460 watt solar setup: wire sizes?
I want to change out my old 50 watt panel and 10 amp controller with at least one and hopefully two 230 watt 24 volt panels and whatever controller would be best. Right now the roof on my fifth wheel ...
Forum Discussion
pianotuna wrote:
Hi BFL13,
As the charging starts to taper the amps go down. Diversion loads sends the amps elsewhere, letting the batteries charge as fast as they can, while not wasting those extra amps.
That is fine but what's the diff? Any extra amps from solar will go to the load anyway since the battery can't accept them. If you run a load off the battery while solar is on, you get net amps. If solar will do 15 amps, and the batteries are taking 5, then you can run a 10 amp load and not cut into the 5 going to the battery.
I see that all the time. Eg now late in the day, with no loads except LP stereo, fridge, Trimetric with solar on says, 13.2v, 4.5a, -4.74 AH. (I used MW for supper or AH would be pos--"running over"-needs reset)
Plug in laptop charger and 2.1 speaker set, and now Trimetric says 13.2v, 0.03a, -4.68AH.
So the laptop and speakers are taking 4.5- 0.03 = 4.47a and the batts are taking +0.03a. So no drop in batt SOC, it is still charging positive, just not as much.
What would a "diversion load" feature do instead?
