Question about dual solar controllers

Put the Rogue controller with the new high voltage panel, and use the solar 30 with the old 12 volt panels.

OP I believe the Solar30 is a PWM CC. As such the maximum amps from your panel is the panel Isc. This means that the 250W panel and CC will be limited to 125W. Furthermore you need to check that using a 24V panel with 12V batteries will not damage the CC. Only a MPPT controller can convert all of the 250W panel power for 12V battery charging.

To be clear: A 24V PWM CC will use all of the 24V panel power to charge a 24V battery and half of the panel power to charge a 12V battery.

But given all of that if you want 1/2 the available power for charging then go for it.

Disconnect all other chargers and with a discharged battery measure the new CC output to verify that it is or is not working and don't make assumptions about the display values for a new CC. Multiple compatible chargers will all contribute to charging.

The second controller is sensing the output of the 290W array because of the way it is wired and declining to join in the effort to push any current into the battery would be my guess.

A simple experiment to define the issue would be to either block off the 290W array, disconnect the wiring to same, or turn off that controller. Make sure that the correct sequence is followed when disconnecting/connecting wires to/from controller.

If the solar30 is an MPPT controller and the batteries are somewhat discharged, the current harvested from the 250W module should exceed the older array and controller. You may then see just the opposite effect, the 290W combination puts out little while the new 250W does the heavy lifting.

One thing you could do is to wire the controller output from the 250W controller directly to the battery. That may make it join the party.

phemens wrote:
The solar 30 can do both 12v and 24v. It's taking 24v from the solar panel and outputting 12v to battery bank.

that would be kinda cool for a PWM controller.

it should be able to take 12v from a 24v panel and pass it along to the battery.

The solar 30 can do both 12v and 24v. It's taking 24v from the solar panel and outputting 12v to battery bank.
Maybe I was confused - the Rogue continues to show the output from the array regardless of the charge state of the batteries. Maybe the Solar30 does something different, but I would have assumed that it would still show me the nominal amperage coming from the array regardless of the charge state on the battery. The Solar30 toggles between showing amps from array and amps from controller to battery. It's the output from the solar that troubles me, it should be much higher than 0.8 amps regardless of the charge level on the batteries.

phemens wrote:
Hi,

I have a pre-existing 30A solar controller with 3 12v panels (2 x 80, 1 x 130) feeding 4 T-125's. I added a new 250w 24v panel hooked up to a separate Solar30 controller. Both controllers wire in to a cable run to the batteries (~ 6 feet, 00 gauge). I'm seeing the expected amperage out of the pre-existing array (290 watts giving me ~ 5 amps roughly). However, the reading I'm getting off the Solar30 with the 250w 24v panel is only showing 0.8 amps? Wiring from the panel to the controller is about 12 feet @ 14 gauge, which should be ok.
Any ideas why I'd see such a difference?

Old solar array (290w 12v) --> Rogue 30 --\__________ T125's
New solar array (250w 24v) --> Solar30 ---/

If I rember correctly the solar30 is a 12 volt controller. What did out pay for this controller? well it will do a 24 battery system. I assume you are running a 12 volt system?

batteries full?