Another small newb project.

[uscgsapper1]

Heyooo,
So I have 4x100w Windy Nation panels as of now, plan on purchasing more along the way. Not sure even what to do with more, but I'm forward thinking. Eventually when I have the property I want, hopefully I will have stock piled a good amount. But for now I'm limited to how many I can display, prolly no more than 10 (2'x3') panels. I currently am using a 30amp Wanderer PMW with the 4x100w in parrelel into 1x group 24 deep cycle. I have a 500w Pure Sine and a 1k Modified Sine, I DONT use the 1k on this setup because I know it's to BIG, so hold the comments on that part please. Where my problem is when I use the 500w pure sine, only when my battery is full and sun is mid day peak, my volts just crash. I was under the impression if I'm using 250w and I'm producing roughly the same amount from panels, due to the fact I have 4x100w but prolly only getting about 60-70% from them because of the PMW controller. The "power" I'm producing is equal to the amount I'm using, then why the volt crash?!

[littleharbor]

Four possibilities come to mind

1, Your battery is shot.

2, Your inverter cables are not cables but small wires.

3 You have the inverter connected to the load terminals of the charge controller. You should connect only to the battery with appropriate sized cables.

4, You aren't trying to run large loads like microwave or some other heat creating appliance from the 500 watt inverter are you?

[uscgsapper1]

A 250w tv, 4g wires from batt. to inverter, 8g from CC to battery, battery very well could be shot. I put multimeter to it and gives good numbers and I throw a load tester on it and it's still in the green. Don't know how it could be the problem of showing green across the board, but I'm pretty sure I'm good on the rest so it could only be that I guess, in its defend it is a second hand battery..

[Sunking]

Green lights mean nothing. A simple load test will tel you if the battery is any good or not. Disconnect it from any charger. Measure the Open Circuit Voltage on the Battery Term Post. and it should read 12.6 volts if fully charged. Then connect a heavy load like your Inverter with a few hundred watts of load like lights or something. Watch the battery voltage on the Battery Term Post, it should not drop more than 1/2 volt. If it is bad the voltage will sag or crash, and the Inverter will trip off-line from under voltage.

If your battery tested OK, then you have a wiring/connection problem you need to fix. .

[uscgsapper1]

Ok, I'm confused as all hell. It's dark out right now so no charging, put 250w load on the 500w pure sine. Voltage showed fully charged at 12.67, turned it on. Volts drop to 12.07 and held for 10min, then slowly dropped to 12.05v after another 5min that's when I shut it down....

[SunEagle]

Batteries are dead. They either are not getting charged correctly or they are sulfated and can no longer hold a charge.

[uscgsapper1]

Cool thanx, yea battery is prolly shot. Will check back in when I make a new move with battery situation... blah..

[Sunking]

Ok, I'm confused as all hell. It's dark out right now so no charging, put 250w load on the 500w pure sine. Voltage showed fully charged at 12.67, turned it on. Volts drop to 12.07 and held for 10min, then slowly dropped to 12.05v after another 5min that's when I shut it down....

So what is the problem? What you just described is perfectly normal.

[uscgsapper1]

Ok, so finally back. Replaced old shot battery, got 2 new Trojan T-105 6v and wired them in series. Still running 4x100 watt panels with 1000w Xantrex inverter, and I still can't run a 250w tv with full sun on the panels? Any thoughts??? It's pissin me off and I can't figure it out! Thanks.

[SunEagle]

Ok, so finally back. Replaced old shot battery, got 2 new Trojan T-105 6v and wired them in series. Still running 4x100 watt panels with 1000w Xantrex inverter, and I still can't run a 250w tv with full sun on the panels? Any thoughts??? It's pissin me off and I can't figure it out! Thanks.

you may now be having a wattage shortfall. It could be that 400 watts is not enough to run that tv and charge your batteries.

Also that 1000w inverter is pretty big and will drain that 12volt T-105 battery system pretty quickly.

[uscgsapper1]

That's kinda what I was thinking, just not enough juice from the panels. I have a 500w inverter but for some reason it seams to be less efficient that's the 1000w inverter, the 500 drains voltage faster than the 1000. But even if I'm not getting enough juice from the panels, shouldn't it at least run for awhile just off the bank before voltage drops to low and have to shut it down ..? I thought theses golf cart batteries were meant to take a decent load and not drop that fast, the bank was floating and I turned on the system and got about 10minutes before voltage dropped to low and had to shut it down.

[littleharbor]

Have you tried running similar loads on the inverter? Is it just the TV not working?
You said you were running on the smaller sine wave inverter before but you just mentioned the 1000 watt (mod sine wave?) inverter. could the TV not like the mod sine wave? I have never had a problem myself with mod sine wave on LCD TV and DirecTV receiver.

[SunEagle]

d

Have you tried running similar loads on the inverter? Is it just the TV not working?
You said you were running on the smaller sine wave inverter before but you just mentioned the 1000 watt (mod sine wave?) inverter. could the TV not like the mod sine wave? I have never had a problem myself with mod sine wave on LCD TV and DirecTV receiver.

Good point. He should try to run a different load other than that TV. It could be that the TV does not like the power coming out of the inverter or requires a lot more power that the posted wattage.

[uscgsapper1]

The 1000w is Modified, and the 500 Pure Sine. Something has got to be wrong somewhere, I switched over to the 500 PS and plug my box fan into it which is drawing 75w and my bank voltage starts dropping from float around 13.35 down to 12.7 but seems to be holding there. So I'm only able to run a 75w fan from this whole set up?? Anymore than that and voltage drops to low.

[littleharbor]

You don't have the inverter connected to the LOAD terminals on the controller do you?