Blue Sky 3024il
I added 520 watts of solar and a Bogart 30 amp system to my rig. It works well but a new problem has happened. It's now common for people to ask how we can have all these lights going and a big tv and...
Forum Discussion
First thing I want to say is the solar place in Yuma didn't mess this thing up. My friend did say that they recommended heavier wire at one time.
We pulled the frig vent cover off and the controller cover, battery box cover etc. The frig vent combiner was a plastic block type thing that was tucked under the edge of the frig cover in the elements. I was reading 10.45 volts on one of rusty screws for one of the panels. I tightened all of those screws as he watched his monitor panel but didn't really see any improvement. I think we still have a problem at that point and the new combiner box will fix that.
There are no loads on his optional 20 amp connection in the controller. The solar wires and battery wires are in the correct place. The wire from the panels appears to be 10 g and is spliced near the floor/controller into 12 g house type wire with a yellow pinch connector.
The batteries have 4/0 going to the shunt and up to the magnum 2500 w inverter.
The solar positive wire is spliced into 6 gauge near the floor and then spliced into a large fuse holder at the batteries. The fuse holder is a large push in type fuse.
The voltage drop in just the fuse holder section was .70!!!!! You could feel how warm the wire and the fuse holder were. I cobbled/piggy backed a piece of 10 g from the controller to the battery positive terminal and lost .50 of that drop so we could let his batteries charge as we moved on. We then made a list and went to the candy store. We bought a nice junction box for the roof, 30 feet of siamese 4 gauge, plastic strain reliefs, terminal ends, heat shrink, 2 push button circuit breakers (30 solar/50 battery), dicor and stainless screws.
Yes cjw8, the run from the roof to the controller is about 24 feet.
2 Oldman, the 57 volt number is in his operation manual and says anything over that will damage the controller. When I went to Blue Sky website I found a spec sheet that said considering stc and and under sizing the array accordingly it should be about 45 volts max input from panels.
Mr Wizard, thanks I going to check ocv of each panel as we connect to his new combiner and see what the final parallel voltage ends up being.
Ca Traveler, I will be re reading and beating more of that into my head as there is a phase 2 to this whole thing. He wants MORE POWER. :) To be discussed later.
BFL, "poking" around was exactly what I took him through. He's not into this stuff but is a smart guy. He was surprised to see the voltage drop.
SMKettner, I did pay attention to his final voltage today as compared to his monitor voltage. It's interesting that Blue Sky doesn't do "at the battery" voltage sensing. Rightfully so he's big on not wanting to go over 14.4 on his agm but I explained that we may have to tweak his monitor to actually get 14.4 at the battery. I realize we need to do that when fully charged.
So the wiring is just trash. I kept telling him that my impression of Blue Sky is that it's one of the top notch companies and his system should be working well. He can run 7 more controllers with the ipn network!!! That will get into phase 2 of his project and I will report back on that. We are going to work on the wiring tomorrow and I'll report back with voltage drop improvements. Thanks for all the help.
We pulled the frig vent cover off and the controller cover, battery box cover etc. The frig vent combiner was a plastic block type thing that was tucked under the edge of the frig cover in the elements. I was reading 10.45 volts on one of rusty screws for one of the panels. I tightened all of those screws as he watched his monitor panel but didn't really see any improvement. I think we still have a problem at that point and the new combiner box will fix that.
There are no loads on his optional 20 amp connection in the controller. The solar wires and battery wires are in the correct place. The wire from the panels appears to be 10 g and is spliced near the floor/controller into 12 g house type wire with a yellow pinch connector.
The batteries have 4/0 going to the shunt and up to the magnum 2500 w inverter.
The solar positive wire is spliced into 6 gauge near the floor and then spliced into a large fuse holder at the batteries. The fuse holder is a large push in type fuse.
The voltage drop in just the fuse holder section was .70!!!!! You could feel how warm the wire and the fuse holder were. I cobbled/piggy backed a piece of 10 g from the controller to the battery positive terminal and lost .50 of that drop so we could let his batteries charge as we moved on. We then made a list and went to the candy store. We bought a nice junction box for the roof, 30 feet of siamese 4 gauge, plastic strain reliefs, terminal ends, heat shrink, 2 push button circuit breakers (30 solar/50 battery), dicor and stainless screws.
Yes cjw8, the run from the roof to the controller is about 24 feet.
2 Oldman, the 57 volt number is in his operation manual and says anything over that will damage the controller. When I went to Blue Sky website I found a spec sheet that said considering stc and and under sizing the array accordingly it should be about 45 volts max input from panels.
Mr Wizard, thanks I going to check ocv of each panel as we connect to his new combiner and see what the final parallel voltage ends up being.
Ca Traveler, I will be re reading and beating more of that into my head as there is a phase 2 to this whole thing. He wants MORE POWER. :) To be discussed later.
BFL, "poking" around was exactly what I took him through. He's not into this stuff but is a smart guy. He was surprised to see the voltage drop.
SMKettner, I did pay attention to his final voltage today as compared to his monitor voltage. It's interesting that Blue Sky doesn't do "at the battery" voltage sensing. Rightfully so he's big on not wanting to go over 14.4 on his agm but I explained that we may have to tweak his monitor to actually get 14.4 at the battery. I realize we need to do that when fully charged.
So the wiring is just trash. I kept telling him that my impression of Blue Sky is that it's one of the top notch companies and his system should be working well. He can run 7 more controllers with the ipn network!!! That will get into phase 2 of his project and I will report back on that. We are going to work on the wiring tomorrow and I'll report back with voltage drop improvements. Thanks for all the help.
