AGM Battery Charging THE PRIME DIRECTIVE
I have gotten several communications about AGM battery maintenance. Using solar voltaic charging. The big error I read is that the subject of total and complete recharging is not mentioned. And tha...
Forum Discussion
jharrell wrote:
The PT-100 has nice integration to be sure, I would have gone with it except that it won't use panels below 24V on a 12V system. I have 12V (20 VOC) panels in parallel and didn't want to go to series yet, so I went with a Tristar MPPT 60 which has no issue.
Works ok with two independent systems, they basically communicate with voltage, have the solar set slightly higher for charge settings so it tends to be dominant but when batteries are down both go into bulk and both contribute.
The Magnum network is actually not that complicated, just a RS-485 bus with the inverter as master sending it state at 10hz, the remote sends its config right after, then BMK and AGS at 1hz, not sure about PT-100 probably similar to BMK. I have written some software to display the info on a web page using a $5 USB dongle and a Raspberry pi. I also show my Tristar info on the same page as it has ethernet and does modbus.
I'm using the PT100 and it does integrate nicely with the Magnum inverter/ charger (hybrid) following the settings set throught the Me-Arc. This is with GBS LiFePo4 Batteries which have their own EMS CPU (shunt and more) so no BMK.
The PT100 will work with 12v panels except they need to be in series. Mine are 160w (22.50 VOC) panels, 2 in series 4 sets parallel to combiner box, 1,280w. On occasion I will get P04 code which is "Power Limited" (Internal Frequency) happens at +/- 1,150w _ 75-80a area. It's been in service for 2 years now fulltime with no apparent problems.
I spoke with the installer and some systems don't like the PT100 with the lower voltage from panels and he corrected the issue, don't know if that was using a different controller or added panels in series.
