Solar Solar setup stopped working!!

[Jack Lucy & Josh]

Hi, somewhere within the solar-Setup is a faulty part. But I can’t figure out which and where. Maybe you guys can help. Very much appreciated as usual!!

• Solar panel (maybe 100W)
• Solar controller (of of these typical blue ones)
• 2 additional maintenance-free batteries joined with heavy duty wires
• Engel fridge (working)

Solar-Setup normally charges batteries and from solar controller I use output to run my car fridge. Worked well last 4 months.

Today I realised fridge is not running anymore and SC display is doing funny things. Keeps changing from around 21V to around 9V and back. Battery symbol is empty.
When I have cars ignition on, everything looks fine on the display and fridge is running. Display shows 12.5V
As soon as I switch ignition off, it takes about 5 seconds than display shows 20.4V but dropping down to 10ish.

As I said, batteries run my compressor so they can’t be completely gone.
• What makes the SC display doing those funny things and keeping it off from charging?

I am not a car electrician, (I’m an arty person) so this is completely frustrating to me as it is not working AND I can’t fix it.

I am 70km outside of Canarvon so I could get some hardware tomorrow when shops are open again.

Cheers!

 

[Drover]

It may be stuffed, the 12.5 when connected to tug should be a reading of actual battery charge, the 20v is what the panels are more than likely pumping out then it changes to 10v which is a problem, if it can display amps that would help a bit, if you have a meter test the voltage across the battery terminals at the battery, charged should be around 12.5 - 12.8 without load, whatever it is the same figures should be showing at the battery terminals on the Solar Controller, give or take .1 or .2 , this will show that the cable run is okay, the reading from the solar panel terminals on the controller should I think show 18 to 21v, in full sun you should be getting readings off the battery terminals of 12.9 to 13.5 or so, if not then I would hazard to say the controller is cactus ............................ I think what I've said is correct and kept simple........................someone will jump in a point out any errors I'm sure.

 

[Jack Lucy & Josh]

I‘ll try to change settings on the SC to read A and maybe someone here has a multimeter. Will try anything to get the thing working again as all our dairy products for the next few weeks are in there

 

[Jack Lucy & Josh]

Going back to Canarvon ... maybe we find someone who can have a look at our setup.
Keep my fingers crossed otherwise we‘ll have heaps of butter, cheese and yoghurt for lunch as our fridge is not running anymore ;-)

 

[Jack Lucy & Josh]

Car electrician in Carnarvon fixed it by bypassing the Relais. Apparently additional batteries are low so Relais made the controller work on main battery only. Does that make sense?

 

[Mick]

I think you mean relay depending on the current rating of these replays and how your battery system is set up it sounds like the system is trying to run switch back to the mains as the batteries are not charging properly or are not charging enough.
this might explain how it more what the "blue box thingy" is doing
Solar Regulators

The purpose of solar regulators, or charge controllers as they are also called, is to regulate the current from the solar panels to prevent the batteries from overcharging. Overcharging causes gassing and loss of electrolyte resulting in damage to the batteries.

A solar regulator is used to sense when the batteries are fully charged and to stop, or decrease, the amount of current flowing to the battery.

Most solar regulators also include a Low Voltage Disconnect feature, which will switch off the supply to the load if the battery voltage falls below the cut-off voltage. This prevents the battery from permanent damage and reduced life expectancy.

A solar regulator also prevents the battery from backfeeding into the solar panel at night and, hence, flattening the battery.

Solar regulators are rated by the amount of current they can receive from the solar panels.

hope this helps you

 

[Boots in Action]

I think you mean relay depending on the current rating of these replays and how your battery system is set up it sounds like the system is trying to run switch back to the mains as the batteries are not charging properly or are not charging enough.
this might explain how it more what the "blue box thingy" is doing
Solar Regulators

The purpose of solar regulators, or charge controllers as they are also called, is to regulate the current from the solar panels to prevent the batteries from overcharging. Overcharging causes gassing and loss of electrolyte resulting in damage to the batteries.

A solar regulator is used to sense when the batteries are fully charged and to stop, or decrease, the amount of current flowing to the battery.

Most solar regulators also include a Low Voltage Disconnect feature, which will switch off the supply to the load if the battery voltage falls below the cut-off voltage. This prevents the battery from permanent damage and reduced life expectancy.

A solar regulator also prevents the battery from backfeeding into the solar panel at night and, hence, flattening the battery.

Solar regulators are rated by the amount of current they can receive from the solar panels.

hope this helps you

I think you are on the right track @Mick . If you look at the picture of the solar controller, you will notice that there are wires connected to the load terminals, so the low voltage disconnect should disconnect the load/s when voltage drops below set voltage. That controller is a very cheap type and does not have a variable LVD or LVR, so it may be that the Engel Battery protection switch is disconnecting the battery before the LVD in solar controller. In any case, it is unlikely that only one solar panel will provide sufficient power into battery/s for long periods without careful surveillance. I will look up the specs for this controller and post them here to help clear up the voltage problem.

 

[Boots in Action]

I think you are on the right track @Mick . If you look at the picture of the solar controller, you will notice that there are wires connected to the load terminals, so the low voltage disconnect should disconnect the load/s when voltage drops below set voltage. That controller is a very cheap type and does not have a variable LVD or LVR, so it may be that the Engel Battery protection switch is disconnecting the battery before the LVD in solar controller. In any case, it is unlikely that only one solar panel will provide sufficient power into battery/s for long periods without careful surveillance. I will look up the specs for this controller and post them here to help clear up the voltage problem.

I looked up the specs on the controller and found to my amazement that it does have a user adjustable LVD and LVR . Unfortunately, the default settings are 10.7 volts (batteries are cactus at this point) and 12.6 volts LVR. There are also different settings (max charge voltage) for battery types and a variable Float voltage with a default voltage of 13.7 volts - quite acceptable for all batteries. However, it does stipulate that fridges and other high drain appliances should be connected directly across the battery terminals and not through the Load terminals on controller. Seems that this particular controller although rated at 30A can only provide 7A via the Load terminals. @Drover has raised this point on earlier posts that the cheap controllers only have the capacity to carry/control lighting loads, but 7A of lighting is heaps. Compressor fridges momentarily pull up to 10A on start up before dropping back to 3 or 4A, so @Jack Lucy & Josh may be okay with their setup although from the pictures, there seems to be other wires connected to Load terminals. Who knows??
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12V-24V...-Controller-30A-PWM-LCD-Quality/122423100636?