HELP - New and in need!!!

[guysor]

Hi can anyone help

We are in Spain on holiday in our trusty Renault Campervan Reg who has an untrustworthy solar system at the moment!

We bought a Juta Solar MPPT 1012 controller in October 2012.We are using it with a 120w panel connected to 150 amps of batteries on my campervan. Initially it worked very well keeping our batteries charged. Now we are having I am having problems with it, and this is causing me and my husband problems as he has sleep apnea and rely on this to power his machine so he can breathe at night. We am in Spain for 2 more months using our campervan so would be grateful for any help help. He either does not sleep for 2 months, stops breathing in the night or I kill him to stop the snoring. We are also getting strange looks from neightbours - can they hear the snoring or me shouting at him!!!

We are showing 19.87 volts from the panel right up to the controller (when disconnected from the controller), when connected back to the controller and measured across the solar panel terminals the meter shows 6.75 volts. We have checked the connections and all appear to be OK. The red charge light is on also the green load indicator is lit, although not as bright as the red one. There are no apparent short circuits and no reverse polarity.

So not sure where to go from here and we both need sleep HELP!!! Anyone got any advice?? Thanks

[Sunking]

If I had to guess right off the top of my head I would say the battery is done from abuse by being over discharged every night and the panel is not capable of fully recharging the battery, especially in the shorter winter months. Do you know how much power his CPAP machine uses? That is where we need to start to determine if you have enough battery and solar panel wattage.

FWIW if you were to get a battery isolator kit, and connect the battery to the vehicle alternator, the vehicle alternator can generate more electricity in 15 minutes than the solar panel can generate in 2 days. IMO the real fix to your problem is to get a properly sized battery, use a isolater kit, and let the vehicle alternator do the bulk of keeping the battery charged up. If you drive th eRV every day or just let the engine run 30 minutes each day there is no need for a solar panel.

[guysor]

If I had to guess right off the top of my head I would say the battery is done from abuse by being over discharged every night and the panel is not capable of fully recharging the battery, especially in the shorter winter months. Do you know how much power his CPAP machine uses? That is where we need to start to determine if you have enough battery and solar panel wattage.

FWIW if you were to get a battery isolator kit, and connect the battery to the vehicle alternator, the vehicle alternator can generate more electricity in 15 minutes than the solar panel can generate in 2 days. IMO the real fix to your problem is to get a properly sized battery, use a isolater kit, and let the vehicle alternator do the bulk of keeping the battery charged up. If you drive th eRV every day or just let the engine run 30 minutes each day there is no need for a solar panel.

Thanks for the reply.

i have 150 amps( 2x 75a). That is the maximum I can fit. The cpap uses under 2a/hr, so on average 16a a night, all led lighting....so not a great deal. the batteries normally give a 12.8v reading(prior to this issue)....so maybe ok and not discharged every night? I am in southern Spain so I am getting just under 10 hours of decent sun, 21C today just outside Almeria. The battery is connected to the alternator but I do not wish to drive every day, quite often stay put and live a local life so not always appropriate to run the engine, peace is valued sometimes.

Hope this clarifies things.

Thanks again

[guysor]

Haha

Just had a reply from the manufacturer who advise that the MPPT controller is likely to be at fault! See what happens next. I suppose I am going to have to source another one

[Mike90250]

I am in southern Spain so I am getting just under 10 hours of decent sun,

Isn't Spain in the Northern Hemisphere? I'd be VERY surprised to see that you get more than 6 useable hours of solar, so close to winter solstice.

I too, use a CPAP machine, and while camping or otherwise traveling and running off batteries, you cannot
use the humidifier in it, it consumes too much power.