My Morningstar TS-MPPT-60 is at max amps

[rbagwell]

Hi,

I have installed 6 of my 10 panels and all is working very well - charging my small battery bank at rated Max ( once in a while at 60.5 amps ) . The manual says 60 is Max and I understand that fuses are somewhat higher ( 75 Amps - as I recall ). I have 4 more panels to connect.

Question is - Does this charge controller monitor and protect automatically ? If not , is there a way to configure the unit to not charge more than 60 Amps ?

I sure would hate to hurt this expensive device - which is a marvelous product .

Please email me at ralph.bagwell AT gmail.com if you have any suggestions.

Thanks,

Ralph

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[Sunking]

You will get the same anwwer here as you did elsewhere.

OK you can oversize the panel wattage, but I wouldn't as it is just a waste of money. The controller can only down convert 60 amps and no more.

Max panel wattage is dictated by the battery voltage and controller current. Max panel wattage is

800 watts @ 12 volt
1600 watts @ 24 volts
3200 watts @ 48 volts

However I highly suspect you have more problems you are not even aware of at the moment. What battery Voltage and Amp Hour rating are you running?

What I am driving at is the charge current on flooded lead acid batteries should be no more than 13% of the battery amp hour rating. So if you are pumping 60 amps into a FLA battery, I hope the AH capacity is at least 480 AH.

[Mike90250]

The MPPT controller will throttle back to a safe current or internal tempeture. On a cold day you might see 61 amps.

[Sunking]

I don't exactly understand your concern of my system. Do you think that I may be charging the bank too fast ?

Way too fast and your controller does not know what size the battery capacity is.

So if you are using two 6 volt golf cart batteries in series for 12 volts, they are likely 200 AMP HOURS, and you are pumping them with 60 amps. The maximum current you should charge them with is about 24 to 25 amps, with 20 amps being the sweat spot. With FLA batteries the maximum charge current ranges from C/10 to C/8. Where C = the 20 hours discharge rate. So if you have a 100 AH battery the C/10 rate = 100 / 10 = 10 amps.

When a battery is discharged, you can pump just about as many amps as you want into them, but that is not a good thing. Lot of things can happen when you over charge a battery and none of them are good. Just some are worse than others.

For example on the lessor side you boil the water out, corrode the plates, and destroy the battery. No big deal, just a ruined battery. On the worse end of the scale the battery explodes spewing acid everywhere and starting a fire. If you are in there the acid in your eyes with a fire is not going to be a good day for you, might be your last day. At best you escape and are blind with sever acid and thermal burns.

So if you are going to run 60 amps at 12 volts, limit panel wattage to the manufacture maximum recommendation which should be around 800 watts, and the minimum FLA battery capacity of 600 amp hours. That would be 6 of the golf cart batteries.

For now while experimenting loose some panel wattage to limit current to 20 to 25 amps. That would be around 240 to 300 watts.