Solar question

Let me clear the air a bit, BOTH charge controllers are showing .7 amps. My meter shows .71 to .72 amps, ASSUME for the briefest moment that my multimeter not only reads DC amps, but it is doing so with a .01 +/- amp deviation.

 

Maybe for grins just to confirm the meter is working properly, clamp it around one of the battery cables for your car or truck. Pull the cable to the distributor or the connections off the plug coils or fuel injectors so it will NOT start. Then have someone crank the engine for 7-8 seconds while you watch the meter and confirm it gives you several hundred amps. Or use a battery load tester and try the same thing to confirm it all is working.

 

Well the EE in me says that since the operating manual for that meter doesn't say that it reads DC amps, that it doesn't and you should toss it and get another that does say it reads DC AMPS. Your charge controllers (both of them) may be saying .7 AMPS and be correct, as they are charging the batteries, but only drawing .7 AMPS to do so. They will not be drawing the full output of the panels if they do not need that full output to charge the panels.

 

AZ you got it , It's a AC only meter after 1/2 hour of reading to find the spec's on it.
THAT Meter no good on a DC load , & I do know how these work , Since it's my Trade.
First is You need to have SUN & close to us in the northern hem , winter it's away & for that panel to make 7.XX amps thats the BEST it will ever do , so close counts . Summer & noon june 31 , no smog etc you might see 6.6-7 amps on a hardwired DVM in DC Amps while its shorted with the meter & 90* to the sun , off a bit the reading will be less .
I not putting up 350W panels without a check & make sure all is correct , the ones I just checked last month were all the same at 6 amps (mean) should be 8.97 but Winter & best sun I can get @ 50 latitude .

So to do this amp check with a DVM that can handle 10 amps , IF NOT SMOKE THE METER/maybe fuse .
Never hook up in sun , throw a blanket over it & wait till there is no more current. any arcing in the connections is poor & I have a made up set of MC4's that let me just plug in without damaging them (NO POWERor ARCing ) . If I can't change the angle of the panel , but I have more than one to check , I use the adv . I see say EG: 3, 3.2 , 3.1 , 2.9 but the 2.9 is kinda dirty , I'd say all good , I see 3.2,5.6 ,5.4,5.2 then I have a problem & it could just be a bad MC4 from a Arc while it was being disconnected etc.

Lots of magic in this DC solar trip ..
I had My Classics have the fans running today at 10am !! Thats a welcome noise in the PNW at winter !!!!

 

Then why is the panel, raw, and unconnected to anything not producing the short circuit Amps it is rated for?

 

So you have the two leads + & - shorted to a real DC meter(not that posted pix of a AC clamp-on ) & you get .7 amps @ near 0 volts during full sun ?

Sloth

 

Can you take a pic of your setup with the meter attached with the solar panel short circuited, and post it?

 

I was hoping to check each panel before the combiner . We do need sun & at close to 90* as possible (use a square on the panel to see a shadow & distance like a 3,4,5 for right angles will tell us the deflection off of 90* ..

MY 48 panels are fixed due to wind . I'll just add more if ever needed to beam a signal back to ET .
So my panels only get close to rated during summer . Im not resetting during winter because of liquid sunshine takes over .


SLoth

 

So bumping them makes them Work ??

I have the strangest panel with the 24V system , all 8 were put up within a few weeks early last year. I didn't wash them because they were new etc .Went to a trade show & saw the totally all new fixes the world stuff for glass & showers that beads off water etc. Well I decided to do just two because of cost for this "Magic Smoke & Mirror" chemical & see if it makes a difference in harvesting since im 4 feeds of 2 series .
Of the 8 panels , I have the first one thats normaly cleaner that I have not done anything different from the other 6 , but the two with there magic blessing looks the same as the other 7 ..
GOT me , rain / dew etc one is different than the other 7 & the two treated are matching the the seven ..

 

Yes I figured , My retort was for info & Why TF ? Only one self drains & never beads ,but all came from the same crates .

 

OK here is an update. I am still having problems.

There are two BRAND NEW 12 V deep cycle batteries (in parallel), the same solar panels.

I have installed a Tracer MPPT solar charger and the MT-5 monitoring panel. I chose this brand because the 12V power system installed in my RV is a Tracer also, and I was seeking compatibility across the board. The system is set for flooded cell batteries (which these are) and the appropriate amp hours.

The monitoring system is telling me my brand new batteries have 65% capacity. Sometimes the capacity drops to 62% then goes back up.

It is showing both fully charged at ~13.2 V (they registered at 14.3 V when I first hooked them up). Both batteries are marked having been made this year, in April and June, respectively.

Why is my bank not showing the 100% capacity one would expect?

 

Parallel, MPPT