I am new to solar and and having trouble making sense of my Specialty Concepts Mark 15 controller. It’s on an RV I recently purchased with a 200W panel and a pair of 6 month old 12V deep cycle lead acid batteries. I have several questions so I will list them separately below. I am also attaching a pic of the controller to help make my questions a little more clear. I appreciate help anybody has to offer!
1 the controller only has power to it during the day. At night it is blank. I found a PDF online that suggested this is caused by a bad ground at the battery. I checked all connections and they are correct per the wiring diagram and appear good.
2 with the display selector switch in the top position (Battery voltage bar graph on) the voltage displayed is less that what is shown with the switch in the bottom position. (Battery voltage bar graph off) I cant believe the bar graph would draw enough current to affect the voltage displayed.
3 the Battery voltage displayed is more correlated to sunlight than the battery condition. It was reading above 13V with sun on the panel but dropped as the sun went down until the display turned off as the sun set.
4 with the switch in the array current position I get .01 or .00 But the charging light stays on. I have yet to see the charged light come on. I even tried to run the batteries down and checked it in full sunlight.
5 in the wiring diagram on the PDF there is a “bar graph selector” with 4 pins. It says to place a jumper across both pins, or only across one pin for a storage position. There is a similar label on the back of the controller but there are no pins???
I have checked the fuses as well. With the array fuse pulled the panel goes dead. The battery fuse has no affect. Both fuses at the panel and the fuse on the lead coming off of the battery are good.
Thank you for any advice you may have!
1 the controller only has power to it during the day. At night it is blank. I found a PDF online that suggested this is caused by a bad ground at the battery. I checked all connections and they are correct per the wiring diagram and appear good.
2 with the display selector switch in the top position (Battery voltage bar graph on) the voltage displayed is less that what is shown with the switch in the bottom position. (Battery voltage bar graph off) I cant believe the bar graph would draw enough current to affect the voltage displayed.
3 the Battery voltage displayed is more correlated to sunlight than the battery condition. It was reading above 13V with sun on the panel but dropped as the sun went down until the display turned off as the sun set.
4 with the switch in the array current position I get .01 or .00 But the charging light stays on. I have yet to see the charged light come on. I even tried to run the batteries down and checked it in full sunlight.
5 in the wiring diagram on the PDF there is a “bar graph selector” with 4 pins. It says to place a jumper across both pins, or only across one pin for a storage position. There is a similar label on the back of the controller but there are no pins???
I have checked the fuses as well. With the array fuse pulled the panel goes dead. The battery fuse has no affect. Both fuses at the panel and the fuse on the lead coming off of the battery are good.
Thank you for any advice you may have!
