Useful Solar Data

KJINTF wrote:
Bob

I have loads of data/graphs I did over the past few years
Can send a few to you if you want to see them

One test I suggest you do is to graph the Battery voltage (at the battery aka battery sense line to the controller) Vs Battery output of the controller under different heavy load conditions. My system has about 10ft one way of wire from controller to the battery. This test clearly showed me how well the battery sense function works with as much as 250mV drop under a heavy load and fully compensated by the controller.

That would be great as I need to figure all of that out. My drop from controller to batteries is 0.16V at max amps for the panels. I'll PM my email address.

Looking forward to your outing... This is just about what I will end of with doing SOLAR on my OFF-ROAD POPUP trailer roof.

I am hoping my added BATTERY Monitor Panel that has two DC VOLTMETERS and one in/out 75A DC Current meter for watching the battery bank along with the meters in the SOLAR CONTROLLER will give me my results on what is happening...

I think I know how it is going to turn but actually living it the real test...

My main concerns is more what happens over night and will I have enough time to re-charge things before the day/night run off the battery bank. Experience tells me I have to start out each day/night run off my batteries being at 90% charge state otherwise it will get dark on me. When my 12.0VDC alarms go off I shut down my batteries.

I will need to determine if the battery bank will get to its 90% charge state before I run out of time to run my 2KW Generator within the allowed time to run the generator where we usually camp.

I am just barely making it now without solar panels using my 255AH battery bank capacity. This is running all the 120VAC things we want to run in the evening form our Inverter and all the 12VDC items direct connected to the battery terminals. Adding solar panels should help me out big time when the high sun is available to use... My total solar system will be around 480WATTS in two 120WATT panels and one 240WATT panel...

We also don't have as much solar sun here on the East side of the USA as you will be having at your location...

Roy Ken

smkettner wrote:
Go out and have fun at the gem shows and flea markets. You can now ignore the batteries.

Have you custom programmed a charge profile?

Not yet. After the Q trip I plan to update the firmware and then any customization. Just in case either of these cause any down time I'll still be able to have solar at Q. I do know that the AGM switch settings are not exactly what Lifeline recommends but only a 0.1V off.

I also have concerns about the Read TSMPPT data I'm seeing and opened a support ticket yesterday. Here is the support ticket, hope it's clear.

Please clarify just what I’m seeing and should expect to see with the Read TSMPPT. I expected that the Setpoints values would be the values actually being used but that is not the case. For example the Maximum Battery Current returns as 80.00 and not 60V. What is Regulation Voltage? Nowhere do I see the values specified by my controller switch settings for AGM. The controller does seem to be charging correctly but I’m going to have to change the values because your AGM switch settings to conform to the Lifeline recommendations.

Plus in Edit mode there are some different names and the MSView Help text is also different for some of its information.

I have not updated the firmware or the Setpoints at this point. MSView is the latest version but I’m not at the rig right now to get the controller and remote versions.

I can send you screen captures of the MSView Setpoints if that is helpful.

The only thing I'd care about is the amp output at noon. You could be seeing up to 50a @ 13v. Wow.

Are these panels tilted?

Bob

I have loads of data/graphs I did over the past few years
Can send a few to you if you want to see them

One test I suggest you do is to graph the Battery voltage (at the battery aka battery sense line to the controller) Vs Battery output of the controller under different heavy load conditions. My system has about 10ft one way of wire from controller to the battery. This test clearly showed me how well the battery sense function works with as much as 250mV drop under a heavy load and fully compensated by the controller.

Go out and have fun at the gem shows and flea markets. You can now ignore the batteries.

Have you custom programmed a charge profile?

You don't need to monitor minute by minute
But if you can monitor inherently.. how many amp hrs/watt hrs, you use vs how many the solar collects and returns to the system
You will know positively whether you have a deficit or a surplus

I like separate meters because it can show you total output of the solar system instead of just battery status

A trimetric will show charged or how many amp hrs down/deficit

But it takes two meters to show that you used 90 amp hrs while the solar produced 120ah... so only 30 went to recharge
You may our may not be fully charged, depending on how much you needed
One meter in the battery discharge aka load side
One meter in the solar output..Or in your case the display from the solar controller