Salvo wrote:
You shouldn't have that large of a voltage drop. Did you actually measure 14.40V at the charge controller and then 14.15V at the battery?
How many panels do you have?
Sal
Sal, one basic 120w kit as shown here by Solar Blvd.
Solar Blvd 120W portable folding solar panel kit.It comes with connectors, and some, what I would call "lampcord" type wire with SAE connectors. Add in all the connectors, the RC controller type charger meter I installed with a shunt of sorts in line, and the battery connector clamps, and yes, with a digital voltmeter, that was the voltage loss. I've no idea truly what gauge wire they are running in the lampcord, but being Chinesium, it is probably a cost cutting gesture, you can see pretty much the same $8.00 kit available at Harbor Freight. One end is a cigarette female with SAE connector, one end is an electrical eyelet connector, then 5 meters with SAE connectors on each end, then a battery and a power source connector on the Charge Controller. Not very heavy gauge wire, even by 14.4v x 6.5 Amp standards. I substituted a 6 foot section of some 10 gauge 2 wire 17 wire strand romex type stuff from a scrap of an electrician buddy of mine, and tested the voltage drop with that, and it wasn't but a 0.1v to 0.0v drop on the volt meter, it fluctuated. So 10 gauge at 6 feet, the loss was minimal, but the stuff in the kit that ties in after the charge controller does it's step down at the back of the panel with the zip cord lamp cord stuff is bad juju for battery charging.
