What am I being told here?

[heirloom hamlet]

The LV2424 shows these readings on it's display. I'm not certain exactly what it is telling me.

You'll notice the watt and volt readings make clear that the stats are from the "PV" "Input". Makes sense, the PV is generating that many watts at that voltage, or at least that is the portion the SCC is accepting.
But the current shows the amps are "PV" and "Batt", not "Input".

The reason I'm curious is when the sunshine is rockin', I've seen these read over 60a, which makes me think that the reading is showing me the charge current from the SCC to the batteries (I have it set to not exceed 60a).

However, this is much higher than what is even possible from my array layout (2S4P = 75.2voc / 33.08a max).

At this moment the array only shows a volt-meter-read current of 13a, whereas the display says 31a, so the SCC would be charging the cells at over 30a while receiving only 13a. Incidentally, the present volt meter reading is 8.2a when on the pos/neg battery terminals.

How is this possible? What gives?

 

[snoobler]

1: Batt 7A implies that the battery is being charged with 7A
2: Input 189W implies that the power coming IN from the panels is 189W
3: Input 54V implies that the PANELS are at 54V

Sanity check: 24V*7A = 168W vs. the 189W incoming seems reasonable. If your battery voltage was closer to 27V at the time, 27V*7A = 189W.

You're charging a 24V battery, so the incoming current from your panels at high voltage is going to be increased when converted to lower voltage. The POWER (volts * amps) incoming from the panels is equal to the POWER (volts * amps) going into the battery.

Most charge controllers report both PV voltage and current and battery voltage and current. You just have to understand which you're looking at.

You don't measure current with a voltmeter. You measure it with an ammeter. You don't apply it to both positive and negative posts of a battery. You break the circuit and put it in-line like a shunt. Is it possible you meant CLAMPmeter? where you clamp AROUND a wire to measure it?

If this was a cheap PWM controller, you would see incoming and outgoing current the same, but you would also have to have ONLY 24V panels ONLY in parallel with nothing in series. The MPPT controller optimizes the process allowing greater input voltage and lower input current to provide higher output current to a lower battery voltage.

As a simple mathematical expression:

V_panel * A_panel = V_batt * A_batt

 

[mopat]

Photos seem to say:
1- 7 amps of charging current to battery and providing 120vac to some load (<25%); display says BATT not Input
2- PV providing 189 watts of power
3- PV providing 54 VDC

Is system hooked up to grid or off grid? Display shows no grid connection.

can you hook unit up to a laptop and their software; may help understand readings

 

[tictag]

Just adding to @snoobler's excellent post, it's best to think of this in terms of Watts in = Watts out (ignoring losses), but how those Watts are made can, and indeed invariably do, differ. For example, with a PV array sitting at 100V delivering 10A, you have input Watts = 1,000W. Output Watts might then be 14.6V delivering 32A into your battery (500W) plus 120V delivering 4A into your AC loads (500W).

1,000W in, 1,000W out.

You then just have to remember that Watts = Volts x Current (P = V x I).