MPPT Solar Regulator

[Capt. Gadget]

Hi Paul
To be honest I have never really taken notice of how much it pumps out on a sunny day, from the manual it says it is capable of pumping out up to 20A, providing your charging source is up to supplying it, someone might correct me if I'm wrong but I thinks its Watts/Volts = Amps. So lets say your panel is working at 80% capacity. 80% of 200w =160W 160/21v =7.6A. But in saying that I think that if it senses that the battery doesn't need that much charge it only supplies what it needs, Bulk/ float/ trickle charge. We are taking off for the weekend so I will drag it out in the sun on Friday morning and have a look and report back
Cheers Grant

 

[skippy]

Thanks

From going off what you have said maybe I should have got another panel. I would be realy interested to see what your is reading at.

Have a great long weekend wherever you are off to.

Skip

 

[Paul75]

Thanks

From going off what you have said maybe I should have got another panel. I would be realy interested to see what your is reading at.

Have a great long weekend wherever you are off to.

Skip

G'day Skip. I've also got a CTEK D250S with a 200watt portable panel and I get 11amps charge according to the drifter control panel which is what a 200watt panel should provide.

 

[skippy]

Hey @Paul75 awesome name too mate
I assumed that's what I would have been getting too, but after hearing from Grants point of view about the panel (200Watts) working at 80% most of the time it make sense that I should be getting no less than 7.6Amp providing that the sun isn't getting obstructed by anything.
I will have a good look this weekend and get the multi meter out and double check all of my connection and make sure that all appears correct.
I wonder if its because the panel is sitting flat on the roof of the panda and not chasing the sun with the portable like yourself Paul, hence such low amperage on the drifter.
11amps sounds too good to be true at the moment. Mmmm I just have to work out why I am not receiving that sort of charge "weird hey"
Are you running the factory solar provision cable as well to the batteries? @adam 18.57.9
Any other idea maybe what too look for?

Paul

 

[Capt. Gadget]

I think my calculations were wrong Paul after a bit of research I should have taken into account that the D250s regulates your voltage to 14.4v so at 80% efficiency 160w/14.4v=11.11 amps maybe you are getting a bit of loss from the cables being either too light or too long

 

[skippy]

I think my calculations were wrong Paul after a bit of research I should have taken into account that the D250s regulates your voltage to 14.4v so at 80% efficiency 160w/14.4v=11.11 amps maybe you are getting a bit of loss from the cables being either too light or too long

The cabling is all factory... but it does travel about 18 to 20 foot though the vans roof and down the side wall to the batteries.
Maybe now I am wondering if the cable is too light gauge for the job. The cable is quite thick though about 5mm in width.
According to the instruction manual any wireing to the Ctek up to 10 meters should be 10mm square. Looks like I am going to have too up grade to a thick wire maybe.

 

[Paul75]

My wiring on the portable panel is 6B&S (~13.5mm2) with an 8metre length.

Definitely pull the multimeter out. I'd be looking at the voltage at the connections at either end of the cable run first.
Out of interest, how long is the cable run from the CTEK D250S to the batteries?

 

[skippy]

My wiring on the portable panel is 6B&S (~13.5mm2) with an 8metre length.

Definitely pull the multimeter out. I'd be looking at the voltage at the connections at either end of the cable run first.
Out of interest, how long is the cable run from the CTEK D250S to the batteries?

18 to 20'foot (6mtr) is the approximate length of the cable. Buy the sounds of it...the cable is two thin. It's factory wiring and from what I can work out the wire is suppose to be 10mm2 up to 10meters. It's about 5mm so with you using 13mm wiring and getting around the 11amps, looks like I will be replacing the factory wiring to hopefully resolve this problem.
I am just hoping its easy to take out and replace since the wiring runs though the roof.

 

[Paul75]

I'd still be checking with a multimeter prior to replacing to see what sort of voltage drop you have and if the connections are an issue.

Regarding my above question about how long the cable run was, I was meaning between your CTEK and the actual batteries not the CTEK and solar panel. The CTEK should be positioned as close as possible to the batteries to minimise voltage drop, ideally they should be basically next to each other.

 

[skippy]

I'd still be checking with a multimeter prior to replacing to see what sort of voltage drop you have and if the connections are an issue.

Regarding my above question about how long the cable run was, I was meaning between your CTEK and the actual batteries not the CTEK and solar panel. The CTEK should be positioned as close as possible to the batteries to minimise voltage drop, ideally they should be basically next to each other.

The CTEK in about 300mm away from the batteries as per the instruction manual recommends. Yes I will be making sure there is no voltage drop on the connectors before replacing the cable too.

Thanks

 

[Paul75]

No worries, good luck with it.

 

[Capt. Gadget]

Dragged it out in the sun this afternoon after having a few things running on 12 v just to drop the battery a bit 10.1 amps is the max it got up to but my panel is not a drifter it's a bm1
Probably should add that my leads from the Ctek to the Battery are about 1500mm long but are 8 B&S

 

[gwadir]

Hey Captain,

that's pretty good based on the theoretical calc's you did, and with 1500mm of cable the voltage drop looks negligible I'm impressed.

Dave

 

[DaveS]

Hi
my theory with solar (i could be completely wrong, so tell me if i am) is to put the reg near the battery.

my theory goes like this
so the panels are putting out around 18-20volts, voltage drop may be .5volt to the reg due to cable size.
then the reg drops volts down to 14 odd volts for the battery. so all fine, minimal drop of volts going to battery AFTER it's regulated

if the reg was up near the panel (at eye level, so you can watch it) the the panel puts out 20volts to it, then you get a output from the reg to battery of 14 volts which has to deal with a voltage drop of the cable to battery, so it may end up at 13 odd volts ........

so i think putting the reg near the battery will eliminate 90% of voltage drop.

if i'm wrong, please let me know but to me this makes more sense (apart from getting on your knees to read the regulator)

and thats how i have mine setup in the penguin, i removed the onboard regs from the portable panels and run them thru a reg mounted in the van on a anderson double adaptor. 2x 80watt portable panels supply enough power to keep my van running a TV all day for the kids (and me!) plus engel, lights, stereo etc for a week no prob at all and the panels would be on a 15m lead each. mind you i track the sun with the panels during the day

 

[skippy]

Hello all

Alright back out again today in the heat @ 38deg and climbed onto the roof of the caravan....getting cooked alive mind you:flame::flame:

Anyway double checked all connections and all is well and found out that there is only 0.01 voltage drop in the wiring from the solar panel to the Ctec. The panel was reading at 17.8 volts and then 17.7 volts at the Ctec. This was quite late in the day mind you so hence I was not getting full 20volts of my 200watt solar panel. I am going to do checks every hour tomorrow and make sure I am getting around the 20volts when the sun is directly above the panel just to double check.
I then bought a new roll of 6B&S and by passed the wiring in the van from the solar panel to the Ctec. Then to my amazement I got the same reading as the thinner wire. Then the same amount of amps at the drifter 2.5amps to 2.8 as well.

Then I checked the Ctec as well.

When charging off of the solar panel it was only charging at 12.79volts at the batteries at max charge. mmmm this doesn't sound right.
So I then turned the Ctec off and turned the Setec back on and sure enough straight up to 13.31volts at the batteries and 7amps on the drifter.
Any one else got any other idea's of something I might have missed because I think I might have purchased a faulty Ctec

Thanks to everyone for there help so far too.

Paul

 

[DaveS]

Hello all

Alright back out again today in the heat @ 38deg and climbed onto the roof of the caravan....getting cooked alive mind you:flame::flame:

Anyway double checked all connections and all is well and found out that there is only 0.01 voltage drop in the wiring from the solar panel to the Ctec. The panel was reading at 17.8 volts and then 17.7 volts at the Ctec. This was quite late in the day mind you so hence I was not getting full 20volts of my 200watt solar panel. I am going to do checks every hour tomorrow and make sure I am getting around the 20volts when the sun is directly above the panel just to double check.
I then bought a new roll of 6B&S and by passed the wiring in the van from the solar panel to the Ctec. Then to my amazement I got the same reading as the thinner wire. Then the same amount of amps at the drifter 2.5amps to 2.8 as well.

Then I checked the Ctec as well.

When charging off of the solar panel it was only charging at 12.79volts at the batteries at max charge. mmmm this doesn't sound right.
So I then turned the Ctec off and turned the Setec back on and sure enough straight up to 13.31volts at the batteries and 7amps on the drifter.
Any one else got any other idea's of something I might have missed because I think I might have purchased a faulty Ctec

Thanks to everyone for there help so far too.

Paul

take the panels straight to the battery (thru the solar reg), they shouldn't go thru the ctek.
disconnect the ctek from the battery and check the volts going from ctek to battery on 240vac, it's a common fault for them to fail to charge the battery

 

[Paul75]

Dave, when he says check I think he is referring to a CTEK D250S which is a solar regulator.

 

[skippy]

Spot on Paul sorry if I didn't make it clear enough.

What do ya recon Paul a faulty reg? What voltage is your charging at 13.5 I am assuming on solar?

 

[Paul75]

I guess a faulty CTEK is possible although I would have thought unlikely.

Did your panel come with its own regulator attached and you are now bypassing this (or removed it) to go to the CTEK? If so it might be worth using this regulator and connecting direct to the batteries and see what you get.

 

[skippy]

I guess a faulty CTEK is possible although I would have thought unlikely.

Did your panel come with its own regulator attached and you are now bypassing this (or removed it) to go to the CTEK? If so it might be worth using this regulator and connecting direct to the batteries and see what you get.

Hello Paul

I did away with the old reg because it was just a standard one and not a MPPT like the new D250s CTEK. I threw the old one in the bin as well so I can't compare the old one against the new D250s.

I did some more testing today on the D250s reg as well... See below>>

Solar Panel @ the input to D250s 17.30 to 18.60 volts today but it was cloudy all day
CTEK output Amps 2.7 to 3.3 amps at the shunt/drifter unit
CTEK charging volts 13.9 to 14.2 volts also at the shunt/drifter

I am going to ring the supplier tomorrow and have a chat to them and discuss the outputs of the D250S and see what they think about my outputs.

Talk to you soon and thanks for your help mate :thumb:

Paul