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New rv solar will not fully charge?

 
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My solar system will not charge past50- 60% and the batteries are brand new, the controller is a year old.  I have 400watt panels feeding to a 80amp tracer mppt controller from EPSOLAR that charges two  AGM 12volt both 200 amph.  The batteries are wired in parallel to a power bar then two wires come off the bar one to the controller and the other to a 1100 watt inverter. The controller reads 15+ volts coming in from the 4 100watt panels wired in parallel.   The lights on controller are green saying everthing is good.  I have the controller set for a sealed battery and 400 amph.  Controller reads no load going out.  What is going on??
 
Posts: 600
Location: Michigan
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How long and what size are your pv wires? 15v is a little low, usually 12v modules might have 17-18+ volts and that does allow more room for voltage drop at distance or with wire on the edge of being undersized, hot module temps, etc.

Also tracers have settings for charge voltages. I would check those.

The puny wire for the pv homerun and cat o nine tails parallel connectors that come with some of that stuff is generally inqdequate... let us know what you find.
 
Mike Miletich
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Today was the first sunny day scince I installed them two days ago.  Today I had 20 volts coming in from the panels that are wired with 20ft of 10gage wire.  The controller said the batteries where at 60% When I first installed them and stayed that wat for two days. I checked them today at 12noon and they said 98%.... great......no......then an hour later they where back at 60%...... by the evening they where back to 98%.....it is now 10pm and they are back to 60%.  I am guessing there is something wrong with the controller?.??
 
pollinator
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Location: Central Ontario
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State of charge is a tricky thing. what voltage are you reading when it says 90 percent and 60 percent? Were there any draws from the battery to bring it down?  Next would be how are your panels wired in. I'm guessing 100 watt 12 volt panels? if its an mppt charger it can take strings of up to 100 volts that is the 4210a so check the manual. if you have them wired for 12 volts that would not be a large enough voltage difference for an mppt charger to work properly... just some thoughts.
Cheers,  David
 
frank li
Posts: 600
Location: Michigan
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Very likely all is well and you needed more absorb time or sun hours. Absolutely see if you can stack your modules for voltage, but it may be fine. My understanding is the controller would operate in PWM mode when lower ratio driven.

If your pv home runs are paralelled in the shack or cabinet, they are providing low loss transmission. If they are combined at the modules, they are suffering 4% loss but should work.

The specs you gave look like maybe combined in the shack, but i dont know for sure.

Either way if you can, and as David was getting on to, id 'drive miss daisy' (controller) to 80-85% or so on all limits unless shoe-horning! Beware of cold.
 
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