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Greetings, I have been off grid for 13 years since retiring and fleeing the big city. Running 2 panel grids, one to catch the earliest sun and another one more for the afternoon but starting to charge around 9:00 depending on the season. 2 xantrex sw4048 stacked inverters , C40 charge controllers as primaries, a whisper 100 wind turbine and a generac guardian back up.. I have to say the system has worked like a dream mostly. I am encountering a mystery though. Quite frequently it seems the battery voltage drops noticeably as the sun rises and soon later begins to increase as the sun hits the morning aligned panels. Seems weird to me why a brightening sky would cause a battery voltage drop. Any thoughts? The only other issue is no one has been able/willing to set the guardian generac to be auto started by the xantrex. I have heard every excuse in the book from the particular generac model is not suited to off grid auto start to it would require significant modification to the the genny control panel. My own reading of the manuals suggests otherwise .It seem that auxiliary relay no.7 with both NO and NC contacts and user specified trigger voltage would handle the job with a 2 wire starting system system. a 3 (or more) wire starting system would work too but be more complicated to wire. I have also seen auxiliary genny starting modules but that seems to be redundant. I know enough electrical stuff to be dangerous and am not willing to risk my lifeline by tinkering with it. I am even having trouble getting someone to tell me if the generac is a 2 wire or otherwise starting system. "Oh we just sell Them, we don't do tech" Anyone know a San Diego County competent electrician that can read a manual and wiring diagram and has some relevant experience. I am very willing to pay well for the job. On the relatively rare occasions that the generator needs to be stared it is a real bitch to trudge out in the snow and wind at 20 degrees to flip a couple of switches and again 20 minutes later to cool and shut down. Well thats my story. Looking forward to enjoying this forum.
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Hi Ranchdog1, welcome to the forum, we're glad to have you. I moved your post to its own thread here to get you going since you might not yet be "approved" for new thread creation. -
What out temperature is at your location at early sunrise ?
I believe, that the temperatures even get lower during the first hour of the morning sunrise , and then start to rise .
If your batteries are discharged during night time , they might not like very low temperatures , if these are located
in a shelter , that has some large open walls .
You might consider to attach more battery storage , to prevent these batteries being discharged too deeply .
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