jplante4 wrote:
red31 wrote:
"Locate the controller within 10 ft (3 M) of the battery bank."
Is that based on the recommended wire gauge between the controller and battery? If so, you can up the gauge and go longer.
That may be so for a different controller from MS, Step 1 is locating the controller and the one I quoted states what I quoted, I believe for temperature reasons but they wrote what they wrote. Later, step 3 suggests using their 2% chart for wire sizing, one should also consider the max wire size limit of the controller.
Another controller limits distance to 3M without the voltage sensor! and goes on to state:
'Generally accepted wiring practice is to limit voltage
drops between the charger and the battery to 2%.
Even properly sized wiring with 2% drop can result in
a 0.29 Volt drop for 14.4V charging. voltage drops
will cause some undercharging of the battery. The
controller will begin Absorption or limit equalization
at a lower battery voltage because the controller
measures a higher voltage at the controller’s terminals
than is the actual battery voltage. For exAmple, if
the controller is programmed to start Absorption at
14.4V,when the controller “sees” 14.4V at its battery
terminals, the true battery voltage would only be
14.1V, if there is a 0.3V drop between the controller
and battery"
