Everything I’ve read says not to use the load connection on the controller but supply all loads from the leisure battery via individual fuses.
Pretty much everything electric in my van is run from the leisure battery too, via a fused zig controller, it's just that the load terminals were there so I wired in an extra cigarette lighter socket & USB charge socket from them with an inline on/off switch and a separate fuse. I believe if the solar panel is giving enough juice to power any load, it takes from there - but if it's dark then it takes power from the leisure battery (thus the reason for the on/off switch, and the separate fuse.... I just wondered why the diagram suggested negative fuse? I still think positive is better, but the diagram is very specific!)
2 panels. I will check next year or when the sun comes out next. I’m happy with my setup and can easily not have to plug in to electric.
However, with a properly functioning Ecoworthy controller such as you have (& I have one in each bus) it is perfectly possible to take off an accessory socket direct from the two spare terminals. The spare terminals take power from the battery so, for example, we run a reading light from that socket at night, as well as other accessories such as the shower and mobile chargers during the day. Its just not good practice to run full leisure load via those 2 terminals as the internal wiring of the unit may not be able to cope. Everything else we have is run, as you say, from a fused supply distribution box running directly off the battery. Its a shame you have what appears to be a faulty unit because our experience over the last 4 years with this kit has been very positive
Usage sounds similar to ours except we have the waeco compressor cool box rather than fridge but I imagine similar draw. A single 100w has worked well for us this year Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk
That sounds good. Tbqh I can’t remember but I have seen over 6amps. Trouble is it works so well I don’t even look anymore.
I kept monitoring the output when I first fitted the panels (I like statistics) but like you, after a while I just forgot about it.
No load on and the solar will only trickle charge. Stick the fridge in and you'll see more amps I think
The figures you give would be about right for a 20 watt single panel without a regulator like I have on my boat. That puts out about 1 amp when its connected straight to batteries in sunlight. In the case of your installation, the panel voltages are good around 19-20 volts, but the currents are a bit low for a 100 watt panel into a 12.4 volt battery. In the case of my cheapo controller with 200 watts panels in bright summer sun I see 5-6 amps into 13 volts (no MPPT, if it was MPPT I would expect perhaps twice that current ). The sun is lower in the sky now and shutting down around 1730 may not be wrong. What is the panel voltage when its connected and producing 1 amp onto the battery ? If the panel voltage drops a lot on load.. Something is wrong: Cells shadowed. Dirty panel Cracked cell. Low sun light level. Damaged controller
Worth noting that if you do fit solar panels, never drive through Barnsley. Some people have seen over 1000V out of them on a good day .
The potential for damage depends on the controller. We nuked some expensive kit with a wind turbine MPPT controller at work. We isolated the batteries and it killed a motor controller and itself on a windy night. Meanwhile the expensive MPPT solar controllers with 500 watts of series connected solar panels survive regularly having the battery disconnected on sunny days. A tired battery will reach the various voltages with less current flowing than a healthy battery. Eventually 0.1A will result in an voltage of 15 volts... I can recommend the cheap digital battery testers on eBay. https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/113147704237 . They give a Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) rating which is representative of the battery health without loading the battery heavily. So my 85AH leisure battery when new measures 550A. My 41AH Bosch S3 starter battery measures 450A.
The panel voltage was 17.6 at the controller when it was producing (less than) 1 amp onto the battery. No shadows, not a cloud in the sky. Once the controller stopped snoozing the battery volts and amps remained exactly the same throughout the day. 13v and 0.7 to 0.9 – I was checking every 30 minutes or so. The panels are clean, no leaves or bird poo. No cracks that I can see and nothing has hit the panels. It’s early autumn so the sun is getting lower but it was probably as bright here as a mid-summer day in the UK.
Scarily that diagram may be because your controller is like mine where all the switching is on the negative side and all the positives are connected together. I found out when I turned the load output off and then shorted the positive side to chassis. The controller went bang but it was only a blown solid metal track on the PCB joining all the + connectors on the controller together. In my case I had bought the cheapest junk controller on eBay that did the job as I was given the panels.
Thanks.. The only thing that remains is you are sure the voltages are programmed correctly in the controller?. At 12.4 volts any controller should be going flat out. At 14.2 volts it switch from bulk to absorbtion, and then back off to 13.8 for trickle charging after a while. If flat out is 0.9 amps into the battery and the open circuit voltage has dropped a couple of volts when loaded to then that is probably all the panel and its wiring will give. Hope its a bad connection .. Check all the connections a bad connection will get worse because it gets very hot... Dont use chocolate blocks. This was melted and the metal oxidised by the current from one of my panels... The screw siezed up.
It would appear that the Eco-Worthy controller I have doesn’t have any protection against disconnection from the battery, however, the Epever Tracer AN does and while they recommend connecting the battery first and then the panels they state that no damage will occur if you get it wrong. After two days of ‘bulk’ charging at 13v and a couple of hours after the controller started to snooze for the night the battery voltage is 12.9.
Yes, as @77 Westy said above, the A series Tracer (like mine) has a common positive, where the new AN series that was brought out this year, has common negative. I'm not entirely sure what this actually means in practice (other than all the postives being joined together in my A series controller) but does it mean I need to move the fuse on the load sockets ASAP before using them, as I've stuck the fuse on the + lead (between controller and on/off switch), rather than on the - side? All other fuses in the set up are on + cables (between panels and controller, and between controller and battery).
Emm, pretty disappointing if two 100w panels can only supply 0.9 amps in near ideal conditions. It has never reached 14.2 volts or switched from bulk to absorption, it simply goes from snoozing to bulk and back to snoozing. I’ve used MC4 connectors at the pig tails into a MC4 T-branch connector to get the panels in parallel then direct to the controller and from the controller to the battery through a 25amp fuse. All wiring is 4mm and nothing gets remotely warm let alone hot. The controller is left at the default settings: Charge Absorb 14.4 Float 13.7 Discharge Over 11.2 Restart 12.3
As a slight aside, in an effort to understand a little more about my solar controller, what it does and why, I happened upon a chap called Adam Welch on you-tube. He does a few reviews of product tests and set-ups etc. He's pretty understandable for a dunce like me, and worth a watch. For example, as we've touched on Epever Tracer A series controllers vs the Tracer AN series that is replacing them
