I have two arrays of 1200 watts. One is 100 watt panels and the other 200 watt panels. Now that I'm monitoring and logging every detail of the system, I'm seeing a problem. The sun came out this afternoon. Both controllers started pushing about 8 amps to the batteries. I then watched the #2 controller slowly decrease until it was down to 0.1 amps. I went to the barn and disconnected array 1 from its panels. The amps crept back up on #2 until it was about 14 amps. I reconnected the panels for controller #1 and the same process happened again where #2 decrease to almost zero.
I have a third controller of a different make (panels aren't in place yet) so I switched the wiring for array 2 to controller #3. It then shot up to 14 amps and controller one was still doing about 8 amps on its own. The sun got even stronger and it went over 20 amps. Now the sun was varying the entire time so the numbers are fuzzy but I think you get the point. I've seen this behavior in the past but was busy with other things so didn't investigate. I've had the first two controllers in service for a bit over 2 years.
I'm thinking that something is wrong with controller #2. I know EPEver offers an external controller for putting charge controllers in parallel but I don't think it is necessary. Has anyone seen this behavior or have any suggestions? Btw, the battery bank is somewhere in the middle when it comes to charge 26.9 volts (LiFePO4).
John
I have a third controller of a different make (panels aren't in place yet) so I switched the wiring for array 2 to controller #3. It then shot up to 14 amps and controller one was still doing about 8 amps on its own. The sun got even stronger and it went over 20 amps. Now the sun was varying the entire time so the numbers are fuzzy but I think you get the point. I've seen this behavior in the past but was busy with other things so didn't investigate. I've had the first two controllers in service for a bit over 2 years.
I'm thinking that something is wrong with controller #2. I know EPEver offers an external controller for putting charge controllers in parallel but I don't think it is necessary. Has anyone seen this behavior or have any suggestions? Btw, the battery bank is somewhere in the middle when it comes to charge 26.9 volts (LiFePO4).
John