Another small newb project.

[uscgsapper1]

The bank is sitting right now at 12.80, so aren't they fully charged..? There is nothing attached to them at all.

[littleharbor]

Then according to the manual it should bring your battery up to 14.6 for absorb. I see you can also equalize. You should get your batteries fully charged THEN try the equalize function.

[uscgsapper1]

Oh **** man my bad, yes there was a miscommunication. Yes it has the button for the 3 options. And I know how to change it, it is on the RED setting for flood acid.

[littleharbor]

Did you look at the manual I attached? Look at the face of the controller. It clearly reads gel, sealed and flooded. According to the manual you hold the button down for some length of time to set the battery type. The color of the light indicates the type of battery setting.

[uscgsapper1]

I have a multi-meter, but I have one of those small black boxes from Amazon (2"x3") that reads voltage and if I set up the rest it will give current, energy, and watts, but I just leave it wired to bank to show me the volts. So if it's reading 12.85 and my charger won't charge because it's telling me it's 100% charged, should I run the test you gave me with testing volts with inverter on and off at terminals the input on inverter..?
littleharbor, yes that's my controller but it doesn't appear adjustable, am I missin something...?

[littleharbor]

Alrighty, disconnected everything and attached a 1.5a charger, see what happens. My charge controller is not adjustable.

I must've gotten your CC wrong. Is this not it? Wanderer Charge controller.jpg

[SunEagle]

Not sure how to do that? I put my load tester on the batteries when I bought them and the tested in the green, how can I test the current being drawn from the batteries? Between the batteries and the inverter?

Sorry. I pretty much think that everyone owns a clamp on amp-meter. Although you will need one rated for DC voltages.

Here is a picture of my portable set up with the clamp on checking to see what is coming in from the solar panel. And another picture with my clamp on next to my cheap PWM CC.

[uscgsapper1]

So I should put on a larger charger..?
what in the world is goin on..
I put my larger charger on it at 8 and 12amps and it won't go to charging mode because it says it's fully charged, with everything off the bank the volts are sitting at 12.96...
Volts have slowly dropped and have settle at 12.85 with nothing attached to it.

[Sunking]

Alrighty, disconnected everything and attached a 1.5a charger, see what happens.

Well at 1.5 amps and a 225 AH battery can take up to:

225 AH / 1.5 A = 150 hours or about a week Actually longer because of the batteries self discharge. You need a minimum of C/10 or 225 AH / 10 Hours = 22.5 amps.

Amp Hours = Amps x Hours
Hours = Amp Hours / Amps
Amps = Amp Hours / Hours.

A trojan T-105 can easily be discharged at C/6 with only 0.12 volt sag. C/6 is 38 amps and at 12 volts is 38 x 12 = 456 watts. Use your 500 watt Inverter, and turn it off when not in use. 1000 is a bit to much, and being your 1000 watt Inverter is MSW your TV may not like that and not work.

[uscgsapper1]

Alrighty, disconnected everything and attached a 1.5a charger, see what happens. My charge controller is not adjustable.

[Sunking]

OK here is your check list.

1. Set Controller Bulk/Absorb to 14.8 volts, and Float to 13.5 volts straight from Trojan Spec Sheet.
2. Disconnect everything from the battery and let it charge for a day or two. You are not going to see 14.8 volts on the battery until it is near fully charged up.Once full charged the controller will drop the voltage back to 13.5 volts.
3. Once charged up connect up Inverter and a load like your TV or Fan and turn it on. Measure the voltage in two places. Before and after you turn on the TV/Fan. Directly on the Battery Term Post, and at the Input Terminals on the Inverter. Example if the battery is fully charged up in noon sun you had better see 13.5 volts on both the battery and input to inverter with it turned off. Then when you turn on the Inverter and assuming it is noon with bright sunny sky, the battery should stay at 13.5 volts, and the Inverter Input voltage may drop slightly to say 13.45 volts. This is going to tell you exactly what is going on.

I suspect a couple of things. You have poor connections or way to long and small of wire. If the battery voltage holds 13.5 volts and you see the voltage on the Inverter drops more than 0.2 volts, you have a wiring problem.. Either to small of a wire, too long, or really poor connections.

Now if you do this say at night, normal battery voltage of a fully charged battery is 12.6 to 12. volts. 100 watt load on the battery will sag a bit but no more than .05 volts. If it drops to say 12.5 or less, your battery is not charged up.

Lastly 400 watts of panels is more than enough for a pair of Trojans. More than enough to run the TV and Fan both at the same time on a bright sunny day at noon. If not then you have a problem with the charging system you need to fix because your battery is not being charged up. You need a good 12 volt battery charger to get your new batteries charged up immediately.

Run the above test and you will find the problem. If it is the panels or CC we need to run 2 more test to see what is wrong.

EDIT NOTE:

If your charger has an Equalize setting use it. Crank the voltage as high as it will allow you to go. This will tell you in short order if the panels and CC works. If you see the voltage go up to above 14 volts or equal to the setting, you know the panels and charger are working, and you should see the batteries fizzing like a soda pop.

[littleharbor]

Here's the manual for it. Possibly your battery settings are incorrect. It looks fairly easy to change. It looks like the flooded setting is 14.6 volts. that should help you get your batteries a better charge.

http://www.renogy.com/template/files/Manuals/Renogy-Wanderer-30A-PWM-Solar-Charge-Controller-Manual.pdf

[uscgsapper1]

My controller is a Wanderer 30a, I don't think it's adjustable, I think it's all set from factory.

[littleharbor]

Again, could be another problem but you need your absorb voltage about 14.7 I believe for your Trojan flooded batteries. 14.2 is even low for sealed lead acid batteries.

[uscgsapper1]

It sits around 14.2 while charging until it goes into float mode around 13.2 and holds there when fully charged. But as soon as I put any load even minimal the voltage starts dropping fast, it seems like it's doing the same thing as I did before when I had a crappy dead 12v deep cycle battery (bad battery). The whole set up is acting like I'm putting a heavy load on it even if it's minimal.