I have brought a 120 watt folding solar panel , I have hooked it up via anderson plug to my caravan , With the multi meter the house battery has a reading of 12.5 volts , But the reading on the lead from the solar panel is 2.5 volts is this normal
Plendo said
11:24 AM Oct 19, 2014
Brickies, that looks as if their might be something wrong, but first we need to understand what you are measuring.
Most people hooking up portable panels, now connect the panel to an extension cable (6BS is good), then connect the other end of the cable to a solar regulator near their battery.
In other cases people buy a solar panel with a regulator attached, then connect this via an extension cable to their battery.
If you are in the first scenario, I would be expecting to see 15V plus on the extension (assumes the panel is in the sun). If you are in the second scenario, then i would be expecting the regulator to be trying to drag the voltage to about .5V higher than the battery.
It is possible that you may be using a panel with a built in regulator, and plugging this into the anderson plug that would normally connect to the tow vehicle, thus the built in diode (stops the van battery discharging through that plug) would be stopping the regulator seeing battery voltage, thus it would not know what voltage to charge at.
Could you give us a bit more detail please.
brickies said
11:41 AM Oct 19, 2014
Thanks Plendo I am using the last scenario , It has in built regulator and the anderson plug on it is pluged into the lead that normaly plugs into the tug , I brought the set up from low enegery Melbourne , Also there is no power being used in the caravan at the moment every thing is off .
brickies said
03:11 PM Oct 19, 2014
Thanks for all the help, With the help of Mr Google I have been able to reset the box and now producing 13.8 volts
SnowT said
05:57 PM Oct 19, 2014
If you have a solar regulator for your Batteries...
Disconnect the Solar regulator that is on the Panel and run the solar Panel direct to the Solar regulator..
Juergen
brickies said
07:41 PM Oct 19, 2014
Thanks Juergen , I had to take the panel into the garage so I could see the led control lights to be able to set the panel , It was only putting out 2.5 volts now It ptoducing 13.8 volts
PeterD said
11:38 PM Oct 19, 2014
If your panel is only putting out 13.8 V it sounds like you have a simple regulator that is more suitable for maintaining batteries than fully charging them. Do you have a model number and manufacturers name on the regulator?
To see if it is a smart regulator, discharge your batteries a bit. Then recharge them with the panel whilst watching the battery voltage. It should rise to something over 14.0 V initially and when the battery is charged then drop back to 13.8 V.
brickies said
06:23 AM Oct 20, 2014
Thanks for your reply Peter it is a 120 watt folding solaar panel from Low energry with a kand star regulator , The house battery was showing a reading of 12.7 volts and the panel lead was showing 13.8 volts with no draw on the house battery .
Cruising Cruze said
10:13 PM Oct 20, 2014
Maybe that battery was all ready fully charged But then who am I
-- Edited by Cruising Cruze on Monday 20th of October 2014 10:13:35 PM
-- Edited by Cruising Cruze on Tuesday 21st of October 2014 09:05:57 AM
Plendo said
10:11 PM Oct 21, 2014
I do not recognise the type of the charger, but the voltage it is generating would be consistent with it being an MPPT controller, where it sets its output voltage just above the battery voltage.
I would be interested to see the voltage once it has been charging the battery for a while, and the battery voltage is higher, say up around 13.5V, I would not be surprised to see the charger pushing more than 14V in that case.
03_troopy said
08:28 AM Oct 22, 2014
a Landstar maybe?
brickies said
09:39 AM Oct 22, 2014
Yes Troopy it is Landstar , Just noticed my typo of kandstar sorry about that .
PeterD said
10:34 PM Oct 23, 2014
brickies wrote:
Thanks for your reply Peter it is a 120 watt folding solar panel from Low energy with a Land star regulator , The house battery was showing a reading of 12.7 volts and the panel lead was showing 13.8 volts with no draw on the house battery .
When I gave my previous reply I had assumed that the panel had the usual attached regulator where there was no exposed wiring between the panel and the regulator. Your regulator looks a little different. I take it the 13.8 V was measured at the input to the regulator. (If you were measuring that voltage at the output of the regulator then it means you have a high resistance lead to the battery.)
With the input to the regulator at 13.8 V and the battery reading 12.7 V it means the system is working hard and charging full bore. When the battery charge comes up the battery voltage should rise to around 13.8 V and with little charge current being drawn by the battery the panel voltage should rise towards 20 V. It looks like your battery is not well charged or there is a fault somewhere (perhaps even a dead cell in the battery.) To check the battery condition, disconnect all loads and charging devices before night time. Then in the morning measure the battery voltage and let us know what it is.
brickies said
12:48 PM Oct 24, 2014
Thanks Peter that very helpfull , Now feel on top of the problem
aussie_paul said
01:14 PM Oct 24, 2014
brickies wrote:
Thanks Peter that very helpfull , Now feel on top of the problem
It is great when you are able to make that comment.
I have brought a 120 watt folding solar panel , I have hooked it up via anderson plug to my caravan , With the multi meter the house battery has a reading of 12.5 volts , But the reading on the lead from the solar panel is 2.5 volts is this normal
Brickies, that looks as if their might be something wrong, but first we need to understand what you are measuring.
Most people hooking up portable panels, now connect the panel to an extension cable (6BS is good), then connect the other end of the cable to a solar regulator near their battery.
In other cases people buy a solar panel with a regulator attached, then connect this via an extension cable to their battery.
If you are in the first scenario, I would be expecting to see 15V plus on the extension (assumes the panel is in the sun). If you are in the second scenario, then i would be expecting the regulator to be trying to drag the voltage to about .5V higher than the battery.
It is possible that you may be using a panel with a built in regulator, and plugging this into the anderson plug that would normally connect to the tow vehicle, thus the built in diode (stops the van battery discharging through that plug) would be stopping the regulator seeing battery voltage, thus it would not know what voltage to charge at.
Could you give us a bit more detail please.
If you have a solar regulator for your Batteries...
Disconnect the Solar regulator that is on the Panel and run the solar Panel direct to the Solar regulator..
Juergen
To see if it is a smart regulator, discharge your batteries a bit. Then recharge them with the panel whilst watching the battery voltage. It should rise to something over 14.0 V initially and when the battery is charged then drop back to 13.8 V.
Maybe that battery was all ready fully charged
But then who am I
-- Edited by Cruising Cruze on Monday 20th of October 2014 10:13:35 PM
-- Edited by Cruising Cruze on Tuesday 21st of October 2014 09:05:57 AM
I do not recognise the type of the charger, but the voltage it is generating would be consistent with it being an MPPT controller, where it sets its output voltage just above the battery voltage.
I would be interested to see the voltage once it has been charging the battery for a while, and the battery voltage is higher, say up around 13.5V, I would not be surprised to see the charger pushing more than 14V in that case.
When I gave my previous reply I had assumed that the panel had the usual attached regulator where there was no exposed wiring between the panel and the regulator. Your regulator looks a little different. I take it the 13.8 V was measured at the input to the regulator. (If you were measuring that voltage at the output of the regulator then it means you have a high resistance lead to the battery.)
With the input to the regulator at 13.8 V and the battery reading 12.7 V it means the system is working hard and charging full bore. When the battery charge comes up the battery voltage should rise to around 13.8 V and with little charge current being drawn by the battery the panel voltage should rise towards 20 V. It looks like your battery is not well charged or there is a fault somewhere (perhaps even a dead cell in the battery.) To check the battery condition, disconnect all loads and charging devices before night time. Then in the morning measure the battery voltage and let us know what it is.
It is great when you are able to make that comment.
Aussie Paul.