CA Traveler wrote:
So you want to use the truck inverter for 120VAC to the Meanwell in the rig to produce 32VDC which will be connected to the solar controller input to charge the 12V batteries while driving. At other times you'll have solar panels connected to the controller input. And at other times you'll have shore power for the Meanwell. Does that sum up what you want to do?
That raises a lot of questions for me about this working as you expect. But as an experiment go for it and let us know the results.
Yes. Currently the Meanwell output is directly connected to the 24V battery bank at ~28-29V. It works very well as a 500-700W bulk charger (either while travelling or on shorepower) but is not temperature compensated and requires manual over-sight.
I run it in parallel to the primary solar charger that handles the fixed panels on the roof. Have seen the it pump 700W into depleted batteries; about the same as my 690W permanent solar array on the trailer. On the truck, power comes from a 220A alternator via an old 1000W PSW inverter.
But if I can run the Meanwell's output through the unused (at the time) secondary solar charger (Epsolar Tracer with temp compensation for the portable panels) I will reduce the amount of fiddling, V adjustments, and attention that it requires. Whether this works has yet to be confirmed.
Initially I was thinking that the two inputs to this secondary solar charger should be "either/or" switched. But now I'll try permanently parallelling the Meanwell's output with the portable solar panel's wiring stub (thank you DrewE). There's no way the Meanwell will be fired up at the same time as the portable panels are plugged in, although even if it accidentally were I dunno if it would harm anything other than confuse the solar charger.
Pretty complicated, I know. But so far everything is working well.