(back story) we bought a tourer last year fitted with 5 solar panels on the roof, connected to a MPPT30 solar charger and a brand new 115Ah battery.
On a sunny day the controller indicates PV (photo voltage?) 8 - 10A. during the day the battery is reported as 100%, but night time it drops to 67% (its always 67% and lower)
at night, when running off battery, if we run a pump (flush/ tap) the lights will dim.
All the lights are led so cant be drawing that much, we are running a small tv (Aldi 12v which i think is 3A)
Im a self confessed nerd, but no didderly squat about solar setups.
so after all of that, anyone any idea why the lights dim when i run a pump?
is the solar controller not working as it should?
is my leisure battery not upto the task?
answers on a postcade please ta
------------- If it wasnt for bad luck, i'd have no luck at all
That has all the signs of a knackered battery. Just running off battery alone it would not be unusual for the lights to dim very slightly when a pump starts up, as they draw a fair current, but it shouldn't be serious.
If your battery is 100% during the day, it shouldn't drop that much at night. It sounds like it's not holding a charge very well. Either that or something you are using (TV perhaps) is drawing a lot more current than you realise.
Yep I concur with Colin21, again I am no expert here, but have been dabbling with leisure batteries during lockdown, if you have one of the Aldi/Lidl type intelligent chargers, it will display �ERROR� if the battery is not holding it�s charge, the charger will go into standby, but it�s a good way of finding out if the battery is goosed or not.
Another test is to fully charge the battery, say overnight or 24hrs, then take it of charge, it could be reading as high as 13.70v maybe more, but after a couple of hours should settle at about 13.30v then monitor for around around five days, if the battery is healthy it will keep to around 12.90v if the battery has dropped to 12.50v then it is ok but only just, if the battery has gone to 12.06v then that would indicate that it is loosing charge rapidly and is only at 50% having had no load, and is in effect of no use.
Yes it could be a rubbish battery, or there could be a drain on it from somewhere. I doubt there's anything much wrong with the charger if it's bringing the battery up to 100% during the day. Sounds like the battery is not holding that charge for some reason. If you have an ammeter, connect it in series with one of the battery leads when the charger isn't charging, and see what current is being drawn.
Yep, I have one of the Aili battery monitors on my portable 120Ah LA battery box, the monitor even shows the residual amp leakage when there is no load, apart from the monitor itself, probably less than 0.005 of an amp, quite handy though especially if I have left the 600watt inverter turned on, which draws around 0.50 amp with no load at all.
The Aili battery monitor is really designed to be mounted in a caravan/Motorhome/boat etc, but works fine for me, mounted to my portable battery box, and saves me messing about with a meter if I need to check the battery status, as it can all be done at a glance.
The Aili battery monitor is a copy of the £150 Victron unit, but is just £28 from China, great bit of kit if you are interested in looking after your leisure battery.
If checking for amps with a meter you are best using a clamp meter that can do DC not just AC, just make sure that it’s set for DC as most default to AC, which is what my Mini UNIT-T UT211B Clamp Meter does.
Certainly not impossible to have a faulty battery. Being cautious I thought I would change my 7 year old car battery before going to the continent.
Needless to say after 1 day on a campsite the car wouldn't start. A faulty cell. Thankfully the RAC were wonderful.
DaveS1
It can also be a slightly loose terminal connection to the battery. This can introduce resistance into the system. When no load or lightly loaded, volts will be OK. When loaded by the pump etc, volts will be low.
I've seen a few similar reports, often with a MPPT30 or similar. It looks like that's just the way the controller reports the battery life, based on the voltage, and it's quite normal.
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Topic: Solar charging - dim lights
via mobile 11/8/2020 at 3:45pm
