Rogue MPPT, 490W and charging mysteries
Now that we were finally all in one place - me, Rogue 3048 and my rig - it was time to have some fun.
1)Battery: old starter, tested beyond dead, plates above the water. No wonder, 8 months in Mexican heat. Added water and put it on Rogue with 2*245W 24V panels in series. It started happily with 20A at 1pm, there was some shade and clouds this and the next day. Went into Vabs=14.6 after a while, then sun dropped behind the mountains. Next day tried to bring I Abs below 0.4A - guestimated it around 40 Ah. Starter battery only has cryptic Cold crank 700A, crank 840A, Reserve Capacity 110 min. Rogue allows minimum I abs=1A, T Abs=4 hours max, timer overrides Iabs. Tried 2*4hours, barely went down to 1A.
Then tried to equalize - since it's dying, why not?, set up Rogue to V Equalize =15.5.
Surprise #1, it can't bring V up to more than 15V. Panels output 63V, current - don't remember. Battery was full, I wonder if this was the reason. Well, truck starts, battery is losing charge fast, but alternator brings it back to life, so let it be.
2)Battery: AGM 100 AH by UPG aka Universal Battery. I have 3 of them, they survived Mexican heat, losing 25% in 8 months, Voc=12.45, put one on charging. Shortly after hooking up it went into Abs, so much for 490W system. I set I abs=1A min, since it's 100AH, and Abs time to 4 hours - pure charging, no loads. Some clouds on the first day, current never went over 7A, - well, it's Abs. Had to reset the Abs timer a few times, and by the end of the NEXT day it was still at 1.5A. So I gave up and put darn AGM on 8A load - 12V 100W bulb.
3) Testing AGM 100 AH. Like I said, it spend more than 8 hours in Abs. Next day battery Voc=13.05. Surprise #3: V on load = 12.45. This is 83%. What the heck? It was 75% before 2 days of charging. Alright, let the real SOC test commence. V load dropped from 12.45 to 12.0 (=50% SOC under load) after 4.75 hours. This is 38 AH. So it was 76% full after it has been charged to 1.5A min.
So, it was 75% SOC before charging, 83% right after many-many hours of Absorption on 490w system, and load test revealed that it was not even 83%, but ~76%.
4) Maybe will make a separate tread out of this. Hooked up remaining 2*100AH AGM to same 490W in series +Rogue. Voc on rested battery 12.45 as before. No clouds, some shade, set V abs to 14.6 - and it went into Abs at 14.4. Set V abs to 14.8, it went up to 14.6 for a few seconds, then again 14.4. Time to test the Rogue ? ;)
1)Battery: old starter, tested beyond dead, plates above the water. No wonder, 8 months in Mexican heat. Added water and put it on Rogue with 2*245W 24V panels in series. It started happily with 20A at 1pm, there was some shade and clouds this and the next day. Went into Vabs=14.6 after a while, then sun dropped behind the mountains. Next day tried to bring I Abs below 0.4A - guestimated it around 40 Ah. Starter battery only has cryptic Cold crank 700A, crank 840A, Reserve Capacity 110 min. Rogue allows minimum I abs=1A, T Abs=4 hours max, timer overrides Iabs. Tried 2*4hours, barely went down to 1A.
Then tried to equalize - since it's dying, why not?, set up Rogue to V Equalize =15.5.
Surprise #1, it can't bring V up to more than 15V. Panels output 63V, current - don't remember. Battery was full, I wonder if this was the reason. Well, truck starts, battery is losing charge fast, but alternator brings it back to life, so let it be.
2)Battery: AGM 100 AH by UPG aka Universal Battery. I have 3 of them, they survived Mexican heat, losing 25% in 8 months, Voc=12.45, put one on charging. Shortly after hooking up it went into Abs, so much for 490W system. I set I abs=1A min, since it's 100AH, and Abs time to 4 hours - pure charging, no loads. Some clouds on the first day, current never went over 7A, - well, it's Abs. Had to reset the Abs timer a few times, and by the end of the NEXT day it was still at 1.5A. So I gave up and put darn AGM on 8A load - 12V 100W bulb.
3) Testing AGM 100 AH. Like I said, it spend more than 8 hours in Abs. Next day battery Voc=13.05. Surprise #3: V on load = 12.45. This is 83%. What the heck? It was 75% before 2 days of charging. Alright, let the real SOC test commence. V load dropped from 12.45 to 12.0 (=50% SOC under load) after 4.75 hours. This is 38 AH. So it was 76% full after it has been charged to 1.5A min.
So, it was 75% SOC before charging, 83% right after many-many hours of Absorption on 490w system, and load test revealed that it was not even 83%, but ~76%.
4) Maybe will make a separate tread out of this. Hooked up remaining 2*100AH AGM to same 490W in series +Rogue. Voc on rested battery 12.45 as before. No clouds, some shade, set V abs to 14.6 - and it went into Abs at 14.4. Set V abs to 14.8, it went up to 14.6 for a few seconds, then again 14.4. Time to test the Rogue ? ;)
