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No Amps on charge controller

Matt3

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Jul 18, 2022
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I have a Renogy Rover Elite 20Amp charge controller with (2) 100W HQST Mono panels that are wired in series. My battery is a ecoworthy 12v 100AH and I have a vevor 2000W pure sine wave inverter and a blue sea fuse block. I Everything is new and just been installed. I'm getting a voltage reading on my charge controller, but I'm not getting any amps. I have a 200amp circuit breaker where my positive leads connect and in between that 200amp breaker and my wire going to charge controller is a 30 amp breaker. My negative leads all go to a 250amp rated busbar. I have a ground rod with a 6gauge bare copper wire connecting to this bus bar. The charge controller wire and negative battery lead connect on the negative battery post. My positive and negative wires are 4gauge. My positive and negative wires going to charge controller are 6gauge.
 

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I have a Renogy Rover Elite 20Amp charge controller with (2) 100W HQST Mono panels that are wired in series. My battery is a ecoworthy 12v 100AH and I have a vevor 2000W pure sine wave inverter and a blue sea fuse block. I Everything is new and just been installed. I'm getting a voltage reading on my charge controller, but I'm not getting any amps. I have a 200amp circuit breaker where my positive leads connect and in between that 200amp breaker and my wire going to charge controller is a 30 amp breaker. My negative leads all go to a 250amp rated busbar. I have a ground rod with a 6gauge bare copper wire connecting to this bus bar. The charge controller wire and negative battery lead connect on the negative battery post. My positive and negative wires are 4gauge. My positive and negative wires going to charge controller are 6gauge.
1) Those two audio circuit breakers are junk.
2) "I'm not getting any amps." What Amp reading are you talking about? Battery charging Amp? Inverter current draw Amp?
3) Using DC Voltmeter to measure the DC Voltage at the DC input terminals of the inverter. What DC Voltage do you get?
4) If you disconnect the PV feeding the Solar Charger Controller first, then turn off the 30A breaker feeding the charge controller, then turn on the inverter. Does the inverter come on and provide AC output OK?
 
Junk circuit breakers:

 
I'm getting 32v coming in from panels on charge controller and no Amps coming in on charge controller. The voltage at battery is 12.9v the voltage at inverter lugs is 12.9v. when I disconnect pv on charge controller and turn off 30amp breaker that feeds the charge controller my inverter shows 115ac output
 
I checked for any huge voltage drops between the cheap circuit breakers and it was very little not enough to affect anything. However my panels are starting to bring in amperage to charge my battery. I think my main issue was it was cloudy and rainy yesterday. I would like to be given a recommendation of where to get some good circuit breakers so I can swap out the ones that I have now.
 
Sun is fully out and panels are back to no Amps coming in on charge controller but 37v coming in. I'm really confuse and obviously a newbie. Please help!
 
Have you put any load on the system? If your battery is full (you said everything is new) you can not get any curent flow until you have current demand.
 
I ran a load of 1000w for about 1 minute. Then about 500w for minute another day. I figured that since those are 5 amp panels it would always show that and then controller just regulates. Now I see maybe since battery is full it won't let any amps into the battery so it won't overcharge it. Remember I'm a newbie.
 
Have you put any load on the system? If your battery is full (you said everything is new) you can not get any curent flow until you have current demand.
I ran a load on my solar setup and discharged the battery to 11.9 v. However, my solar reading on my charge controller still shows no Amps to charge the battery. I disconnected all my panels and reconnected them and made sure they were tight connections. Earlier posts in this thread show my wiring. The charge controller is set to lithium battery and on a 12v system. When I measure the amps on my solar panels individually I'm getting a negative reading of 1.54 this is on a cloudy day. I included pics of my series connection and the cheap multimeter I'm using.
 

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I ran a load on my solar setup and discharged the battery to 11.9 v. However, my solar reading on my charge controller still shows no Amps to charge the battery. I disconnected all my panels and reconnected them and made sure they were tight connections. Earlier posts in this thread show my wiring. The charge controller is set to lithium battery and on a 12v system. When I measure the amps on my solar panels individually I'm getting a negative reading of 1.54 this is on a cloudy day. I included pics of my series connection and the cheap multimeter I'm using.
 

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It is possible you have a bad charge controller. I had one myself that all the things checked out but it simply would not output current for battery charging. I tested with different batteries to check as well as all the voltage tests showed that nothing but soalr panel voltage on one side and battery voltage on the other. Mine was a new HQST MPPT 30a unit. When I informed HQST of the problem they promptly sent me a new one even though I was passed the return date from Ebay.
 
It is possible you have a bad charge controller. I had one myself that all the things checked out but it simply would not output current for battery charging. I tested with different batteries to check as well as all the voltage tests showed that nothing but soalr panel voltage on one side and battery voltage on the other. Mine was a new HQST MPPT 30a unit. When I informed HQST of the problem they promptly sent me a new one even though I was passed the return date from Ebay.
I wrote Renogy and I'm awaiting their response. The weird thing is I get an error code on my charge controller that says battery is overcharged while I'm running a load through the inverter and it will shut off the inverter. But the voltage on my battery is drained down to 11.9v and no amps are going through the charge controller to charge the battery. This is a mystery to me.
 
The fact that you are getting over 30 volts, and a few amps on a cloudy day suggests your panels are working and the controller is faulty or there are issues with the connecting path to the battery.
Can you confirm that the battery will accept charge form a AC powered charger. It could be the battery BMS is preventing charge.
As a last resort disconnect everything from the Renogy controller.
Reconnect the the controller to the battery via a 30 amp fuse, leave everything else out of circuit. Connect the panels to the controller. If still no charge current then the the fault is in the controller if the previous inversigation on the battery showed that it worked OK.
Is it possible to substitute a car battery in the system?

Mike
 
The fact that you are getting over 30 volts, and a few amps on a cloudy day suggests your panels are working and the controller is faulty or there are issues with the connecting path to the battery.
Can you confirm that the battery will accept charge form a AC powered charger. It could be the battery BMS is preventing charge.
As a last resort disconnect everything from the Renogy controller.
Reconnect the the controller to the battery via a 30 amp fuse, leave everything else out of circuit. Connect the panels to the controller. If still no charge current then the the fault is in the controller if the previous inversigation on the battery showed that it worked OK.
Is it possible to substitute a car battery in the system?

Mike
When I get home from work I will try that out and let you know
 
I ran a load on my solar setup and discharged the battery to 11.9 v. However, my solar reading on my charge controller still shows no Amps to charge the battery. I disconnected all my panels and reconnected them and made sure they were tight connections. Earlier posts in this thread show my wiring. The charge controller is set to lithium battery and on a 12v system. When I measure the amps on my solar panels individually I'm getting a negative reading of 1.54 this is on a cloudy day. I included pics of my series connection and the cheap multimeter I'm using.
maybe your confusing amps to the load output with amps to the battery charging....
 
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