Awesome Off Grid Solar Power Then Catastrophic Failure

Discussions about solar, wind and radiant energy. Electronics and projects dealing with energy savings.
Post Reply
Dafoxroulz
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2015 11:26 pm

Awesome Off Grid Solar Power Then Catastrophic Failure

Post by Dafoxroulz » Tue Feb 17, 2015 12:53 pm

Hi troy im not new to your channel but this is my first ever comment to one of your video's. Love the video's and always have.
I know a thing or 3 about solar and as such i want to share some of the things regarding your setup.
#1 Battery temp is everything, 14F is way to low to get out or put in any reasonable amount of power, they ideally want to be around 70-80F.

#2 Battery setup in the Morningstar controller, i personally run at #6 Flooded cell, but it all pails in comparison to point #1 battery temp is most important.

#3 The alarm functions within the Morningstar controller activate when you get to the near the limits of its design,
Array voltage nearing max.
Battery under voltage.
Heat sink temp, I believe this may have been your problem as i have had the same problem, to get full power out of the controller the heat sink on the unit has to stay below 80c, after which it quickly ramps the current output down till its switches off the output at 90c.
If you have a point and shoot temp gauge i would check the temp of the heat sink under huge solar output with the ambient temp at its highest to see if its getting close to the limits.
If it turns out that it is the cause, i would buy a quality DELTA 120mm or 140mm 12v pc fan and attach it to the heat sink in a similar way to how a CPU cooling fan sits on its heat sink, via a switch or speed controller so you don't have to listen to a loud whine continually.

Hope some of this helps, if i was you i would certainly consider moving up to a 24v battery system.

techman
Site Admin
Posts: 1329
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:49 am

Re: Awesome Off Grid Solar Power Then Catastrophic Failure

Post by techman » Sat Feb 21, 2015 7:35 pm

Yes the battery is too cold.

I have the battery settings correct now I think.

The alarm, I show in the next video. It is over current from the solar panels. Harmless to the controller though.

Thank you for being there and for posting.

Dafoxroulz
Posts: 3
Joined: Mon Feb 09, 2015 11:26 pm

Re: Awesome Off Grid Solar Power Then Catastrophic Failure

Post by Dafoxroulz » Mon Feb 23, 2015 12:10 pm

Hi Troy i just watched your late video from Saturday and you info screen from the charge controller in particular.

The High voltage alarm is likely because of the max voltage of 150, as the array voltage gets towards the max voltage it cant put out as much current in the charge output.
According to the manual you don't want to go above 115v to continually get the most charging current, my setup is 3 250w panels and my array voltage doesn't get above 109v and it works really well that way.

I think that 2 arrays with 3 panels each would suit your setup well.
Here is an excerpt from the manual.

High Input Voltage Current Limit
The TriStar MPPT 150V will limit the solar input current as the solar array Voc approaches the
maximum input voltage rating. The array Voc should never exceed the 150 Volt maximum input
voltage. See the array voltage derating graph in Section 8.0.

Hope that helps.

techman
Site Admin
Posts: 1329
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 11:49 am

Re: Awesome Off Grid Solar Power Then Catastrophic Failure

Post by techman » Thu Feb 26, 2015 8:17 pm

Yes I think that is the answer. I was thinking the same thing myself actually.

Two sets of 3 solar panels for now. Take the other two 235 watt solar panels and either put them on another system or on a separate solar charge controller on the main system.

Post Reply