Newly fitted dual Solar & Battery layout

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Hi guys & girls
When I bought my van it was a simply 100 w solar panel to one leisure battery
I recently upgraded it to 2 x 100 W solar panels (In parallel) to 2 x 90Ah leisure batteries (In parallel) using a Vitrion 165 MPP Solar controller
To my dismay it only charges them up partially but always sees the starter battery good & Always charges all batteries on a run
I was ignorant to any Split charge relays or finessing wiring of the batteries together but have checked;
All wiring is secure, Jumpers are set to Lead Acid sealed batteries, Power is coming from solar panels in sunshine& the batteries are identical & both bought together
Can anyone please tell me why my leisure batteries will not charge past 65% but my vehicle battery will to 100% ( I swapped them over but it was worse)
Could it to be with the split charge relay perhaps which I had not factored in?
I have looked around & wondered if I shudda got a Sterling Battery Maintainer after all instead?
 
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Sure on my van is a LED display independant of charging system that shows Status of
Water levels & Power levels of Starter or Leisure via 4 LEDS 1 is 25% 4 are 100% so am guessing 60-75% charged
On my old setup with one solar panel it charged upto 100% every time ie 4 LEDS
 
Really you need to disconnect the batteries and put a meter across them to find out what state of charge they are at.

Try disconnecting the starter battery from the charge controller and see if the batteries charge to a higher level.
 
Phil said:
Really you need to disconnect the batteries and put a meter across them to find out what state of charge they are at.

Try disconnecting the starter battery from the charge controller and see if the batteries charge to a higher level.
Click to expand...
Cheers Phil will do thanks pal
 
Well latest is this
I found that the the jumpers were set wrong
So set them right to suit batteries however, the full set of LEDS started flashing with no charging going on
I disconnected solar panel feed - no diff
Then the battery feed - no change
Got fed up as sun was going down hoping it would sort itself out by tomorrow
As if
 
Its the same this morning now all batteries are going down
I think all I can do is unplug all wires from controller & start again
 
Searched for Vitrion but kept coming up with Voltronic is this same unit ?

Just had a quick look at the spec of the Voltonic MPP165 solar regulator and the starter battery output only gives a trickle charge

Dual output channels allow for main leisure battery charging AND trickle charge top-up to your car battery

So that may explain why you thought it was worse when you swopped them around


You say the leisure batteries won’t go over 65% is this even after leaving all electrical items switched off for a long period

over a couple of days of sun with no draw they should be 100%



What are the solar panel specs ? by combining the two make sure your not exceeding what the charger can handle

Votronic MPP 165 Duo Dig Solar charger
This controller is suitable for solar panels from 50 - 165 Wp and up to 10 A current.


Are both 90ah batteries indentical and new ?

Or both solar panels identical?

Is the vitrion mpp 165 newly fitted or is it the original solar charger if so did the one battery get fully charged ?


So what have you actually added . One extra battery and one extra solar panel?


Could be worth experimenting with different combinations to see if anything changes

I.e. temporarily disconnect one of the batteries or one of the panels
 
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Also ensure polarities are correct , my friend bought brand new Elddis with factory fitted solar and the factory had connected panel wrong way around and dealer didnt spot it either

In fact at the hand over they were told if controller led flashing then its charging when in fact the led flashing sequence was actually indicating a fault
 
Cooleo jumpers were wrong!
They were in service mode
Now it is charging so hopefully will charge to 100% will see later
 
Wow Trek just saw your message
Well it used to have a different controller for one leisure battery & same starter battery with one solar panel
I have recently bought similar solar panel (120w) and fitted to roof additionally
Yes Votronic 165 is what i bought & fitted (replaced old one with)
Two new batteries Exide 90Ah Leisure batteries bought to replace old battery
Solar panels & batteries are in parallel
I will find out later if it charges properly now jumpers are correctly positioned hopefully
 
Oh dear it made No difference whatsoever I am now wondering if this controller is the real deal
I will add my old controller to see any difference
 
I use a Votronic 250 Dual MPPT controller and it does indeed have a take off for the starter battery that is a constant 1amp when harvesting if needed. I have found it a good bit of kit so far and certainly no problems topping up my 2x90AH batteries. If you run through how the panels are connected (to each other and controller) then which terminals you have connected to what on the controller someone may spot the problem ?
 
nabsim said:
I use a Votronic 250 Dual MPPT controller and it does indeed have a take off for the starter battery that is a constant 1amp when harvesting if needed.
Click to expand...
Yes, I have one of those, currently kept as a spare, but I have tested it properly
It is well made, small and neat and it does work as an MPPT controller, but do be pedantic, it is not a dual MPPT controller.
It is only MPPT on one channel, so it is a dual controller with MPPT.
You would need to buy two controllers to get dual MPPT.
I'm not sure whether you could successfully run two MPPT controllers from one solar panel. I must try it some time!
 
It’s just I couldn’t remember the full name it gives, it may be dual digital
 
Cheers it turned out that
My 165 was not man enough for the 120W x 2 solar array
But apparently the 250 voltronic can
So got one & it still wasnt charging!
Turns out that when fitting battery under drivers seat I arced out on seat frame knocking out both battery fuses derr
Fuses replaced
All sorted cheers everyone!
Namaste
 
“Turns out that when fitting battery under drivers seat I arced out on seat frame knocking out both battery fuses”

Bloody hell !

You dont want to be doing that !

You must be extremely careful working with batteries, hell of a lot of power just ready to burn through you and your spanners


Use insulated tools , keep battery terminals covered with caps etc and always disconnect negative ( earth ) first and reconnect last
 
I wonder if it's a connection issue, if you have done this it's not going to help to do it again.

Controllers may be smart, but you have to be smarter to make them work right.

1, Disconnect both the LBs and the panel, removing the fuses will be fine.

2, Connect the LBs, and leave for ten minutes, go have a brew.

3, Connect the panel again.

This is the only proper way to set it up, it gives the controller a chance to see the actual state of the LBs, it then know what to allow into them, I suspect if this is not done, it errs on the side of caution and doesn't give the LBs a good charge.
 
Trek said:
Also ensure polarities are correct , my friend bought brand new Elddis with factory fitted solar and the factory had connected panel wrong way around and dealer didnt spot it either

In fact at the hand over they were told if controller led flashing then its charging when in fact the led flashing sequence was actually indicating a fault
Click to expand...
My system has 2 x 120w solar panels and 2 x 125 LBs and gives a trickle charge to the starter battery. It was fitted by TowTal over 5 years ago and has worked perfectly all the time. However, the control lights on the charging panel show red - amber- green. It has only ever been on amber once when it was not on EHU but stored in a garage for a month! Meanwhile the green light flashes when charging and goes steady when both LBs have reached full charge.
 
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