Confused on charging!

[blake2go]

Hi all still climbing that steep learning curve.

I have a small 12 volt system, 68 watts.

Running to a controller, at first It charged to a point where the charge light would flicker, that was to show floating charge. I have now not seen that for some time.

I have a plug in volt monitor and have watched it climb to 16.3 volts as it is charging, my inverters will not work if plugged into this system in the day time.

As the day goes on the v drops and at night I have seen V showing 13.1...... 12.7 V

Is my controller messing up?
Has this caused damage to the battery? Is this somehow normal?

Thanks!

[Sunking]

If you are seeing 16 volts, something is wrong.

[blake2go]

thanks

A bit more info would be good...

It is a 12 volt panel so it would kick out a bit more than 12 v but 16? Any way to test a controller?

An inexpensive one you'd recommend?

[blake2go]

info

Maximum Power Voltage (Vmpp) 16.5V +-5%

Maximum Power Current (Impp) 4.1A

Open Circuit Voltage (Voc) 23.1V

Short Circuit Current (Isc) 5.1A

Maximum System Voltage 600V

Weight 8.7 LBS

Dimensions: 112.1” x 15.5” x .6”

This is a uni solar panel

It seems that I am getting the full 16 v output at the battery!

How is it has not killed the battery and that it shows 12.7 at night? If it were being killed would it not be off
12.7
12.4
11.01
As it was cooking?
Deep cycle battery 104 a/h

[Naptown]

I suspect a PWM controller that is stuck in the closed position.

[blake2go]

Options?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10A-12V-24V-Solar-Charge-Controller-Solar-Panel-Battery-Control-Regulator-/111041518583?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19da971bf7

This is the controller

[Naptown]

Options?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/10A-12V-24V-Solar-Charge-Controller-Solar-Panel-Battery-Control-Regulator-/111041518583?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19da971bf7

This is the controller

check and make sure it is set for a 12V battery or it may think it is trying to charge a 24V battery.
buy a new charge controller the good thing is you only lost $10 on that one . Next time buy a better one like a Morningstar or Outback.

[blake2go]

Set how?

Set how? It had no setting switches.

I have bought another controller just now.

Has my battery been zapped?

Thanks to all!

[FloridaSun]

Set how? It had no setting switches.

Be sure to connect the battery to controller BEFORE connecting the panels.

[blake2go]

All went together well it had an instruction to hook it as you said. It ran I had a fully charged battery and it went into that flickering float charge state, now it runs...?

It is to regulate not only the total charge but to limits the input voltage, has this just crapped out?

What and or how damaged can the battery be?

[FloridaSun]

All went together well it had an instruction to hook it as you said. It ran I had a fully charged battery and it went into that flickering float charge state, now it runs...?

It is to regulate not only the total charge but to limits the input voltage, has this just crapped out?

What and or how damaged can the battery be?

If you're using a flooded lead acid battery make sure it hasn't boiled the water out of it. Not familiar with $10 charge controllers but if flicker means float charge, it's reading your battery voltage is high enough not to require more.

[PNjunction]

You've definitely got a defecit-charge scenario right there. If you draw the battery down to 50% SOC, and have about 4 hours of solar insolation per day, you're looking at about 5 days to charge. That's too long and invites sulfation. Perhaps you are using only a fraction of that batteries capacity .....

The biggest thing I see with the $10 CMP12 controller is that the specs I find for it indicate that even when working properly, it only goes to 13.7 volts as the "full charge cut". So maybe this is really designed for a solar total-float backup and not for any application that cycles on a regular basis that wants a higher absorb voltage from time to time.

Either way I'd up the game with a higher-quality charge controller. That battery probably wasn't cheap.

[green]

I use that same controller on a 12V 12AH battery system and it works fine. For a VERY small system that charger is good enough but I wouldn't recommend using it on anything drawing or charging at more than 5 Amps or so even though it is rated for 10A. I only charge at about 1 to 2 amps and I draw .5A from it for a small pump that runs about 4 hours every other day. Works great for the cheap price. Mine is just about always flickering in float charge because I don't run it down very far, but it never reads much higher than the battery voltage like yours is, something's not right.