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Saw this fake being sold as a genuine fake, and had to pause a moment to appreciate; Solar Controller (PWM) with fake MPPT sticker on the front

That opinion doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Maybe its a USA thing. I don't know who you mean by "other popular brand products" but Victron is a brand i know, and although i've lived in UK and USA for short stints, NZ is a market I know. "Influencers" in NZ aren't a big thing - most people...

I feel that some forum viewers might have missed some points on how the SCC works (this applies to Victron but maybe not other SCC); All this is presumed to be at STC - Standard Test Conditions - and your conditions may be above this, but probably below it. The panels produce a Voc when in full...

One nice feature of the victron; wireless (bluetooth, on SmartSolar devices) between controllers enables them to talk and sync their mode changes, so a RAIC is possible (Redundant Array of Inexpensive Controllers, an acronym I just made up). I've plotted the numbers (for NZ dollars, before the...

I think @Rednecktek was meaning the charging voltage should be 13.8, not the eq voltage, and your charge voltage is already 13.8. Your charge controller will have (for lead batteries) three modes; normal charging (it outputs the "charge limit voltage", 14.6v for you), equalisation (14.6v for...

Thats cool NZ12volt - lots of people use these, they just don't last too long but if we can get your settings perfect you can get a good life out of it. The great thing about car batteries is that the scrap value is about $5nzd. A scrap battery might not start a car (100A to 300A or even more...

Hi @Crowz There is a chance that the brand he used recommends disassembling the 'nut' end of the MC4, but i doubt that very much. The correct way (according to every MC4 supplier i've ever used) is to crimp the metal part like he did, then simply push the metal part into the MC4 until you hear...

I thought his comments were unbalanced. For example he was comparing the difficulty in delivering and installing massive turbines (from the video it looks like about 3 megawatt towers and blades) which is a problem that is well known (and also mostly solved with their flash specialised...

I think it is more likely that your batteries are the issue. If you have a BMS that averages, and your batteries are 18%, 23% and 25%, the master BMS should be reporting 22% to the Growatt If you have a BMS that sends the highest under charge, and the lowest under discharge, you will get either...

Here's a trader on TradeMe that is claiming that PWM are the most common controller used, and this is because they "do not use moving parts like MPPT controller" Do any of you have enough PHDs between you to work out which are the "moving parts" in an MPPT controller? Maybe the trader is...

Yeah - There's a lot of that on the web, we all need to get better at quoting our sources. At least when you try to quote your source, and it starts with "someone told me ... " rather than "the manufacturer of XYZ battery says ..." you can jolt yourself into rethinking the validity of the idea...

This is also why a commissioning step is very important; imagine if the connector was *mostly* working, just dropping say 30% of the voltage instead of all the voltage. In this case, you might not notice the problem, but if you had commissioned, you would have picked up that the current and...

Well done - that's good binary troubleshooting. But ... one thing to take from this is that if you have any active gear downstream of your breaker (lets say a SCC), you are not gathering much (any?) good data by testing the top and bottom of the breaker in the on and off positions. The reason...

Thanks @Rednecktek - That's a good prompt to discuss battery life. Generally, regardless of the chemistry of the battery, the lower you set your charge limit, and the higher you set your discharge limit, the longer the battery will live for. The flip side to that is that you have paid some $...

That looks like an Epever MT50 display unit. With the Epever controllers, there are a bunch of rules (for example, Undervoltage reset has to be greater than the undervoltage alarm), and the Epever isn't very user friendly when it comes to telling you which rule you have broken. I find that when...

Bjorn; That's a good point, but lets take that (impractical) idea further; what size fuse would you use? Lets say you have a 100/30, and your panels are a massive array of panels with pairs of my current favourite panel ( 430w N-Type TOPCon, with 30 year linear power output warranty ) which has...

So to summarise everyone's comments; - you can have Power (directly from the battery terminals) - you can have Control (via load terminals) - can you have both? - On some controllers, with modest loads, YES!!! - On older controllers, maybe not I do wonder why the Victron controllers...

In NZ, a breaker or isolator for your (OP, @edweather) situation would be optional (at ~99v for the array, its ELV [extra low voltage] and does not require the breaker to protect the cable, or to trip. I *always* put one in, even for a single panel, for this reason: If you have to power cycle...

I know i'm late to this party but ... there are very few *offgrid* situations in the design phase where the cost of tilt kits is justified in a capital cost vs production assessment when compared to adding more panels. Some of the situations where tilt kits are justified are; - The angle away...

Hi @NZ12VOLT , your system is looking fantastic. You have a well optimised layout with tidy wiring. The ASNZ code says that cabling has to be supported at least every 300mm (ie secured to the wall, in conduit, in cable trays, or some other method that prevents something pulling on the wires...

To veer off topic for a moment ... To some extent, there is a valid justification to using the acronym "PWM" in the specs of an MPPT controller, but no justification or weasel-words that will make it ok to add "MPPT" to a PWM controller specs. With a true MPPT controller, there is a PWM element...

Also ... great to see he has used a label kit. This could save somebody a lot of head scratching, because although its all sooooooo obvious to everybody here, to somebody new to solar every box looks the same, and every wire looks the same gauge. Its also a huge help when a user is at the other...

Hi. Those 5m cables you got from TradeMe - the cables in the advert are wired correctly - the positive on the panel is the male connector, so the positive on your cables from panel to controller will be the female connector. If you aren't sure, just connect it all up and put your multi-meter on...

That price sounds pretty reasonable to me, given you mentioned Victron gear as the quoted inverters

@NZ12VOLT ; that breaker on your solar cable looks like a C20 AC breaker. There are DC breakers available, and given its a caravan I'd recommend using a proper DC breaker as they have arc catchers, and will break correctly. AC breakers are not meant for this. On 12v DC for something like...

Great to see you have swapped out the cable you had for the battery->inverter for a thicker cable. I think you have 16mm cable now, but if you find some 35mm cables that would give you even less voltage drop between battery and inverter with the kinds of currents you might be pulling.

Great documentation. I'll make one post per settings so that others can disagree or comment "Equalize duration 0 minutes, because 1 battery not 2" Equalization is to bring each cell up to the same voltage as the others. On a flooded lead battery you boil the crap out of the cells to do...

All the settings can be changed- its just that some are only allowed to be in a range, and often the lower or upper bounds are set by other settings. For example i think you can't change the charging voltage to 14.5 while the Equalization voltage is 14.6 - you have to change Equalization voltage...

I was offered I was offered an outback 5kw inverter the other day (works fine, user had upgraded) ... Anyone want one? Comes with a TriStar controller as well. The great thing about solar / offgrid / etc is that as opposed to laptops and phones and cars, the old stuff doesn't lose its...

Don't give up, we're nearly there! Page 18 of your manual tells you what depends on what. I'll try to attach a copy so everyone can see too. I think there may be other "this-depends-on-that-setting" too, that are not in the manual. Let me know what your Equalize charging voltage is set to - if...