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diy solar

MPPT Issues on Epever 5420AN Tracer Charge Controller

Zaziki

New Member
Joined
Nov 23, 2020
Messages
2
Hey there!

i have 15 panels of 230W as input for my epever tracer 5420an.
So 5 panels in series, 3 of them parallel - So 15x 230Wp ~ 3,45kwp

I hooked them up with the epever 5420an since it is capable of 200 Voc. (I'm at about 170V right now at 6°C/43°F)

My Problem is that the performance of the tracer is really bad whenever the sun radiation is high. It seems that it is stepping up and down for whatever reason.
I have also a 9,75 kwp grid solar system (same panels, just more) which also logs into my database. therefore i can pretty good analyze between them in relation to the solar radiation.

Lets have a look here:
Green is my AC Grid Solar System
Blue is the Epever Tracer 5420AN

1606131719702.png


While the sun was pretty stable and no clouds, the epever is cycling up and down all the time. It is between 225W and 596W - so more than half every 10 seconds.
Has anyone seen this before?
 
Does it still have warranty on it or return policy? Have you tried calling their Support? Why not just return that one and get a Victron or something?
 
it seem to be the only way - i was hoping for another solution, since a suitable victron will cost about 700€.
I need 48V (configurable) and a Voc of ~200V - Before this Epever i was using a MakeSkyBlue which was ok, but not as good as this one.

Maybe i'm switching to a Mpp Solar Inverter.

Just to make this complete - here the data directly from the tracer unit.

1606208133801.png
 
Last edited:
Hi Zaziki, I'm late to the post but I'm curious, Can you monitor the Tracers temperature?
In the manual they say that if the controller gets to a certain temperature they throttle the input until it cools down, since you have regular up and down spikes I wonder if that's the problem, The manual also said they recommend adding a fan, to me that says a thing or two about the company.
 
too much input watts possibly ? voltage range might be ok,, but too many in parallel might also pose an issue.
 
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