Greetings all- First time poster- happy to have found this forum. I live off grid in Virginia horse country in my 2012 Cedar Creek fifth wheel - all solar and genset- no shore/utility power and lovin life!
My system- EG4 3000 charger/inverter- 3200 watts of solar panels- 4- 12v LiFePO4 400 AH Sokerdy battery bank run in series for a 48v system. Champion 4500 watt inverter/gen set as needed for charging batteries in no/low sun.
Installed the system about a year ago- overall has run pretty well until now. I have electricity if I run gen set (connects to EG4 charger) and have power in my rig however energy I cut off genset charger shows low voltages in battery bank at times such as 20v but at times would also read up to 58v- regardless the reading when genset cut off electricity to the rig died.
I was getting BP message on screen which I understand means no connection to batteries. Not the first time I’ve seen this warning- system has at times been glitchy in the past and flashed the BP code.
Called SS yesterday ( Not open today- Sunday) and they asked me to perform a continuity test at DC battery input- that checked out ok so I called back and was advised to remove my batteries (big pain in the rear due to access) and test individual voltages after removing series connections - 3 batteries tested at 13.16v and the 4th tested at 12.8v so it looks as if my batteries are indeed taking a charge and are fully charged- is the .36v variation from the one battery relative to the other three enough variation for the charger/inverter to not recognize the series as ‘one battery’ as SS tech put it?
Also while having this battery discharge or lack thereof issue) and running on the genset the power will cut off for about 10 seconds and charger/controller gives load warning beep- sometimes this can happen every half hour or so while on genset.
I’m currently trying to boost the voltage of the 12.8v battery a bit using a trickle charger (want to charge slowly and only bump voltage up to 13.16 level of other three batteries) - Ideally I’d like to use a variable voltage charger that disks into 13.16 volts exactly but I have no such charger.
I’m really thinking this is the EG4 charger having the issue.
Any constructive input/suggestions would be much appreciated.
I’m also going to expand my system very soon- was considering DOJ ling the battery bank- doubling panels and upgrading to the newer EG4 6000 charger- I’m assuming if I want to increase battery capacity by 50% I could add 2-24v 200AH LiFePo4 batteries in series with one another and connected parallel with existing battery bank. Any flaws in my logic? I guess I could also buy 4- 12v @100 AH in series and then in parallel with existing 48v battery bank.
Please forgive my ignorance or lack of knowledge/communication skills regarding solar systems as I’ve only really studied them for the past 1.5 years.
Thanks
My system- EG4 3000 charger/inverter- 3200 watts of solar panels- 4- 12v LiFePO4 400 AH Sokerdy battery bank run in series for a 48v system. Champion 4500 watt inverter/gen set as needed for charging batteries in no/low sun.
Installed the system about a year ago- overall has run pretty well until now. I have electricity if I run gen set (connects to EG4 charger) and have power in my rig however energy I cut off genset charger shows low voltages in battery bank at times such as 20v but at times would also read up to 58v- regardless the reading when genset cut off electricity to the rig died.
I was getting BP message on screen which I understand means no connection to batteries. Not the first time I’ve seen this warning- system has at times been glitchy in the past and flashed the BP code.
Called SS yesterday ( Not open today- Sunday) and they asked me to perform a continuity test at DC battery input- that checked out ok so I called back and was advised to remove my batteries (big pain in the rear due to access) and test individual voltages after removing series connections - 3 batteries tested at 13.16v and the 4th tested at 12.8v so it looks as if my batteries are indeed taking a charge and are fully charged- is the .36v variation from the one battery relative to the other three enough variation for the charger/inverter to not recognize the series as ‘one battery’ as SS tech put it?
Also while having this battery discharge or lack thereof issue) and running on the genset the power will cut off for about 10 seconds and charger/controller gives load warning beep- sometimes this can happen every half hour or so while on genset.
I’m currently trying to boost the voltage of the 12.8v battery a bit using a trickle charger (want to charge slowly and only bump voltage up to 13.16 level of other three batteries) - Ideally I’d like to use a variable voltage charger that disks into 13.16 volts exactly but I have no such charger.
I’m really thinking this is the EG4 charger having the issue.
Any constructive input/suggestions would be much appreciated.
I’m also going to expand my system very soon- was considering DOJ ling the battery bank- doubling panels and upgrading to the newer EG4 6000 charger- I’m assuming if I want to increase battery capacity by 50% I could add 2-24v 200AH LiFePo4 batteries in series with one another and connected parallel with existing battery bank. Any flaws in my logic? I guess I could also buy 4- 12v @100 AH in series and then in parallel with existing 48v battery bank.
Please forgive my ignorance or lack of knowledge/communication skills regarding solar systems as I’ve only really studied them for the past 1.5 years.
Thanks