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Charge Controllers and Clippers => The "Classic" charge controller => Topic started by: CaptK on January 04, 2019, 04:42:25 PM

Title: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: CaptK on January 04, 2019, 04:42:25 PM
Just wondering why my Classic is only showing accumulated -ve Ah and not +Ah
Yesteday for instance it generated 7.5 Kw/h and was on float for 6.5 hrs.

Is there something in the settings that I need to adjust?
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: ClassicCrazy on January 04, 2019, 09:22:34 PM
I don't understand your question .
The SOC pretty much shows what is taken out of the battery. Once the battery is filled up then it is 100% full so it won't show over 100%. If your system made 7.5 kWh  then other than filling the battery up which took some of it ( refilling negative ah plus some extra to compensate for the inefficiency of charging )  - the rest of the power went to your loads.

Larry
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: CaptK on January 05, 2019, 07:19:55 PM
My apologies, that really was a badly phrased, vague question.

Take 2

From the MNGP, press the status button 3 times, into WB Jr. Screen, press more, (Left soft key)

Screen shows Lifetime Ah.
My Classic shows 0 +ve Ah and at this stage 12938 -ve Ah and I'm wondering why it only reports - ve Ah.

The battery bank rarely drops below 80% SOC, so I think it's safe to assume that there's some + Ah going in.
It would be nice to know the net value in order to anticipate degradation of the system over time.
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: ClassicCrazy on January 06, 2019, 12:15:30 AM
Not sure what the ve is - my screen does not show any ve . It just shows Ah.
I don't know why you only show negative Ah - I never pay attention to that so never thought about it. Mine is opposite and shows a lot more + Ah than -Ah .  That makes sense to me since the loads will take a lot of power in the day , more than the battery capacity I have will ever hold.  I try to use lots of power in day time on sunny days .

There is a way to zero those lifetime values out if you want to start over.

Could it have something to do with how you have your PV wired so it goes directly to the batteries without going through the shunt ?
There should be only one negative battery connection and that goes to one side of the shunt. Every other negative battery connection is on the other side of the shunt. That way it counts everything going in and going out of the battery .

Larry
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: CaptK on January 06, 2019, 02:26:58 AM
Thank You Larry,

You may have hit on something there.

I've wired the WB Jr. shunt so that its on the negative lead from the batteries to the inverter, it appears to be functioning correctly.
Should I have wired it on the -ve lead between the controller and the batteries instead, if that's the case I've totally misread the instructions and will need to rectify that.

Keith
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: boB on January 06, 2019, 04:16:37 AM
Quote from: CaptK on January 06, 2019, 02:26:58 AM
Thank You Larry,

You may have hit on something there.

I've wired the WB Jr. shunt so that its on the negative lead from the batteries to the inverter, it appears to be functioning correctly.
Should I have wired it on the -ve lead between the controller and the batteries instead, if that's the case I've totally misread the instructions and will need to rectify that.

Keith

The WB Jr. shunt ends should be, 1) battery negative terminal, and 2)  the main common negative bus for ALL devices.

That is, instead of wiring all devices to the negative terminal of the battery, the shunt itself gets wired to that terminal
and all devices negatives have to connect to the other shunt terminal.

I was going to say that if the shunt had only been connected to the Classic and also backwards, that would mainly show negative AH numbers but that is not how you had it wired. 

Still not sure why you are getting what is being shown.

Not sure what "-ve" is ?






Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: CaptK on January 06, 2019, 05:50:22 AM
Ok, so here's my setup as it is today.

16 x 260Ah 12v batteries, wired series/parallel to 24v.

The positive output from the Classic is wired to the positive terminal on battery 1, the negative output from the Classic is wired to the negative terminal on battery 16.

Negative to the inverter comes from the negative terminal on battery 2, Positive to the inverter comes from the positive terminal on battery 15.

The only addition to this is a MNBCM, which functions just fine and generally corresponds with the SOC as reported by the Classic.

The shunt is inline on the negative to the inverter, the tail points towards the batteries as per the manual.

So now I'm concerned that the shunt is in the wrong place, the only other possible conenection would be the negative from the battery to the controller.

Keith
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: ClassicCrazy on January 06, 2019, 01:04:56 PM
Quote from: CaptK on January 06, 2019, 02:26:58 AM
Thank You Larry,

You may have hit on something there.

I've wired the WB Jr. shunt so that its on the negative lead from the batteries to the inverter, it appears to be functioning correctly.
Should I have wired it on the -ve lead between the controller and the batteries instead, if that's the case I've totally misread the instructions and will need to rectify that.

Keith

Yes - also like Bob said - only one connection to battery negative to shunt. The other side of shunt every other negative connection for your system . Draw us a schematic or take some photos of what you have and maybe we can figure it out. If you don't have the PV going through that shunt to the battery you won't see any positive AH on the Whizbang.
I think Bob is saying the lifetime AH should still be counting up because that is counted from the total production of the controller I guess.
Larry
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: CaptK on January 06, 2019, 02:48:36 PM
Ok, Thank you,

I will certainly change my setup to reflect your good advice and update in the next few weeks.

Keith.
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: CaptK on January 08, 2019, 04:43:42 PM
Just a quick update

Had an unexpected day off yesterday so I took the opportunity to rewired the WB Jr. correctly.
Feeling stupid all the time as the manual clearly shows the correct way of attaching all the negative leads.

Net result is that thanks to your good advice it's now performing the way that the nice people at Midnite Solar designed it to work.

I'm now seeing +Ve Ah on the Classic which was the point of the original question.

Thank you for your help, much appreciated.

Keith
Title: Re: Classic 150 not showing lifetime + Ah
Post by: boB on January 08, 2019, 06:28:42 PM
   !! YaY !!

Good to hear it's working now !

boB