Too low voltage despite plenty of sun / Autonomous weather station

Started by canuck webmaster, June 22, 2017, 01:41:57 PM

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canuck webmaster

#15
Quote from: ClassicCrazy on July 31, 2017, 05:51:39 PMI think I would set the equalize for absorb voltage but for a longer time than absorb - like four hours

Thanks Larry, sounds like good advice. I've just wrote to my local battery distributor, hoping to get detailled specs to confirm that...

Quote from: ClassicCrazy on July 31, 2017, 05:51:39 PMHow many amps is the load on your system ?

It's around 1.2A most of the time, with a peak at 2.7A one or two hours a day in winter (heater).

Quote from: Vic on July 31, 2017, 04:43:53 PMIMO,  there should essentially be NO voltage drop in the Data Logger's cable

Well I may have made a mistake while checking the voltage as seen by my Campbell Scientific CR1000 datalogger. There is a 5~10 minute delay before voltage is displayed in the web page, so it's pretty clear I got it all wrong... Nevertheless, voltage is low... Max 12.82V today... Better than yesterday, thou...

Westbranch

I just looked back at the pics and realized  that the second tower has no panels on it.... is it possible to add one or 2 more panels on the other tripod and a second charge controller ? evn if they are low to the ground.... having another controller would make it so they do NOT interfere with the VMP of the higher sited panels...
KID FW1811 560W >C&D 24V 900Ah AGM
CL150 29032 FW V.2126-NW2097-GP2133 175A E-Panel WBjr, 3Px4s 140W > 24V 900Ah AGM,
2 Cisco WRT54GL i/c DD-WRT Rtr, NetGr DS104Hub
Cotek ST1500 Inv  want a 24V  ROSIE Inverter
OmniCharge3024  Eu1/2/3000iGens
West Chilcotin 1680+W to come

canuck webmaster

#17
Quote from: Westbranch on August 02, 2017, 11:36:03 PMis it possible to add one or 2 more panels on the other tripod

Since we switched from 8 to 6 batteries, voltage has improved noticeably:



Adding a third panel will certainly fix whatever problem we have left. But we'll put it next to the current PVs, and not on the other "instruments" tripod,  because we believe there is a risk of perturbation for our weather sensors (our sonic snow depth sensor and anemometer might be affected by wind disruption).

Thanks for the all the tips though, it's clear now we had too much batteries for too little PVs, and while the first season was ok, eventually it was not sustainable in the long run.

Now we have to get back up there... with a bulky 30 lbs panel...



[not to scale, but you get the picture...]