Solar/Battery Help Needed

[maddy1]

I've emailed maximum_solar see what he has to say, I will report when he does, soon i hope as i need to get these solar panels fitted, and the rest of the stuff, so i can be off having some motorhome Fun, in the daffy duck (truck)

 

[funflair]

We have two Votronic regulators feeding one battery bank, I asked the man at Votronic if this was OK and he said yes no problem they will both work together when the batteries need it and when they approach fully charged one controller will see the charge from the other and will switch down to nothing. In reality this seems to be how it works.

Martin

 

[maddy1]

Martin thats interesting to know, it would work out a lot cheaper for me if they can work together.

 

[vwalan]

We have two Votronic regulators feeding one battery bank, I asked the man at Votronic if this was OK and he said yes no problem they will both work together when the batteries need it and when they approach fully charged one controller will see the charge from the other and will switch down to nothing. In reality this seems to be how it works.

Martin

i must say my regs do exactly the same . one seems to keep going over the other one . possibly not long but one definately shuts down before the other . i just put it down to a slightly different quality or even one bank of panels older than the other .

 

[funflair]

i must say my regs do exactly the same . one seems to keep going over the other one . possibly not long but one definately shuts down before the other . i just put it down to a slightly different quality or even one bank of panels older than the other .

Just very very slightly different set points I guess and one has to be dominant.

Martin

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[maddy1]

Me again, while i think about it (Not my idea I found it on a web search) whats stopping me using a cheapish solar charge controller to charge my 12v battery bank from the 24v starter batts while on the move? anyone done this? It would save me £250, by not having to buy a Durite B2B 24v to 12v charger.

 

[maddy1]

My maths is rubbish, so help me please.
I need to know what size fuses to use on me Solar set up. So a fuse from solar panels +ve to Charge control, (protect the CC) what size ? Then a Fuse from CC +ve to batteries, (do i need one here?) What size? Then a fuse from Batteries +ve to inverter, (big I know) what size? and while we are on the subject, is it good practise to have a fuse on each +ve cable on the battery bank? what size? I might just do this anyway, as you never know, accidents happen. cheers

 

[funflair]

How may panels are you going for and are they all into one big controller or splitting between two, also what size inverter are you planning on using.

This is quite a good read for cable and fuse sizing and dont forget that the fuse is there to protect the cable so must be sized correctly.

Martin

 

[maddy1]

Hello Martin, thanks for the link, as for the set up its 6x 100w 12v panels, joined with 3 into 1 mc4 connectors, then going to be using 2x 25A 300W MPPT solar charge controllers. The inverter I'm unsure of at the moment but maybe 2000w as I'm hoping to be running a fridge freezer. cheers