Cheap China Solar Controller Failure
For a couple days been noticing higher than the 14.6 voltage,.....going to 15, and even 15.5,....I knew something was not right. The next day it was showing 16, then quickly went to 17+.......I quickl...
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I was stunned on New Years Day to see my 150W panel, rated at 8.4 Amps to peak at 9.3 amps on my RC meter, and that was on the battery side of the controller. Very cold here in L.A. if you watched all the folks bundled up on TV at the Rose Parade in Pasadena, below freezing early morning and quite slow to warm up during the day.
That this cold freezing weather happens out west, with some snow in Quartzsite, where RJ is. We have temperature compensation on the charge controller units, and lots of bright hard sunshine on cold, cold cold solar panels, with RJ's and Wizards both having electrical problems with either burnt wiring or blown charge controllers is leading me to believe that some of us have too thin a margin, at least in really cold weather, where the V goes up at the battery when charging, and cold panels increase the amps yield input to the charge controllers.
Something about leave a 20% margin with PWM charge controllers? So a 20 amp Charge controller should have at most 16 amps of panel capability.
I will say the 30 amp unit I got is pretty capable, for $30 on ebay. One of their warehouses is in Los Angeles or Orange county, CA, so if RJ finds them on ebay and buys from them, he won't be running his lonely Eu1000i too many days until it arrives.
Asking for LED's on charge controllers is a bit much, they are power suckers.
I also bought a 20 amp PWM unit on Amazon, that I like as much, if not more, it's got more info on the lcd display, but the numbers are a bit smaller to view and see.
Solar 30 charge controller, large lcd display.
New RJspecial 20 amp model with led display... be a beta tester for Woodalls?
That this cold freezing weather happens out west, with some snow in Quartzsite, where RJ is. We have temperature compensation on the charge controller units, and lots of bright hard sunshine on cold, cold cold solar panels, with RJ's and Wizards both having electrical problems with either burnt wiring or blown charge controllers is leading me to believe that some of us have too thin a margin, at least in really cold weather, where the V goes up at the battery when charging, and cold panels increase the amps yield input to the charge controllers.
Something about leave a 20% margin with PWM charge controllers? So a 20 amp Charge controller should have at most 16 amps of panel capability.
I will say the 30 amp unit I got is pretty capable, for $30 on ebay. One of their warehouses is in Los Angeles or Orange county, CA, so if RJ finds them on ebay and buys from them, he won't be running his lonely Eu1000i too many days until it arrives.
Asking for LED's on charge controllers is a bit much, they are power suckers.
I also bought a 20 amp PWM unit on Amazon, that I like as much, if not more, it's got more info on the lcd display, but the numbers are a bit smaller to view and see.
Solar 30 charge controller, large lcd display.
New RJspecial 20 amp model with led display... be a beta tester for Woodalls?
