It's now the start of year 5 in the story of our Sprinter conversion. We recently sold our home in Philadelphia, and are once again "full timing" in the van, except that we've already fallen in love with and bought a home in Santa Fe.
Everything continues to be fine with the van (more or less, I won't get started) but the behaviour of our solar charge controller bothers me and I have been wondering if there are alternatives that can do what I think it should.
We have a Morningstar MPPT controller, along with the associated TriStar "remote meter". We also have a Trimetric battery meter.
The Tristar shows me the current being delivered by the charge controller; the Trimetric shows me the current arriving at the batteries. Obviously, in almost all cases, the Trimetric current reading is less than the value on the Tristar - no problems with that.
The charge controller is doing its "clever" thing where it limits the power delivered to the (AGM) batteries based on their current charge state. We're mostly in the high 80%-95% range, so it tends not to deliver a lot of power even in clear overhead sun. Although I'd prefer lithiums so that we could just absorb as much power as the sun can give us, I understand that in terms of the health of our batteries, the controller is being smart about it.
Here's what bothers me. The Trimetric can see that the actual current (and voltage and thus power) arriving at the batteries is less than the values displayed by the Tristar, because of ongoing loads on the electrical system. The fridge may be drawing power, or a laptop charger, or the Espar D2 or whatever. But the charge controller appears to have no understanding of this at all. Its power delivery is based entirely on its understanding of the battery state, not the current system state.
I am wondering if there's a charge controller that can use a measurement point like the Trimetric, understand that we're actually drawing power from the system while it is charging, and increase the power delivery from the panels while this is happening.
Specific case in point: charge controller is delivering 150W (from 540W of panels) at 10A to the batteries. Trimetric shows 9.2A being delivered ... we're good. Now plug in a 135W laptop charger. The charge controller does NOTHING different. I'd like one that understands what has just happened and responds by increasing the delivery from the panels.
Does this exist?
Everything continues to be fine with the van (more or less, I won't get started) but the behaviour of our solar charge controller bothers me and I have been wondering if there are alternatives that can do what I think it should.
We have a Morningstar MPPT controller, along with the associated TriStar "remote meter". We also have a Trimetric battery meter.
The Tristar shows me the current being delivered by the charge controller; the Trimetric shows me the current arriving at the batteries. Obviously, in almost all cases, the Trimetric current reading is less than the value on the Tristar - no problems with that.
The charge controller is doing its "clever" thing where it limits the power delivered to the (AGM) batteries based on their current charge state. We're mostly in the high 80%-95% range, so it tends not to deliver a lot of power even in clear overhead sun. Although I'd prefer lithiums so that we could just absorb as much power as the sun can give us, I understand that in terms of the health of our batteries, the controller is being smart about it.
Here's what bothers me. The Trimetric can see that the actual current (and voltage and thus power) arriving at the batteries is less than the values displayed by the Tristar, because of ongoing loads on the electrical system. The fridge may be drawing power, or a laptop charger, or the Espar D2 or whatever. But the charge controller appears to have no understanding of this at all. Its power delivery is based entirely on its understanding of the battery state, not the current system state.
I am wondering if there's a charge controller that can use a measurement point like the Trimetric, understand that we're actually drawing power from the system while it is charging, and increase the power delivery from the panels while this is happening.
Specific case in point: charge controller is delivering 150W (from 540W of panels) at 10A to the batteries. Trimetric shows 9.2A being delivered ... we're good. Now plug in a 135W laptop charger. The charge controller does NOTHING different. I'd like one that understands what has just happened and responds by increasing the delivery from the panels.
Does this exist?