Batteries Draining too Fast during the day

[JANDL]

Hi there. I need some help figuring out what I need to upgrade on my system. At the moment I have 1x 480 Watt Canadian solar panel (46V output) hooked up to a 60A 24V charge controller and 2x 105ah 24V Lead Acid batteries. From the batteries I have a 2000 Watt Inverter powering 4 lights outside and my Computer which uses just over 1000 Watts of power. I've noticed during the day my battery voltage keeps dropping slowly if I only have the solar panel charging my battery.

If I hook up my inverter to the grid the voltage stays at about 25 so it's either my solar panel or charge controller that's not charging my battery fast enough? But I'm not sure.. And I don't want to buy another panel if it's something else. Is there some way to determine what is the issue?

Thanks

 

[timselectric]

Your solar input is at best, 480w.
And your load is 1000w.
You need 2 more solar panels, if you want to stay ahead of the load.

 

[JANDL]

Your solar input is at best, 480w.
And your load is 1000w.
You need 2 more solar panels, if you want to stay ahead of the load.

Ah thank you. That seems very obvious now that I think about it. Does it matter if my solar panel is 48V and my Inverter & charge controller is 24V or must they match? And should my charge controller automatically handle the charging if I add more panels? Looking at the voltage on my charge controller it just limits the output to 26Volts.

 

[timselectric]

Ah thank you. That seems very obvious now that I think about it. Does it matter if my solar panel is 48V and my Inverter & charge controller is 24V or must they match? And should my charge controller automatically handle the charging if I add more panels? Looking at the voltage on my charge controller it just limits the output to 26Volts.

You have to know what the specs are on the charge controller and the panels. And, work with those parameters.

 

[soylentgreen]

I'm skeptical that "4 lights and a computer" is using 1000W. Are you sure? If true, you should consider more efficient lights and computer. Reducing electricity use is almost always the best first step, before expanding the size of your system.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Well, it depends, he could be running 4 100W LED high bay lights, and a crypto miner PC

 

[mikefitz]

What model of charge controller do you have?

 

[JRH]

Hi there. I need some help figuring out what I need to upgrade on my system. At the moment I have 1x 480 Watt Canadian solar panel (46V output) hooked up to a 60A 24V charge controller and 2x 105ah 24V Lead Acid batteries. From the batteries I have a 2000 Watt Inverter powering 4 lights outside and my Computer which uses just over 1000 Watts of power. I've noticed during the day my battery voltage keeps dropping slowly if I only have the solar panel charging my battery.

If I hook up my inverter to the grid the voltage stays at about 25 so it's either my solar panel or charge controller that's not charging my battery fast enough? But I'm not sure.. And I don't want to buy another panel if it's something else. Is there some way to determine what is the issue?

Thanks

Wow , those must be some beast lights.. 1000 watts .. what are you illuminating .. that’s a lot of juice in the LED age…I am assuming they are halogen or somthing,..
J.