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bkirkpatrick

Brea / Orange County, CA

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Posted: 05/15/12 01:51pm

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Doing a dry run with the BP 170watt solar panel and my controller says 3.5 amps / 45 watts. It is 12:51 PM in Los Angeles and about 80 degrees with full sun. Any suggestions

Raptor - Modifications

2oldman

Winchester WA

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Posted: 05/15/12 01:52pm

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How charged are your batteries?

smkettner

Southern California

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Posted: 05/15/12 01:55pm

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What is the battery voltage?
MPPT controller?

2001 F150 SuperCrew
2006 Keystone Springdale 249FWBHLS
675 watts solar
Send a PM if I missed something

bigfootford

Fair Oaks, California

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Posted: 05/15/12 01:55pm

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If your battery (s) are charged, or almost then you will see only what they will accept..

Turn on a fan and see if the amps go up...Keep turning on 12vdc stuff until the amps stop climbing.

Do you have a battery monitor like the Trimtric or Link-10.

Jim

2000 2500 9.6 Bigfoot,94 F250, Vision 19.5, Mich 245/70XDS2's, Bilstein shocks, air bags/pump, EU2000, PD 9260,Lifeline 100ah, 200W. solar, Morningstar Sunsaver 15A/ display panel, Trimetric, Delorme/laptop, Holux gps rec,led lights, Wave-3 heat.

bkirkpatrick

Brea / Orange County, CA

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Posted: 05/15/12 01:57pm

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Battery Voltage was at 12.5/12.4 prior to hooking it up (now at 13.9) and the MPPT controller is a Samlex solar 30a controller

2oldman

Winchester WA

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Posted: 05/15/12 02:01pm

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Given those numbers, run something 'heavy' using your inverter like the MW for a couple minutes.. then see what you're getting from the panel.

bkirkpatrick

Brea / Orange County, CA

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Posted: 05/15/12 02:02pm

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bigfootford wrote:

Turned on all the 12v lights / fan and all it did was change the battery volts (dropped to 13.4)

3 tons

CA.

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Posted: 05/15/12 02:06pm

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The 12v lights may not be a substantial enough load...Do you have an inverter??

bkirkpatrick

Brea / Orange County, CA

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Posted: 05/15/12 02:15pm

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Yes. Just ran the hair dryer off the inverter for about 15 seconds and the amps climbed by .5 and the watts increased by 5 watts. I thought there would at least be a setting telling me what is actually coming in from the panels (true watts & amps).

smkettner

Southern California

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Posted: 05/15/12 02:20pm

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Is it this one?

http://www.samlexamerica.com/products/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=60

Manual p28: The scc-30ab is a Series Type of PWM (Pulse Width Modulation) Charge Controller.

Is this the panel?

BP 3170

That 24v panel has Isc spec at 5.2 amps so 3.5 is a little low but I think you are mismatched on panel vs controller.