fikfik: EMERGENCY

When connecting the morning star MPPT, my technician connected the battery sensory to the batt bank first before connecting to the charge controller. When passign the wire (used UTP CAT6 twisted cable about 0.5mm) through the hole to plug into the charge controller the +ve touched the common negative in the charge controller for a tenth of a second with a small spark. After connecting everthing, now my charge controller wont show the green flashing light when turn on the bettery breaker. Have comfirmed 53.5Volts at the charge controller battery bank terminals.

Is my charge controller fried, just because of that small spark wow, this is very sad for me... Please what are your thoughts?

Unfortunately yes. My friend's Morning star MPPT had similar scenario right before my eyes.

fikfik,

sorry about your unfortunate experience.

morningstar specifically warned against this practice in their user manual.

its so sad you that have to fall a victim.

fikfik: EMERGENCY

When connecting the morning star MPPT, my technician connected the battery sensory to the batt bank first before connecting to the charge controller. When passign the wire (used UTP CAT6 twisted cable about 0.2mm) through the hole to plug into the charge controller the +ve touched the common negative in the charge controller for a tenth of a second with a small spark. After connecting everthing, now my charge controller wont show the green flashing light when turn on the bettery breaker. Have comfirmed 53.5Volts at the charge controller battery bank terminals.

Is my charge controller fried, just because of that small spark wow, this is very sad for me... Please what are your thoughts?

Quite unfortunate that such a small spark could cause a major damage in the controller.
Maybe users of Morning Star could write the manufacturers to protect the controller from the consequences of these short circuiting.

Oga George and other suntech panel users, it is true that original suntech panels have a three letter inscription on each of the cells in the panel? I am getting an offer that i cannot resist from one supplier in Lagos and i need to be very sure of the quality of the panels, i have attached a picture sample.

I can remember how we laughed about the information that Suntech panel company was shutting down...
Unfortunately, this could end up been true as the company is in serious financial crises.

bodejohn,

i think what happened to the morningstar charge controller can happen to any other brand name
charge controller. besides, it was stated specifically in the oem manual. i think we should all
try and cultivate the habit of reading manuals of any equipment before use as that will give us
ample knowledge of how best to handle and install such. personally, i never install or use an
equipment unless i'm through with the manual. it might take me days to read but i don't mind.
eventualy i'll get through it and i will be wiser on how best to handle it.

suntech is not actually folding up. they only filed for bankruptcy protection so as to enable
them restructure their debt. however, i think re-sellers and dealers alike are taking advantage
of their situation to secure these mouth-watering deals which would not have been possible
otherwise.

so, i guess that answers your question. if those symbols are engraved then it is most likely a
genuine product. and if it is a genuine suntech product then you have a sweet deal in your hands.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/03/21/news/suntech-solar-bankruptcy/index.html

http://gigaom.com/2013/03/20/a-chinese-solar-giant-goes-bankrupt-and-why-thats-a-good-thing/

http://www.technologyreview.com/view/512806/why-the-bankruptcy-of-suntech-matters/

Well done Oga George! I like the way you present your
explanations it makes most issues very simple. Thanks for detailed
and factual words.

George_D: fikfik,

sorry about your unfortunate experience.

morningstar specifically warned against this practice in their user manual.

its so sad you that have to fall a victim.

As I quiently mope, I accept the reality of the situation I find myself. I also would like to apprecate everyone's empathy. Thanks guys.

I did read the manual for about 5 days thrice and followed the instructions but I wasnt the one that installed it (unfortunately). I just provided guidance. In as much as my technician made a crucial mistake of conencting the power source before connecting the tiny wire, I also fault morning star a little bit in their design. i have an etracer 60 amp MPPT and the small wires such as battery sensor and temperatuer sensor are actualy plugin modules so you conenct the wires away from the device to the head connector of the module and then simply plug the connectied module into the charge controller so there a much lower risk of accidentally bridging stuff. I'm a tiny little bit surprised a innovative company such as Morning Star didnt put such into consideration. The negative terminals are big and so close to the battery sensor terminal thats comparatively tiny. Its just increases the possibility of users making such an error as has happened to me.

Thanks once again and I hope that at least others can learn from this and be very careful when connecting those battery voltage sensors.

Oh and by the way I eventually used 3 series by 4 parrallel PV configuration.

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Hi guys,am a novice at solar matters,just discovered something online n I feel I shld ask d gurus in d house for advise. Please just wanna know how good solar generators really are? Your opinion people

Does anyone have a Morning star 45 amps MPPT for sale? I need it tommorrow.

George_D:

hello dalover,
first of all a quick correction: what i have is a single battery bank with three strings. each of those stands that you see in the picture is called a string. in my setup i have 3 strings with a system voltage of 48v not three or four banks as you're referring to. by the way, the old 200ah 48v setup in the corner has been taken out of service and is no longer part of my system. i hope you understand?

1) series connection is the best any day and if you've been following my earlier posts you'll discover i've always favored series battery installations over parallel ones. however, there are times such as this that you can't just get the size of battery bank you want unless you combine several strings in parallel. i struggled with this decision for a long time before finally settling for what i have now. personally i would have loved to have 24pcs 2v batteries say of 1000ah each and connect them in series but they're neither easily available in this part of our world and if you happen to find them the costs would be so prohibitive to make them economically non-viable.

2) 450 naira per watt is really on the high side. the prices of solar panels have since dropped drastically and you can get a 300w panel for less than half of that amount. call vitus on 08039644115 and discuss with him. i'm not sure he has 300w panels in stock for now but you can always give him a try.

3) it is difficult to see any product manual explaining the complementary work of inverters/solar charge controllers. rather this is a field practical knowledge. most inverters (except for a very few) will charge your batteries up to 85% of their capacities and leave it at that. the charge controller will then take the batteries through the remainder 15% and charge them to the brim. personally i noticed that when my sukam inverter status says 'battery charged' and i check my charge controller, the battery voltage will be around 53v. on a good sunny day, the charge controller will have to spend another couple of hours bringing up that voltage to about 57.6v (adsorption stage) before finally entering float. this is what i refer to as the remainder 15% of battery capacity. if you're using a sukam inverter and don't have a charge controller you'll never get this extra capacity.
again, assuming you used your inverter all through the night and there was power outage. if in the morning public power was restored the inverter begins to charge your batteries. also when the sun rises say at 9am the solar charge controller begins to charge the batteries. assuming the inverter is outputting 20 amps and the charge controller is supplying 30 amps, total charging amps into the battery will be 50 amps. when the battery voltage rises to 53v the sukam cuts off while the solar charge controller continues and takes the batteries the rest of the way.
this in a nutshell is how my hybrid system works. other installations having different brand inverters may vary slightly in terms of what voltage the inverter charger tapers off but you get the general idea.
lastly, there are a few exceptions where the inverter charger takes the batteries all the way to full capacity similar to the charge controller. that will be a topic for another day.

Which inverters charge batteries all the way to float?

dsunmade,

all high end inverters presently in the market will charge your batteries to float, i.e they have
a three or four stage charging algorithm already built into them.

these inverters include (but are not limited to):

1) xantrex
2) magnum
3) outback
4) sunnyboy (sma)
5) tripplite
6) exeltech
7) fronius
9) siemens, etc

George_D: after a couple of hours of combined charging, inverter charger has now cut off with status indicating 'battery charged'. at this stage the batteries are only about 85% full as far as the solar charge controller is concerned. therefore you can see that the solar charger has continued to charge the batteries. rather than cutting off charging at this stage it has entered 'pwm' (absorption) mode. this is the last 15% stage of the charging process i was talking about and it will take another couple of hours to exit this mode after which the batteries would have been 100% charged.

If one's inverter is charging to only 85%, then in a few months to some years, sulphation would have caused irreparable damage to one's battery bank no matter the amount of power PHCN provides. What options do we have to get the extra 15% other than solar power and high-end inverters?
Can we use intelligent 3- or 4-stage chargers?
Are the marketed intelligent 3- or 4-stage chargers truly intelligent?

dsunmade,

yes, they are truly intelligent. and yes again, you're right about the sulpahation part.

charging your batteries to just 85% full is not good enough but unfortunately most peeps don't know this.

the above reason is why most inverter batteries fail. you see peeps keep changing out batteries every two years or less
and they even see this as normal. i was at some other inverter thread a few days ago and was shocked to see a self-styled 'inverter expert' spreading this kind of mis-information.

most average inverters we see around these parts, including cyberpower, sukam, nexus, mopower, prostar, etc are the culprits. they never charge your batteries even to absorption not to talk of float. but then, they are what most peeps
can afford as going for those high end types in the list above costs quite a bunch.

so, if you can afford it please go for high end as far as inverters are concerned. but if you already have solar then your charge controller will always take off from where your inverter stops - provided again your charge controller is a high end type.

George_D: dsunmade,

yes, they are truly intelligent. and yes again, you're right about the sulpahation part.

charging your batteries to just 85% full is not good enough but unfortunately most peeps don't know this.

the above reason is why most inverter batteries fail. you see peeps keep changing out batteries every two years or less
and they even see this as normal. i was at some other inverter thread a few days ago and was shocked to see a self-styled 'inverter expert' spreading this kind of mis-information.

most average inverters we see around these parts, including cyberpower, sukam, nexus, mopower, prostar, etc are the culprits. they never charge your batteries even to absorption not to talk of float. but then, they are what most peeps
can afford as going for those high end types in the list above costs quite a bunch.

so, if you can afford it please go for high end as far as inverters are concerned. but if you already have solar then your charge controller will always take off from where your inverter stops - provided again your charge controller is a high end type.

Goodmorning, please kindly clarify. If one gets any of d high end inverters listed above will there be need forfor one to still use a mppt solar charge controller?

dunka,

as far as battery charging is concerned, a high end inverter will give you the same benefits of a good quality
charge controller but they cannot be substituted for each other. the reason is that each of them has a
specific function. a charge controller works with your solar modules to charge your batteries while your inverter
works with public power to do the same charging.

depending on how regular the power supply in your area is, you may decide to forgo the extra expense of installing
solar panels in which case you will not need a charge controller. but if the power supply in your area is poor
and you plan to augment your battery charging with solar panels, please go for a high end charge controller.
at the end, the extra cost of buying a good quality charge controller will translate into longer lasting batteries
for you and cost savings when you don't have to replace your batteries every other year.

so for your short answer: if you have solar panels installed, yes you still need an mppt charge controller despite
having a high end inverter.

Thank you sir yr take on this and other issues is so enlightening.

Is it possible to connect a dc power supply source to a charge controller instead of a solar panel?

dsunmade: Is it possible to connect a dc power supply source to a charge controller instead of a solar panel?

Yes its possible if the dc supply is in the operating range of the charge controller. But the dc supply should be well filtered to reduce harmonics.
A desktop pc power pack would make an excellent dc supply. You should not try this experiment with an MPPT charge controller though.

Gurus in the house, please does anyone one know if a PRAG GED GELL BATTERY 12v 200 ah is as good as other inverter batteries eg Zenith battery in the market? Kindly advise

Akanniade:


Yes its possible if the dc supply is in the operating range of the charge controller. But the dc supply should be well filtered to reduce harmonics.
A desktop pc power pack would make an excellent dc supply. You should not try this experiment with an MPPT charge controller though.

[quote author=Akanniade]
why not? That was my plan. Combine a dc source with a mppt source controller to get the perfect charging device for my battery bank.

[quote author=dsunmade][/quote]
The cost of an mppt controller would buy you a decent intelligent ac -dc charger with 5 charge state. I dont know what your dc source is, but if it is just a rectified voltage from a xformer, its a no-no for an mppt.

Please recommend a decent ac/dc charger with 5 charge state that i can use to charge my 24v, 400Ah battery bank? Thanks

Akanniade:
The cost of an mppt controller would buy you a decent intelligent ac -dc charger with 5 charge state. I dont know what your dc source is, but if it is just a rectified voltage from a xformer, its a no-no for an mppt.

dsunmade: Please recommend a decent ac/dc charger with 5 charge state that i can use to charge my 24v, 400Ah battery bank? Thanks

Any luck so far?

Am trying to get the url of zenith battery manufacturer, google led me to zenithdcbattery dot com but I guess its not the same zenith battery sold in lagos as those on the url seems to be red colored while the ones I have seen on local online store and George_D's post are grey/black.

Need to download the batteries spec sheet, then compare reliability,warranty,pricing with other manufacturers like trojan/surette etc.

Akanniade:
Any luck so far?

Saw this one online http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008BIB67E/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2B14RDPSDAP3W but the price is quite high.
I am thinking of buying this 120v 12A 2 bank charger, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003JSJS5I, connecting a step-down transformer and using it and the inverter for charging at the same time. Can it work like that?

The ones you posted are 12volts. But your battery bank is 24volts?

pls can some1 show me pics of the roof stands/support you used in mounting/placing ur panels on the roof.......

dsunmade:
Saw this one online http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008BIB67E/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=A2B14RDPSDAP3W but the price is quite high.
I am thinking of buying this 120v 12A 2 bank charger, http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003JSJS5I, connecting a step-down transformer and using it and the inverter for charging at the same time. Can it work like that?

Akanniade: The ones you posted are 12volts. But your battery bank is 24volts?

This is the link to the 24V charger http://www.amazon.com/Charge-Ultra-Battery-Charger-outputs/dp/B008BIDBWW

The other one I posted is said to be capable of charging 2 banks of 12 V battery and can be used to charge 2 batteries in series seperately. I am seriously considering the 2nd one coz of the low price.

@ earthrealm What's the update about the Renogy panels?

Akanniade: The ones you posted are 12volts. But your battery bank is 24volts?

I read that it's preferable to charge a 24V system with 2 12V chargers connected across each battery, http://smartercharger.com/faq/
The charger in question charges 2 banks, each at 12V. http://www.geniuschargers.com/GEN2/specs
I however think the charger may still be underpowered, even if I use it at the same time as the inverter to charge.
What are your opinions? Please, I need some guidance, here.

dsunmade:
I read that it's preferable to charge a 24V system with 2 12V chargers connected across each battery, http://smartercharger.com/faq/
The charger in question charges 2 banks, each at 12V. http://www.geniuschargers.com/GEN2/specs
I however think the charger may still be underpowered, even if I use it at the same time as the inverter to charge.
What are your opinions? Please, I need some guidance, here.

I think it should work fine that way. Your step down xformer though, should be at least 500w. Your concern about being underpowered is not necessary unless you plan to expand your battery bank.

DUNKA: Gurus in the house, please does anyone one know if a PRAG GED GELL BATTERY 12v 200 ah is as good as other inverter batteries eg Zenith battery in the market? Kindly advise

Has no one used the above mentioned batteries?