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...
Forum Discussion
BFL13 wrote:jrnymn7 wrote:
"But a buck converter has a setting for output voltage, so if you have that, why would you need any PWM to monkey with the panel input to the controller?"
hmmm, that's a good question. I guess I need to read up on how, exactly, pwm operates, in comparison to a basic buck converter. And it comes right back to your gizmo experiment.
The way I'm looking at this, I should have a back-up controller on hand, anyway, so why not go with a reasonably priced mppt like the eco-worthy? And as a bonus, I can compare the performance of the two.
And I was thinking I could even run both at the same time, one off each panel. But that would probably just confuse the controllers? Or, at least, make one the master and the other the slave?
IMO since you have two 12v panels and a PWM controller to run them in parallel, if you got MPPT you should not get the Eco-W and risk frying it by overdoing its Voc limit.
For another maybe $30 you could get a Tracer MPPT with a 100voc limit.
On the PWM thing, is that how the buck converter maintains its output voltage? So it doesn't have the panel switching thing but has some kind of PWM of its own? No doubt I was told all that in the gizmo thread :(
I wouldn't be so worried about the Voc. Eco-worthy sells two 12v panels and the controller as a kit and we have seen people using 12v's in series and not blow the controller. I suspect thought that like the controller itself, time will be required before people accept it.
