Cooling Charge Controller

[retrodog]

I've got a Victron SmartSolar 150/35 charge controller, charging a 24V battery system. I've been running a single string of four 100W panels in series and it's doing pretty well with that. But I'd like to add a second string in parallel. Tried it yesterday and it was getting 805-825W. Ran for a while and then I checked the temperature of the CC. It was hot. So I split up the two strings between two different controllers again.

The system is in a shed that gets pretty warm in the summer (Houston heat). The unit is mounted on a piece of plywood with everything else. Is there any good (easy) way to cool it? I've got a small fan blowing on it now, but that sits on a shelf next to the setup. Thinking about a muffin fan mounted on the back of the plywood and blowing through the fins on the back of the unit. But I'll have to remove everything from the wall, cut the whole, and mount the fan on back, then re-mount everything. Any other good ideas?

 

[HRTKD]

How hot? An actual measurement of temperature would help to define the scope of how hot the device is getting.

The solar charge controller is mounted vertically, right? Based on your description it is, but the question needs to be asked.

I run 640 watts through my Victron 100/50 and I've never noticed that the controller is hot.

 

[retrodog]

How hot? An actual measurement of temperature would help to define the scope of how hot the device is getting.

The solar charge controller is mounted vertically, right? Based on your description it is, but the question needs to be asked.

I run 640 watts through my Victron 100/50 and I've never noticed that the controller is hot.

Yes, mounted vertically with the fins vertical. Hot to the touch, but didn't think to zap it with the IR gun to get a reading. Thanks for mentioning that though. I'll leave one of them out there in the shed to take readings regularly.

It was fairly hot to the touch, and that was the front face. I've worked with electronics for almost 40 years and it was hotter than I want my electronics running. I thought about it some more and can probably find a big muffin fan that I can sandwich between the controller and mounting board. Then all I'd have to do is remove the controller and cut out a nice hole in the mounting board for the fan to pull air through. The mounting board is attached to the 2x4 studs on the inside wall of the shed. So there would be about 3.75" of clearance behind the fan.

 

[pollenface]

I use a couple of computer fans mounted behind the controllers which run directly from a 10w solar panel.

 

[RobertGreen]

From section 4.1 of the manual --- 'Mounting':
"Mount the solar charger vertically on a non-flammable substrate"
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I understand that this is probably just a best practice for safety rather than an implication that the unit will get hot enough during regular operation to cause combustion, but I just thought I would mention it anyway.

 

[pollenface]

"Mount the solar charger vertically on a non-flammable substrate"

plywood is everyone's favorite non-flammable substrate

 

[retrodog]

Yeah, it's on plywood now. I got a sheet of aluminum that I can mount the stuff on as a shield, but that's going to take a notable amount of rework.

 

[Warpspeed]

Try mounting it on a very large thick sheet of aluminium spaced out from the wall.