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  • Gone in 60 seconds.

    I bought a pwm solar charge regulator from Amazon and hooked it the battery on my travel trailer and a 5 watt panel. It was my intention just to maintain the battery charge. It lit up but did not show voltage, a setup screen or any information on the screen. It was just a blank lit screen. I thought that this was weird so I checked the battery voltage with my meter. Battery was dead. I had the trailer plugged in but forgot that I had the converter turned off. So I flip the switch on the converter to charge the battery back up. Went back outside and the charge controller was smoking like smoke stack. I double checked the wiring and everything was correct. Did the voltage from the converter smoke this controller? The controller was for 12 or 24 volt systems and I only have one 12 volt battery.

    what did I just learn the hard way?

    thanks

  • #2
    you just learned even amazon can sell bad gear
    Powerfab top of pole PV mount (2) | Listeroid 6/1 w/st5 gen head | XW6048 inverter/chgr | Iota 48V/15A charger | Morningstar 60A MPPT | 48V, 800A NiFe Battery (in series)| 15, Evergreen 205w "12V" PV array on pole | Midnight ePanel | Grundfos 10 SO5-9 with 3 wire Franklin Electric motor (1/2hp 240V 1ph ) on a timer for 3 hr noontime run - Runs off PV ||
    || Midnight Classic 200 | 10, Evergreen 200w in a 160VOC array ||
    || VEC1093 12V Charger | Maha C401 aa/aaa Charger | SureSine | Sunsaver MPPT 15A

    solar: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Solar
    gen: http://tinyurl.com/LMR-Lister

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    • #3
      With some Charge Controllers, you must connect to the battery first, then you connect the Solar Panel.
      At this point, I can already hear you saying, "But I did connect the Charge Controller to the battery first".
      Did you?
      You said, the battery was dead.
      So, maybe a "dead battery" is the equivalent to "Not connected to any battery".
      The Charge Controller did not energize, right?
      At that point I would have disconnect the Charge Controller from the battery.

      So, what was the Voltage of this dead battery?
      How can the battery's voltage be so low, as to not energize the Charge Controller?
      Less than 12 Volts is less than 50% SOC - ouch !!!

      Comment


      • #4
        I'm leaning towards a defective controller and have sent a message to the Amazon seller. That thing smoked like it was a dead short. I thought a genie was going to appear. I can't imagine that a 5-watt solar panel would do that. This is the first time I have let that battery get down that far so I think it will be salvageable. We are boondocking next weekend so I will be able to tell a bit better. Hopefully, the weather will be cool so as not to have to run any fans. All else fails, I can fire up the Firman.

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