Hi,
I have a new diy solar system in my caravan. This consists of a 130w solar panel, 12V 160ah gel battery, mppt solar controller, and a 1200w-2400w inverter. Everything is working well - however I am concerned the battery is not charging properly - because:
1. When I received the new battery straight out of the box the solar charger said it was 99% full (13.4V) - which seems weird. It had probably been in a box for 3- 6 months, so surely should have been down to 80% or so.
2. The battery seems to drain down to 60-70% fairly quickly.
3. This is the werid part. It seems to fully charge in about half an hour of full sun. From everything I have read this battery should take hours to charge with a 130w solar panel.
So I am concerned that its not charging properly, or that the solar controller is not working properly.
In the caravan I am only running a small 240v fridge (which runs at about 73 watts or 550w on startup) and some lights and some phone laptop chargers. Nothing else. Runs fine during the day, seems to stay at 99% all day, even when cloudy. At night the fridge and inverter drains the battery down to about 70%.
It seems like 70% is actually quite weak (12.8V). I would expect this system to easily handle the fridge, and it does seem to handle it. But I just don't understand why its charging so quickly. I would have expected the fridge to drain the battery more over night and take a lot longer to charge.
So maybe the battery is actually still quite full and the solar controller is showing a lower reading or maybe the solar charger is not functioning properly.
Any thoughts?
Thanks
I have a new diy solar system in my caravan. This consists of a 130w solar panel, 12V 160ah gel battery, mppt solar controller, and a 1200w-2400w inverter. Everything is working well - however I am concerned the battery is not charging properly - because:
1. When I received the new battery straight out of the box the solar charger said it was 99% full (13.4V) - which seems weird. It had probably been in a box for 3- 6 months, so surely should have been down to 80% or so.
2. The battery seems to drain down to 60-70% fairly quickly.
3. This is the werid part. It seems to fully charge in about half an hour of full sun. From everything I have read this battery should take hours to charge with a 130w solar panel.
So I am concerned that its not charging properly, or that the solar controller is not working properly.
In the caravan I am only running a small 240v fridge (which runs at about 73 watts or 550w on startup) and some lights and some phone laptop chargers. Nothing else. Runs fine during the day, seems to stay at 99% all day, even when cloudy. At night the fridge and inverter drains the battery down to about 70%.
It seems like 70% is actually quite weak (12.8V). I would expect this system to easily handle the fridge, and it does seem to handle it. But I just don't understand why its charging so quickly. I would have expected the fridge to drain the battery more over night and take a lot longer to charge.
So maybe the battery is actually still quite full and the solar controller is showing a lower reading or maybe the solar charger is not functioning properly.
Any thoughts?
Thanks