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Old 08-01-2021, 04:46 PM   #1
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Solar not charging

My coach batteries were nearly depleted when I went to get my ACE 27.2 out of storage for a trip. Last there about a month ago. I have 200 W of Renogy solar panels. It has a PWM 30 amp controller, which has functioned well. Now, it reads only 9-10v output PV. This is sunny mid day SoCal. I took off the solar wires from the controller, they read 18-19v. I got up on the roof, checked each panel, 18-19v. I replaced the controller, same result. The only thing I can think of that is different is I installed a Renogy battery monitor last year. Not sure I’ve look at the controller since that time. Monitor seems to work, although the parasitic drain, at >.5-.6 amps. Any suggestions?
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Old 08-01-2021, 06:02 PM   #2
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Yeah, I think you should contact Renolgy. You've got good info, let their techs mull it over a while.
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Old 08-02-2021, 01:48 PM   #3
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Unhook battery monitor and see what voltage you have on the batteries themselves.
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Old 08-02-2021, 03:40 PM   #4
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We have an off-grid solar power system at home and it is possible that your controller and battery monitor are limiting the power to the batteries to prevent them from over charging. If that is the case, it is working properly, and I experience this same situation every day during peak production hours when my solar input exceeds my power consumption and the controller, which receives it's battery state of charge data from the battery monitor, slows down the volts going into the battery to, again, preserve the batteries. An easy way to check is to put the system under a load that exceeds the solar arrays input and see if the solar array volts and the controller volts approach parity.
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Old 08-02-2021, 03:50 PM   #5
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When you test across panel leads, you’re testing Voc (open circuit). Voc on a 100w panel should be about 22v.
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Old 08-03-2021, 08:08 PM   #6
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I also have a renogy charge controller on 200w of panels that has went out. They are cheap, that would be my guess. Or a dead battery, if all the wiring is tight and correct. worth triple checking wiring
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Old 08-19-2021, 07:01 PM   #7
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I did replace the controller, no change. Took it to shop, they went thru everything, talked to several people at Renogy. The last engineer an Renogy said to change from parallel to series wiring of the panels if the run to the controller was more than 10’. Mine easily was. They connected the panels in series, that solved it. Renogy said if I had more wattage (400 W) then go back to parallel. My batteries are holding a charge, so I guess they didn’t get trashed when they ran down.
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