mppt charge controller - ZLPOWER ??

[enerteg]

Victron Energie MPPT

Hello I think Victron Energie controller MPPT is the same than SL-40A from ZLPOWER.
Is correct?

[Sunking]

If someone can prove to me that this controller is NOT or dose NOT do any mppt Let me know.

John look I am not trying to beat you up, just trying to help. Allow me to explain and then you can confirm if my understanding is correct OK?

• You connected what you knew was a dead battery to the charge controller.
• The battery in question was from a vehicle.
• When you connected the battery, you measured the panel voltage and current at the input of the controller and observed it dropped from 31 volts down to 14 volts @ 16 amps (224 watts out of a 520 watt panel).
• After 2 hours the voltage and current at the controller input were 28 volts @ 5 amps (140 watts out of a 520 watt panel).

Do I understand you correctly?
Does anything capture your attention?

Last question is how do you have the panels configured? Reason I ask if you have 36 cells, and assuming you have all the panels in parallel you should see Voc around 22 to 24 volts at the very most and you mention seeing 28 and 31 volts.

[no carrier]

My solar mppt SL-40 seems to be working very well from what I could see.Let explain.I got 8 :65 watt panels.[36 or the 3x6 cells] total 520watts. This morring I went to start a van up and the battery was dead,wouldn't turn over the engine, so i said hay, let me see how long and what amperage my panels will be putting out. Before i hooked it up it had 11.09 volts, and my volt meter from the panels said 31 volts amp was 0 I had nothing connected except the SL-40. I connected the controller to the battery and the voltage went down to 14 and the amps went up to 16. . I hooked it up at 11:53am and checked it at 1:49pm. at 1:49 pm the Volts were up to 28 volts and the amps were down to 5 amps. I don't know, but I think that is pretty good.Never thought the panels would put out that much amperage. When you look at one panel it looks small. ha ha ha . Im very happy with them. Next Im working on my Dc to Ac inverter, I now think that a 470ohmx 200volt cap is bad. I just changed out a Mosfet because it was sooooo hot that I though it was bad. Hate to buy a new one.
John

John, I have the same pv system as you do, 520 watts...I bought
Chinese mppt, was not convinced it was an mppt and sent it back..
I then bought a Rouge 30a mppt, A bit more but come to find out,
it was a true mppt...A few days ago I tested it...Ran my battery
pack down to 12.50vdc, to be sure it would run in mppt....It was
noon and the sun was bright...Oct 14, 2011...So. Cal...The Rogue
showed 12.5a coming in and 24.5a going into the battery bank..
Am at home on my 3rd beer, testing was done at my shop, so
the figures may be off a tad....I do believe the volts were 14vdc..
That gives my pv system a bit over 336 watts..Yours at 224 watts..iI do respect you being on a budget, but you dont have a mppt...
Dennis

[conntaxman]

mppt controller

I read these at the input of the charge controller.I mean the amps and the volts. but took a volt mesu. at the battery also., I know that you guys DONT like over seas stuff, and I agree not buying from their. BUT 3 or 4 times the amount of the cost, is just NUTS. I dont want to get into the politices of this S....." If someone can prove to me that this controller is NOT or dose NOT do any mppt Let me know. SO that I """"will get my money back. """" that sure would be a great help. Please not just because it is not USA made.
I never liked getting scew.... . No matter Who made the product.
tks
John

[Mike90250]

....The problem is your CC is called a MPPT, if those are the voltages and current you are reading at the input of the charge controller is a dead give-away you have a PWM controller.

The voltage on a MPPT controller should be spot on to the panel rated Vmp. Only thing that will vary is the current.

Once the controller decides it no longer needs the MPPT function, it reverts to PWM for control. My MS Tristar MPPT does this, while in bulk, it's in MPPT, but switches to PWM for absorb and float

[Sunking]

My solar mppt SL-40 seems to be working very well from what I could see.Let explain.I got 8 :65 watt panels.[36 or the 3x6 cells] total 520watts. This morring I went to start a van up and the battery was dead,wouldn't turn over the engine, so i said hay, let me see how long and what amperage my panels will be putting out. Before i hooked it up it had 11.09 volts, and my volt meter from the panels said 31 volts amp was 0 I had nothing connected except the SL-40. I connected the controller to the battery and the voltage went down to 14 and the amps went up to 16. . I hooked it up at 11:53am and checked it at 1:49pm. at 1:49 pm the Volts were up to 28 volts and the amps were down to 5 amps. I don't know, but I think that is pretty good.

John just where are you measuring this voltage and current. If that is at the input of the Charge controller you have a big problem. The problem is your CC is called a MPPT, if those are the voltages and current you are reading at the input of the charge controller is a dead give-away you have a PWM controller.

The voltage on a MPPT controller should be spot on to the panel rated Vmp. Only thing that will vary is the current.

[Sunking]

I'd say you have a dead short in the invertor, 3-4 amps on a 100watt bulb is 3 times too much. Should only pull about .85 amps for the bulb plus whatever the invertor pulls.

You need to go back to school. 100 watts @ 12 volts requires 8.33 amps.

[conntaxman]

mppt controller

My solar mppt SL-40 seems to be working very well from what I could see.Let explain.I got 8 :65 watt panels.[36 or the 3x6 cells] total 520watts. This morring I went to start a van up and the battery was dead,wouldn't turn over the engine, so i said hay, let me see how long and what amperage my panels will be putting out. Before i hooked it up it had 11.09 volts, and my volt meter from the panels said 31 volts amp was 0 I had nothing connected except the SL-40. I connected the controller to the battery and the voltage went down to 14 and the amps went up to 16. . I hooked it up at 11:53am and checked it at 1:49pm. at 1:49 pm the Volts were up to 28 volts and the amps were down to 5 amps. I don't know, but I think that is pretty good.Never thought the panels would put out that much amperage. When you look at one panel it looks small. ha ha ha . Im very happy with them. Next Im working on my Dc to Ac inverter, I now think that a 470ohmx 200volt cap is bad. I just changed out a Mosfet because it was sooooo hot that I though it was bad. Hate to buy a new one.
John

[electricsuperduty]

I'd say you have a dead short in the invertor, 3-4 amps on a 100watt bulb is 3 times too much. Should only pull about .85 amps for the bulb plus whatever the invertor pulls.

[conntaxman]

mppt controller

Interesting to see if the mppt works...what is the current draw from the invertor just being on?

.
Hi electric. I put an amp meter on between the bat and inverter and it was drawing 3.8 to 4 amps. Also i tried a good battery, it was small/motorcycle battery but charged. and as soom as i turned on the inverter with a 100 watt light bulb it ran for about 30 seconds and started to beep and then shut down. The battery was still at 12.8 volts. I remember a long time ago when I was hooking up the inverter I heard a big noise and spark, I must have crossed the plus and minus. I only used it i think about 1 after that to run a computer and I remember that it seened not to last too long either.I must have screwed something up inside the converter.
have no idea were to start looking for the problem when I take it apart .Guess look for some Fried resisters or cap. Dam and I didn't want to spend money on one right now, But was thinking of getting a newer one that draw only about .45 when now powered up full.
John

[electricsuperduty]

I have an older gel battery optium yellow 55ah. I had it connected for about a week and it seemed not to power the inverter too long. I would run a computer on it at night for about 8hr. computer would draw about 1/2amp. Next morring pv panels would charge it up Full 13.9 .It seemed to lose ah every night ,so this morring I brought it down to auto zone and they checked it and said that it was fine and it was 13. something volts.So i came home hooked it up again but did not turn on the inverter on, later I turned on the inverter and in about 1 min. the alarm went off on the inverter, I checked the voltage of the battery and it was 10 volts. Also the charge controller lights were off, that means their isn't enought voltage in the battery.
Did you ever hear of this? checked out good and a few hr later no good.
Im going to buy some deep cycle batteries tomorrow.Not gel that for sure.
John

Interesting to see if the mppt works...what is the current draw from the invertor just being on?

[russ]

Why is it if you Reply to a post it will say "your message is too short"

Stops some spammers - same with requiring so many posts to use the PM feature

[conntaxman]

gel battery

I have an older gel battery optium yellow 55ah. I had it connected for about a week and it seemed not to power the inverter too long. I would run a computer on it at night for about 8hr. computer would draw about 1/2amp. Next morring pv panels would charge it up Full 13.9 .It seemed to lose ah every night ,so this morring I brought it down to auto zone and they checked it and said that it was fine and it was 13. something volts.So i came home hooked it up again but did not turn on the inverter on, later I turned on the inverter and in about 1 min. the alarm went off on the inverter, I checked the voltage of the battery and it was 10 volts. Also the charge controller lights were off, that means their isn't enought voltage in the battery.
Did you ever hear of this? checked out good and a few hr later no good.
Im going to buy some deep cycle batteries tomorrow.Not gel that for sure.
John

[Mike90250]

.....Why is it if you Reply to a post it will say "your message is too short"

Me too! Prevents.

[conntaxman]

SL-40 mppt controller

Tony. I just hooked up my SL-40mppt controller and its been about 1 week,I just have it hooked to 1 gel battery.So far its been doing good.I just ordered 2 amp and 2 dig.volt meters.I just have the reg. meters now.Its nice to watch the meters change from not drawing any current to drawing current. I just took some readings of a coulple rooms in the house to see how many watts they use, so that I could get the batteries to supply ele. to them.Its also nice to know about the SL-40 is you can hook them up parallel. And another thing that I found out is if you want the INput voltage to be more then 55vdc ,when you order the SL-40 you let them know that you want the input voltage higher and they will program it,or what they have to do.
Would you or any of the guys here know about the input voltage. Ok when Nothing is connected to the solar panels Except a volt meter I get about 34 I think thats what it was about, Then when I connect it to the charge controller and battery it will drop down to about 30.Something like that. So when they say Input voltage is will say 55 do they mean when it is connected to the controller.
tks
John
Why is it if you Reply to a post it will say "your message is too short"