Big Solar + Tiny Solar panel in parallel
Put in 380W solar + Rogue MPPT a while ago. With no loads, in storage, the Rogue should go through a daily cycle: Rest at night, very brief MPPT in the morning up to 14.8V, then very brief Absorb ...
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2oldman wrote:
I doubt that 0.6a panel is doing much.
From your description it doesn't sound like you're getting a full charge (ie.. Float voltage) during the day. Don't know your battery complement.
Agree it's not doing much, but as smkettner suggests (thanks!) that's prolly because the 210AH of batts are fully charged at 14.8V by the Rogue.
So the Tiny Panel is just keeping them at 14.8 V as long as there's sunlight. (The Tiny panel is not very powerful and really doesn't justify a better/any controller.)
Now that I've turned off the Tiny Panel, after Absorb finished at 14.8 V, it took less than an hour for the batt V to drop to 13.2 V float, and it stayed in Float for the rest of the day (8 hours until sundown). Much more reasonable.
The amount of time spent in Absorb under these no-load, storage conditions is less than a few minutes. I haven't been able to witness it, and the log records it as zero minutes. The Rogue does spend more time, perhaps an hour under low light conditions in the morning to raise the battery voltage from about 12.7 V up to the 14.8 V Absorb point.
