HELP. Hit by F3 and trying to get some power back.

Hi Guys. 9:03 PM Wednesday night my farm was hit with a F3. I was able to salvage 5 of my 24 315w panels. I have repositioned to one end of the rack and have them wired in series on one of my two MPT600's. When I take a voltage reading on the individual panels, I get about 43v open circuit on all 5. So I assume they are good. Wired in series and testing at the combiner box, I get about 215v. So that seems about right.

Indoors, looking at my display, I's showing 215 volts (maybe a couple higher or lower then at the panels), but only showing 14 watts. The light on the MPPT600 is not flashing like normal when charging. It wasn't full sun, but very bright out. I was expecting 1000 watts of more. I'm scratching my head on this one.

I've fully shut down and recycled the WX6848 inverter. No change. I haven't reset the 600's. If that's even possible.

We have re-wired the house to run from the meter pole. The solar is for now until the array is replaced going to just cover the well pump, and controllers
for our garden. Not that there is much of a garden that survived.

This couldn't of happened at a worst time as we felt we were 90% prepared as best we can for what I think this world is about to throw at us.

Any help would be appreciated. My batteries are down to 48v.

What could we be forgetting to do or are we misinterpreting things?

Check the current out of each panel if you can, face against the wall or down on the ground, connect the 2 MC4 together and use a DC clamp meter on inline if you have one of those meters.
Then face towards the sun and you should get around the Isc rating of the panel. Even 1 panel with a problem can show voltage but not be able to provide any useful current and it will kill the whole string.
I feel bad for you, sorry to see the damage from these resent storms.

It's possible you don't have enough voltage. It looks like the minimum MPPT voltage is 195v. You have 215 open. It could be that when it tries to connect to that, it's pulling it down below 195v with the load.

Sorry to hear. Is there even some broken glass panels that can be added to increase the voltage a bit more?

Good luck, man.

sollap said:

It's possible you don't have enough voltage. It looks like the minimum MPPT voltage is 195v. You have 215 open. It could be that when it tries to connect to that, it's pulling it down below 195v with the load.

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Do you know if there is a setting on the controllers that I need to change for less panels?

rhino said:

Sorry to hear. Is there even some broken glass panels that can be added to increase the voltage a bit more?

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I have a spare at a container in the woods, but we cannot get there yet due to trees down.

I probably have one or two with shattered glass that aren't wadded up or with holes in them.
We will test those as the other member suggested and mount them.

Thanks for everyone's advise so far.

I have a generator questions or two which I will post on that previous thread of mine.

Mr2Ducks said:

Do you know if there is a setting on the controllers that I need to change for less panels?

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There's nothing that I see in the manuals. They say to stay within the PV operating range of the controller, which they specify to be 195 to 550 VDC. They also say that full MPPT operating power is not acheived until you hit 230v.

The minimums are hardware based and not adjustable. The unit I believe is basically the Xantrex GT 5.0 hardware for the front end, and AC section replaced with a secondary buck converter, or thats what was being discussed in my last time with Xantrex.

You might be surprised how badly a panel can be damaged and still produce pretty good power. I had 1 on a roof completely and totally shattered into 10,000 pieces but from looking at its output on the solaredge platform you would not have known it.

Quattrohead said:

You might be surprised how badly a panel can be damaged and still produce pretty good power. I had 1 on a roof completely and totally shattered into 10,000 pieces but from looking at its output on the solaredge platform you would not have known it.

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Same here.

sollap said:

There's nothing that I see in the manuals. They say to stay within the PV operating range of the controller, which they specify to be 195 to 550 VDC. They also say that full MPPT operating power is not acheived until you hit 230v.

View attachment 145943

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This sounds like the most likely problem. I'm about 10 volts shy of the Min 230. I'll get that spare panel connected today if I have to hoof it in to get it there.

sollap said:

There's nothing that I see in the manuals. They say to stay within the PV operating range of the controller, which they specify to be 195 to 550 VDC. They also say that full MPPT operating power is not acheived until you hit 230v.

View attachment 145943

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You were correct! I installed my spare panel, hit about 260 volts, and next thing we were charging, harvesting 1600 watts, and
hi five'n. Within a couple hours, we were up to about 51 volts.Thank you sollap for solving our problem. Although we have a LONG way to go, this brought a lot of piece of mind.

That's great! I'm glad it worked out and you're getting some power. Good luck with everything else!

Mr2Ducks said:

Hi Guys. 9:03 PM Wednesday night my farm was hit with a F3. I was able to salvage 5 of my 24 315w panels.

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Just 5? Just because the face glass is busted doesnt mean it wont produce power. I'd put them all in the sun and put a meter on them.

It's been over three months since I last posted. The insurance company is finally producing some money for solar. That's a long story in itself.
I need to replace the old panels with new.

I'm wanting to get back to 24 panels. Specs on previous panels are...
SW 340 XL V oc 47.6 V mpp 38.0 8 units
SW 315 XL V oc 45.6 V mpp 36.5 16 units

I'm looking at some 400 watt panels. The V oc and V mpp is slightly less to my surprise.

This will be 9.6KW. Previous was 7.76KW.

Do I need to concern myself with only the V oc and not worry about the 2k increase in wattage?
Two runs of 12 panels to Schneider MPPT600 controllers.

How many watts will the Schneider take?

you can overpannel (watts) , just not over volt.

Back again. SO

schmism said:

you can overpannel (watts) , just not over volt.

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Are we talking Open Circuit or Rated Voltage or both?

When would Open Circuit Voltage take place or come into play?