diy solar

diy solar

PWM SCC load light on, but no loads...correct or wrong?

Intheswamp

Latitude N 31° 43' 59" Alabama
Joined
Dec 17, 2021
Messages
128
I bought a small Huine 12v/24v 20amp PWM waterproof controller from Amazon to use in an 12v electric fence setup around my vegetable garden (heavy deer population). This is a small, epoxy potted controller with three LEDs for pv-panel charging, battery status, and load status. I'll be using it to keep my Wallyworld group 27DCM battery topped off. Really, I probably could/should just keep lugging the battery to the house every couple of months and charging it, but where's the fun in that, eh? Anyhow, the panel is a small 12-13" square panel that looks like a surplus off of a road construction sign or something similar, I bought it probably 15 years ago for a different project. I hooked the panel up a while back to a digital chinese-built controller and my jeep and the controller said the panel was putting out ~1 amp...the fence charger only uses about 1 amp hour each day so I'm hoping this will work ok.

I connected the Huine controller up to the small panel and the electric fence charger's battery today but it was late in the afternoon and was been mostly cloudy, etc., so didn't I get to see how well the setup will or won't work. Tonight, in the dark, the battery indicator LED is glowing bright Green which supposedly means the battery is charged up. The load indicator (red) LED has a small glow to it that is not as intense as the green/battery LED. The instructions simply state "Red on: Output normal". And finally, I'll add that this afternoon the controller did show a bit of light in the charging LED and it was correctly not glowing tonight.

My question, for now, is... Should the red load LED be glowing any without a load attached to the load circuit? Or, is it simply an indicator saying "Hey! I've got some electrons here if you want to use'em!"? The instructions just do not give enough information for me. In my feeble mind it seems that if there is no load then the red LED would not glow and when a load is present it will glow...that the LED glowing would be an indicator of a load being present. But I'm no expert and it's been years since I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.

Thanks for any feedback!
Ed
 
1) Do you have the link to the user manual so we can read it?
2) Can the Load output be turned on or off manually?
3) If the Load output can be turned on or off manually, does the Red On LED go bright when the Load output is turned ON and Dim when the Load output is turned off?
4) The Red On LED should not care if you have Loads connected or not, it is just and indicator light that tells you if the Voltage is present or not on the Load terminals.
 
Thanks for the replies. The red light was not lit when I first connected everything...battery and then pv panel. It came on short time after connections were made. It sounds as if the LED and controller are operating as they should be. I was just confused and for some reason thought it would only turn on in the presence of a load. I can see where it could go either way, I just wish the instructions were a bit more clear...better than some translated instructions I've see, though!?? Here's some more information...

My concern was that there might be an internal short causing the load indicator to glow red. The cold front is pushing through here and it looks like rain most of the day and I'll be out of town tomorrow so maybe Tuesday I'll get a chance to check it with my lowly HF multi-meters. :)

Here's a scan of the 6"x 8" instruction sheet"
Huine_20a_SCC
I took a shot of the LEDs late yesterday. The red LED is the load-indicator, the bright green LED is the battery, and the dimmer green one is the charging indicator.
IMG_2889_Huine_SCC_20amp_waterproof2 (Custom)
And here is a link to the Huine product page on their website:
 
Back
Top