7TH SUN
New Member
I'm recently seeing erratic and often quite low charging amps on my Midnite Solar Classic 150, in bright sunny weather.
Example: battery at 82% capacity, clear skies, no obstructions, charging briefly at ~86 A, when it suddenly drops to ~15A and stays between about 15A and 25A. I shut off all the breakers and wait 30 seconds, turn back on, power climbs again to 60A or more, then soon drops again.
I'm also seeing the Battery voltage on the Classic bouncing around from 12.4V to 12.7V as the charging amps change - don't recall seeing that in the past.
NOTE: I am slightly over-paneled (11panels x 150 Watts x 80% of nominal output is 1,320W ... at 12.7V, that's ~104A ... the Classic manual lists a max. of 96A at 12V. So theoretically I'm 8% over ... but I've never seen 90Amps, and the warning light has never come on.
A bit more background: the system started out as 4 x 150W panels running at 12V when we were only here part time, then my old charge controller died AND we decided to live here full time, so I bought the Classic 150 and 4 more panels, etc... The next winter it was obvious we needed more power, so I added 3 more panels (which took up the remaining room on the roof!) - this is the first summer running all 11 panels, and this issue has come up (coincidence ???).
Example: battery at 82% capacity, clear skies, no obstructions, charging briefly at ~86 A, when it suddenly drops to ~15A and stays between about 15A and 25A. I shut off all the breakers and wait 30 seconds, turn back on, power climbs again to 60A or more, then soon drops again.
I'm also seeing the Battery voltage on the Classic bouncing around from 12.4V to 12.7V as the charging amps change - don't recall seeing that in the past.
NOTE: I am slightly over-paneled (11panels x 150 Watts x 80% of nominal output is 1,320W ... at 12.7V, that's ~104A ... the Classic manual lists a max. of 96A at 12V. So theoretically I'm 8% over ... but I've never seen 90Amps, and the warning light has never come on.
A bit more background: the system started out as 4 x 150W panels running at 12V when we were only here part time, then my old charge controller died AND we decided to live here full time, so I bought the Classic 150 and 4 more panels, etc... The next winter it was obvious we needed more power, so I added 3 more panels (which took up the remaining room on the roof!) - this is the first summer running all 11 panels, and this issue has come up (coincidence ???).
