OVR light came on

[Jacotenente]

All good tips here. I have done a lot of different things to mitigate the noise coming onto the CB. The noise gets terrible when the sun is up (and the CC and inverter are both kicking). I have separated the CB from the solar equipment by about 12'. Separate grounds, ferrite beads (rated for the bleedover freqs), wrapped and twisted cables and wires, isolated the CC or inverter as the culprit, and even used my handheld CB as a wave/noise detector to help isolate where the hell it is coming from. Bottom line, nothing helped. The only thing that helps is shutting down the inverter and CC at night. The noise is less at night, but I still have to shut down both to get the noise down to use the CB. And when my CB base station is working with no interference...it kicks @^#. I made a You Tube video showing this issue.

[tecnodave]

Jacotenente ,

We have spoken about this issue in the past over on Amazon........I am going to recommend again that you look into a "Faraday Cage" to be installed around your noise source..... The charge controller and inverter, both of which rapidly switch DC on and off.......by its nature will produce harmonics of the base frequency of the switching and can easily affect all the high frequency bands especially using AM modulation.......all noise is AM!.....of all the products I have used the midnite Classic and Morningstar had the lowest emissions. The Tracers were off the scale.......inverters..Exeltech is quiet....they are made for communications.....

Ways to reduce EMI/RFI......

Direct path to battery from inverter and charge controller...
...........!<edit>Separate run for controller and inverter with each pair tied togather
Positive and negative cables tied togather.........less inductance
Ferrite beads......rated for the frequencies of interference.
Capacitors across the DC input of the inverter and the DC output of the charge controller

Separate ground rod for shunting EMI/RFI to ground........can come back up the ground buss if you ground RFI/EMI through the equipment (utility ground)

Something I use a lot.......Tripp-Lite ISO-BAR surge suppressors.......these not only have excellent surge suppression they also have 25 to 75 db RFI/EMI suppression between outlets......expensive.....they are the best! About $90.00 USD for an 8 outlet fully isolated strip....
And how much did your gear cost?......comes with a $10,000 gear warranty!

td

[Vic]

First,  it is important to find just WHAT is creating the largest amount of noise.   Work on that source of noise first.

Here,  almost all noise is Line Conducted -- noise that is conducted,  and then radiated by cables connecting,  primarily to the PV array,  because these leads are longer,  and above ground,  and can radiate well.

For these Conducted currents,  Common-Mode chokes work best,  where BOTH the positive and negative conductors pass through a fairly large toroid -- often about 2.4" in outside diameter.

But,  actually knowing what device is creating which noises is really important.  Although there is something to be said about doing everything you can for the PV cables,  and battery leads (but batt leads are usually short,  and close to the CC and the CB.   Does the CB run on 12 VDC?

More later.  Good Luck,   Vic

[Jacotenente]

Hmmm. Something to think about. The only thing I haven't tried was using some ferrite beads at the base of the antenna...on the coax. The panels and CB antenna (which is mounted on the chimney) are relatively close with the panels on the back porch pergola. Maybe the snap on beads will act as a choke. The Kid is better with RFI compared to the Tracer. I have beads rated for AM 27 MHz bandwidths. Faraday cage is too impractical.

[Vic]

First thing to do,  is to turn on the CB radio.  When you find the troubling noise present on a sunny day,  with the KID in Bulk,  switch off the breaker on the PV input to the KID.  Was there a reduction in the noise?  Now,  switch off the KID battery breaker.   Is the noise further reduced ? Gone?   This will help you isolate weather the KID is a noise source,  and how great a contributor it is to any noise.

Hmmm. Something to think about. The only thing I haven't tried was using some ferrite beads at the base of the antenna...on the coax. The panels and CB antenna (which is mounted on the chimney) are relatively close with the panels on the back porch pergola. Maybe the snap on beads will act as a choke. The Kid is better with RFI compared to the Tracer. I have beads rated for AM 27 MHz bandwidths. Faraday cage is too impractical.

Yes,  usually one would want a Choke very close to an antenna,  and quite probably,  one very near the Transceiver that the antenna connects to.  Both of these chokes help keep any Radio Frequency currents from being conducted by the feed-line (coax),  and radiated.

But for cables that carry fairly large DC currents,  like those from the PV array,  and those that connect the Charge Controller (CC) to the battery,  simple ferrite cores and snap-ons can easily become Saturated by the large currents in the cables.  This saturation can reduce the choking effect at RF frequencies of the core -- often this reduction is very large,  making that choke very ineffective.

BUT,  a Common-Mode choke  will still be very effective,  as the large DC current component flowing in the cable is cancelled,  and the choke is left to act only on the RF component flowing on the cable (essentially).

The Common Mode choke is simply made by passing both the positive and negative conductor through the ferrite core --  the more passes through the core,  the greater the choking action.  It is easy to wind both conductors,  side-by-side.  Usually this type of choke is easiest and most effective,  when the ferrite core is fairly large in diameter (probably larger than one inch OD).

Also,  CB frequencies are approaching VHF,  so,  perhaps  several capacitors might be placed across the PV+ and PV-- wires,  very close to the CC.

Twisting the PV leads together can help.  Running the PV cables in metal conduit that has solid metal connectors should help a lot.

SEPARATING the PV array and wiring from the antenna works very well.  Locating a directional antenna,  so that the direction of greatest interest (EDIT:)  has of the PV Array behind it (and therefore will use the antenna Front-to-back pattern to attenuate the PV array noise)   will reduce any noise from the PV array by the nominal Front-to-back capability of that directional antenna.

All of these steps and many,  many more are in that Link to the wind-sun Forum Thread on RFI reduction,  earlier in this thread.

Please let us know how you are doing.  Thanks,   FWIW - YMMV,   Vic

[Vic]

After running the test on the KID,  by switching off the PV and DC breakers to it,  leave the KID off,  and next try turning off the AC output breakers and then the main DC breaker between the battery and the inverter (hope that there is a breaker there and not a fuse).

This will help you know what is the noise contribution of the inverter to the overall noise that you are receiving.

Now,  with the sun still striking the PVs well,   you could switch the KID battery breaker on,  and then the PV breaker.   This will allow you to see the KID's noise contribution,  ideally when the KID is in Bulk.

FWIW,  Vic

[mike90045]

The only thing that helps is shutting down the inverter and CC at night.

I doubt the controller has much running in sleep, so my bet is the inverter.