Newbie question on power meter

[Still]

Hi all,

Brand new to the solar game. Here’s my setup:

1x50 watt solar panel into a small 10amp PWM controller fed to my vehicle 12v battery.

1x90 watt solar panel into a 10amp mppt controller fed to the same vehicle 12v battery.

I was attempting to hook up this power meter I got on Amazon just to monitor the power being produced by the panel.

90 watt solar into the source on the meter and load into the MPPT controller.

The power meter does not turn on nor does it pass thru the power from solar thru the meter to the controller.

Am I doing something wrong or do I have a defective meter?

By the way, with the 90 watt panel directly into the mppt is generating power as I have a Bluetooth app that connects to the MPPT. It was generating over 12v which is what that meter needs to run.

Am I flawed in thinking a solar panel should power that power meter on the source side?

 

[Mattb4]

Will the meter turn on when wired to a battery as source?

 

[BentleyJ]

Based on the direction of the arrows shown on the diagram on Amazon the meter appears to be powered from the load side?? or it needs an aux power source.

Since the input of the charge controller does not supply voltage I would try connecting the battery directly to the LOAD side and see if the meter powers up.

 

[Madco]

A couple of thoughts:

1. I don't see what the function of the three pins beside the load wiring is. They look like jumper stabs but I couldn't find a manual via the amazon link. Perhaps two of thise need to be jumpered to select a particular function of the meter.

2. Is the wiring polarity reversed by chance?

3. It looks like it is designed to be powered by a battery and to measure current flow from the battery port to the load port. The PWM switching action of the MPPT controller might upset it as the source voltage moves as the MPPT is hunting for the maximum power point. As it seems to support a wide voltage range of 4.8 to 60V, I would think it wouldn't be sensitive, but ...

You might try it powered from a battery and driving some 12V load to see if it works.

 

[Still]

Will the meter turn on when wired to a battery as source?

Yep.

Although that one point I had it hooked up to a 30 watt panel as source and a 12v car battery on load and the wires got really hot on the load side. Is that expected?

 

[Still]

A couple of thoughts:

1. I don't see what the function of the three pins beside the load wiring is. They look like jumper stabs but I couldn't find a manual via the amazon link. Perhaps two of thise need to be jumpered to select a particular function of the meter.

2. Is the wiring polarity reversed by chance?

3. It looks like it is designed to be powered by a battery and to measure current flow from the battery port to the load port. The PWM switching action of the MPPT controller might upset it as the source voltage moves as the MPPT is hunting for the maximum power point. As it seems to support a wide voltage range of 4.8 to 60V, I would think it wouldn't be sensitive, but ...

You might try it powered from a battery and driving some 12V load to see if it works.

Thanks for the reply. The jumper is apparently for a voltage source when the source is under 5v.

I’ve seen others hook these up directly to solar and they power up…even without a load connected. Maybe mine is faulty.

 

[Still]

Alright people. I have the most incredible update ever.

It matters which way you wire things up. Haha. I had the load side polarity reversed.

Doh.

 

[Still]

It amazes me that I didn’t get the meter. It still works.