daveoflave
New Member
Hey all,
This is probably really a battery question (maybe not for this forum) but I'm asking here anyway because it's tangentially related and this community has been aweseom and helped me before.
Problem: 3 battery bank (parallel) won't charge from solar panels anymore.
What happened: It was all working great, until I just swapped out the 4awg cables from the solar charge controller to the bank. If I disconnect/reconnect everything, the controller shows it's pushing through up to about 17-18 amps for a minute or so, and slowly dies down to zero over 2-3 minutes.
My set up:
It's a small system built to power a full sized refrigerator indefinitely
-8 eco-worthy 200 watt 10.83 Amp panels
-2 groups of 4 panels connected to 4-branch Y-connectors, going to 8 awg pos/neg cables
-2 strings of those 8 awg cables going to the charge controller
-60 amp Renogy Rover charge controller
-4 awg pos/neg from charge controller to first battery in bank
-all cables in bank and to inverter are 2/0 awg
-2x 280amp 12v, and 1x 200amp 12v battery, all eco-worthy LiFePo4 (I know, different capacity batteries in same bank, but same type type/brand/voltage.)
-each battery has a Camway shunt from Amazon (configured them for max 200amps on the 280amp batteries)
-pos/neg 2/0 awg cables from neg contact of first battery and pos contact of last battery in bank over to the inverter
-200 amp fuse between the bank and the inverter on neg cable
-GearZarr 2000 watt inverter
So this has been powering my fridge for over 45 days (not sure exactly, but it's at least that long). It's a bit overkill, but it's dependable. I'm usually cranking about 59-60 amps through when it's sunny, after the fridge ran on battery all night. I wanted to test hooking the charge controller to the pos of one end of the bank and the neg of the other end of the bank (they were both going into the first battery in the bank, same end). As soon as I did that - nothing will really charge anymore. As mentioned above, if I disconnect everything and reconnect, the charge controller shows it's pumping in amps for a couple minutes, but then dies. The shunts each say that 2 of the batteries have zero amps, but 14.2 volts, and the middle battery still shows 136 amps, also 14.2 volts. I took a multimeter to the contacts for each battery, it reads 14.2 volts ok.
I then bought a charger to just try to trickle charge each battery. Tried hooking it up to one, and it gave all the indicators that it was charging (it has these 4 successive flashing lights until they're all solid). Waited until they were all solid for a few hours, hooked up the shunt again, and boom - 0 amps.
I also have a cheapy Renogy 20amp charge controller (not mppt, no digital reader or anything), and hooked it to the bank with a couple of the panels running into it - same deal, the shunt showed no charge, but the charge controller showed that it was receiving juice from the panels by its green indicator light.
To me, since I've tested multiple charge controllers and gotten the same result: it seems like the battery. But these things are crazy expensive, and I don't want to just give up on them without some expert advice. Can I troubleshoot or reset them in some way? I have to imagine that when I swapped my connection cables to the charge controller, something went wrong. But there were no flashes/explosions/any noticeable signs of issues when I did it...
Pardon the dusty look of my gear, it's spring in central Florida and that's the ridiculous amount of pollen that I just can't keep up with....
Any ideas? Are my batteries probably hosed?
This is probably really a battery question (maybe not for this forum) but I'm asking here anyway because it's tangentially related and this community has been aweseom and helped me before.
Problem: 3 battery bank (parallel) won't charge from solar panels anymore.
What happened: It was all working great, until I just swapped out the 4awg cables from the solar charge controller to the bank. If I disconnect/reconnect everything, the controller shows it's pushing through up to about 17-18 amps for a minute or so, and slowly dies down to zero over 2-3 minutes.
My set up:
It's a small system built to power a full sized refrigerator indefinitely
-8 eco-worthy 200 watt 10.83 Amp panels
-2 groups of 4 panels connected to 4-branch Y-connectors, going to 8 awg pos/neg cables
-2 strings of those 8 awg cables going to the charge controller
-60 amp Renogy Rover charge controller
-4 awg pos/neg from charge controller to first battery in bank
-all cables in bank and to inverter are 2/0 awg
-2x 280amp 12v, and 1x 200amp 12v battery, all eco-worthy LiFePo4 (I know, different capacity batteries in same bank, but same type type/brand/voltage.)
-each battery has a Camway shunt from Amazon (configured them for max 200amps on the 280amp batteries)
-pos/neg 2/0 awg cables from neg contact of first battery and pos contact of last battery in bank over to the inverter
-200 amp fuse between the bank and the inverter on neg cable
-GearZarr 2000 watt inverter
So this has been powering my fridge for over 45 days (not sure exactly, but it's at least that long). It's a bit overkill, but it's dependable. I'm usually cranking about 59-60 amps through when it's sunny, after the fridge ran on battery all night. I wanted to test hooking the charge controller to the pos of one end of the bank and the neg of the other end of the bank (they were both going into the first battery in the bank, same end). As soon as I did that - nothing will really charge anymore. As mentioned above, if I disconnect everything and reconnect, the charge controller shows it's pumping in amps for a couple minutes, but then dies. The shunts each say that 2 of the batteries have zero amps, but 14.2 volts, and the middle battery still shows 136 amps, also 14.2 volts. I took a multimeter to the contacts for each battery, it reads 14.2 volts ok.
I then bought a charger to just try to trickle charge each battery. Tried hooking it up to one, and it gave all the indicators that it was charging (it has these 4 successive flashing lights until they're all solid). Waited until they were all solid for a few hours, hooked up the shunt again, and boom - 0 amps.
I also have a cheapy Renogy 20amp charge controller (not mppt, no digital reader or anything), and hooked it to the bank with a couple of the panels running into it - same deal, the shunt showed no charge, but the charge controller showed that it was receiving juice from the panels by its green indicator light.
To me, since I've tested multiple charge controllers and gotten the same result: it seems like the battery. But these things are crazy expensive, and I don't want to just give up on them without some expert advice. Can I troubleshoot or reset them in some way? I have to imagine that when I swapped my connection cables to the charge controller, something went wrong. But there were no flashes/explosions/any noticeable signs of issues when I did it...
Pardon the dusty look of my gear, it's spring in central Florida and that's the ridiculous amount of pollen that I just can't keep up with....
Any ideas? Are my batteries probably hosed?