I'm new to solar and I have some questions. I have 3, 100 watt solar panels, 6, 35 Amp AGM batteries, 1 Sunforce 1,000 watt pure sine inverter, all fused, and running #2 wire between batteries and between batteries and inverter.
While testing my setup I ran a big screen TV drawing 1.5 amps for 6 hours. My starting resting voltage was 12.7 volts. As the TV operated the voltage dropped slowly for 4 hours, then began a rapid drop to 12.0 volts which as I understand it is 50% and my cutoff point. I drew 9 amps over 6 hours from a 210 amp battery bank and my batteries were down to 50% voltage? I know the inverter draws some power to operate ( I have no idea how much) but does this kind of voltage drop sound right? Do I have a problem?
What's really weird to me is as soon as I turned off the TV, within minutes the voltage meters (3 of them) showed the batteries jumping up to 12.4 volts. The next morning they showed 12.6 volts. How is this possible with no charging going on?
The bigger question for me is which voltage reading do I use to determine when I'm actually at 50% of my battery bank? When the system is showing 12.0 volts under load is that when I should power down? Or should I go down to 11.6 volts under load when the batteries would show 12.0 volts minutes after disconnecting the load?
Is it possible I really only used 1/10 of a volt to run the TV for those 6 hours and the battery bank is actually 12.6 volts afterwards?
While testing my setup I ran a big screen TV drawing 1.5 amps for 6 hours. My starting resting voltage was 12.7 volts. As the TV operated the voltage dropped slowly for 4 hours, then began a rapid drop to 12.0 volts which as I understand it is 50% and my cutoff point. I drew 9 amps over 6 hours from a 210 amp battery bank and my batteries were down to 50% voltage? I know the inverter draws some power to operate ( I have no idea how much) but does this kind of voltage drop sound right? Do I have a problem?
What's really weird to me is as soon as I turned off the TV, within minutes the voltage meters (3 of them) showed the batteries jumping up to 12.4 volts. The next morning they showed 12.6 volts. How is this possible with no charging going on?
The bigger question for me is which voltage reading do I use to determine when I'm actually at 50% of my battery bank? When the system is showing 12.0 volts under load is that when I should power down? Or should I go down to 11.6 volts under load when the batteries would show 12.0 volts minutes after disconnecting the load?
Is it possible I really only used 1/10 of a volt to run the TV for those 6 hours and the battery bank is actually 12.6 volts afterwards?
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