ordinary PWM controller can do. The links put out on how to use this product are INCORRECT and one should only refer to the proper directions as below.
https://www.caravansplus.com.au/pdf/solar_reg.pdf
Watch under Solar Posts for these instructions which should be there in the next day or so.
Whilst camping off grid just before Christmas, met a fellow camper, wife and his 3 young children. Seems they had purchased a Jayco Swan OB nearly 12 months ago and this was only the second time they had used it. Loving wife decided to buy a Kick Ass 120 litre compressor fridge to meet the growing needs of family as 90 Litre Dometic 3 way was not big enough. Whilst looking at this great piece of kit, I asked how much current it drew when running, but the details are on the Kick Ass app which he had not checked up on. As the Swan only had the standard 120 W solar panel on the roof, and he had no other panels, he had no idea of what was happening. Unfortunately for them, there had been 4 days of showery weather and heavy cloudy skies and he had parked in the dimmest position in the park to get van out of sun, as "forecast" had been for 30C plus days of sunny weather. Actually max temp only reached 22C and min of 18C and very humid!. Decided he may need help - the Kick Ass fridge was on the lowest setting for fridge protection too. Checked inside and found that there was a 96ah Bosch Gel battery (standard??) connected in parallel with a Toyarama 150ah gel battery (added???) A Coast to Coast water tank gauge had been fitted which included a series of lights for battery voltage if button was pushed. The lowest yellow light was on too! When I asked about not knowing what was coming in, he indicated to me a Top Ray solar controller TPS 1230, which he said was not working. It was - but only voltage was showing at 11.9 volts. As afternoon light had gone (they had to use the internal light/s during the day because of where they parked too!) , I said I would be over first thing after breakfast next day to see what I could do for him and his family as they were hoping to stay a further 3 or 4 days.
Next morning armed with the necessary multimeter, spare wiring and slide on connectors, checked out the situation. The last light on Coast to Coast was still on but voltage on Top Ray controller was now down to 11.8 volts. Cleaned roof panel and with a bit of sunlight managed to get 2.5A charge going into battery which then rose to 12.0 volts. There was no indication of amps out because THERE WERE NO WIRES CONNECTED TO THE LOAD TERMINALS - same old story of Jayco not connecting up these wires!! This meant that there was no way output current could be monitored. My favorite subject in explaining my setup on this forum!!! Aaahhhhh!!
With the permission of fellow camper, decided to do a "field repair". Easily done when you know how and NO SMOKE either!! Opened up the back area behind the Setec ST 20 series III where all the connections were, removed the two wires (Bat Pos and the Bat Neg opposite it) and taped the ends even though they were insulated connectors. Then connected two wires using female spade connectors( bound with insulation tape) from Bat Pos and Bat Neg (the same terminals where wires had been removed) to the Pos and Neg LOAD terminals on solar controller. All done in a couple of minutes!! Top Ray solar now showing Amps IN and Amps OUT as well as voltage available. Found out that Kick Ass compressor fridge was pulling 3.8A on run, and the LED lights in the van pulled approx 580 ma each when on. Also decided to move up the battery protection to mid position to protect batteries a little more. The van had been in their storage shed for the last 6 months and power was only connected 36 hours before they departed from Hervey Bay - a 3 hour drive and also NO connection to TUG to charge batteries for compressor fridge. In fact compressor fridge was not connected until they set up camp although all food was loaded cold before they left home.Talk about unprepared!!
The next day a lot more sun but temp now up to 29C. The situation improved a little and family still had refrigeration when they left. Batteries would have been low!! Fellow camper took pictures of wiring with his camera and disconnected my wires, reconnecting original before departing. Thanked me profusely for my help and went away a lot wiser too. The moral of this story is to make sure you can monitor electrical usage and remember that every added piece requiring power needs to be considered in the whole scheme of things. As @mikerezny said in an earlier post, if you have compressor fridge, you need to chase the sun for max power and if fixed panels on roof, have a portable solar panel properly connected to back up the roof panels. @Drover has been boasting about his arrangement like that.
For all those members with Top Ray (Camec) solar controller TPS 1230, and no wires connected to the load terminals ( and therefore no display for amps OUT), this is an easy fix and I intend to do a really clear instruction with easy to follow wiring diagrams so you too can have the benefits of what this ordinary PWM controller can do. The links put out on how to use this product are INCORRECT and one should only refer to the proper directions as below.
https://www.caravansplus.com.au/pdf/solar_reg.pdf
Watch under Solar Posts for these instructions which should be there in the next day or so.