Classic 150 won't charge

Started by MountianComm, December 16, 2022, 04:49:27 PM

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MountianComm

#15
Vic and Bob thank you for the replies.  I hope to be visiting the site sometime before march.  the local SAR team went up there and sent me photos of the array.  absolutely clear no snow.  so still a mystery why the classic won't charge the batteries. 

Jim

boB


Jim, thank you for the picture of your beautiful comms site !

Are those Classics plugged into the internet for monitoring ?

Did you say that the PV input is OK ?   Meaning, not zero volts at least and PV input voltage not over 150 V DC ?

boB
K7IQ 🌛  He/She/Me

Vic

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the pic.That is a beautiful installation.

Too bad that the inverter LVD,  shut off your ability to monitor and control the Classic.

I have nothing to contribute,  at this point.

Good Luck,  Vic
Off Grid - Sys 1: 2ea SW+ 5548, Surrette 4KS25 1280 AH, 5.25 KW PV, Classic 150,WB, Beta Barcelona, Beta KID
Sys 2: SW+ 5548s, 4KS25s, 5.88 KW PV, 2 ea. Classic 150, WB, HB CC-needs remote Monitoring/Control, site=remote.
 MN Bkrs/Bxs/Combiners. Thanks MN for Great Products/Svc/Support&This Forum!!

MountianComm

sorry for the delay, just a matter of what iron is in the fire at the time. 

Correct plenty of voltage from the panels, 97 volts to be exact. 

All this snow we have had this month has really put a wrench into getting to the site.  hopefully sometime next month!

thank you for the complements. Yes the snow does make the array look nice!  We would have done bifacials but getting ones that fit the existing racking last fall didn't happen, it was hang the Jinko 410's or stick with the the old Sharp 167's that were starting to show their age in production.  Obviously, we went with the Jinkos.

ralph day

Was that all helicopter delivered building materials?  must make for expensive building per square foot.

FNG

Quote from: MountianComm on February 16, 2023, 11:08:52 PMI guess I need to ask this straight forward.  At what battery voltage will the Classic 150 (Configured for 48V)shut off?

Clearly it is above 44.9 volts, which was the last recorded voltage before my Classic 150 went offline.

And at what voltage will/should it turn back on?

I am not the only person who has experienced this problem.  A fellow cohort with a similar system suffered the same issue.

Jim

You mention going off line, If the Conext shuts down on LBCO the internet goes away correct? Classics (As boB pointed out) should run down to 9-10vdc on the battery side. In my 15 ish years I have never seen one shut down in the mid 40 volt range as they are designed to charge a 12v battery as well.

FNG

Quote from: MountianComm on December 16, 2022, 04:49:27 PMI have a classic 150 that doesn't seem to be charging.

Setup:
12 Jikno JKM410M-72HL-V panels wired 2 in series by 6 parallel, produces just shy of 5kw full sun.

MNPVCombiner box with 15 amp breakers for each string.

Classic 150 with whizbang.

4 strings of Rolls L16 445 (yeah I know one string too many.  1800 AH capacity array is facing dead south at a fixed 60 degree angle, this time of year averages 5-6 hours of sunlight

constant load of 350watts

Remote IP monitoring of the Classic, and Conext inverter.

The site is at 7300' on top of a mountain.  For the last couple weeks the site has received about 4-5' of snow, I have couple cameras to monitor things outside.

It would snow for a couple days then, get sun for a few days and repeat.  trouble is the storms kept stacking up and I wasn't getting enough sun and they continued to discharge to 30%.

The Conext inverter and the LVDC are programmed to disconnect at 44 volts and don't come back on until the batteries get to 48 volts.

After the latest rounds of storms, the Classic wouldn't charge when the sun came out.  I do have a camera on the back side of the panels but not one facing the panels (ugh). For 3 days I would watch the PV voltage on the classic come up to 97 volts all day, the charge current would fluctuate between 0-.2 amps.  At night I would see 14-15 volts on the panels (leakage).  The battery bank voltage steadily declined until it got to 44 volts and then the Inverter and LVDC did their job.

I considered rebooting the Classic in the configuration menu in the monitoring app but was afraid it would have reset the classic and I wouldn't be able to access it remotely any longer.

Usually, it takes one good day of sun to melt the snow and ice after each storm.  I am on day 5 and nothing.  The site is only access by snow machine this time of year so I won't be getting up there anytime soon.

Should I have rebooted the classic in the App?

Any ideas why I am seeing good input voltage but now current?

I have configured the Classic to charger all the way down to 36 volts?

Last I saw the batteries were sitting at 2degree C. They are inside an insulated box inside the building.

As one that has lived in snow country all my life (Well ok except the last two winters) I can tell you VOC will show up on snow covered panels. Not saying this is what it is but I am saying its possible the panels have snow or ice on them. The fact you saw some amperage makes me think the classic is ok. What did the PV Voltage do could you watch it sweep down to battery and then pop back to some voltage in between VOC and Battery?