Quick solar question

[farotherside]

Hey all,

I'm shutting down the boat for the season in Mexico. The dry storage yard in San Carlos does not have electricity.

I am planning to cover one of my two 140w panels with a bit of plywood, tied down tightly, but leave the other uncovered to keep the batteries topped up.

My charge controller is a Blue Sky Energy "Solar Boost 3024i" - I am worried about what it will be doing with the excess current once the batteries are fully charged! Nothing in the manual mentions any way to hook up a dump circuit like a fan or a water heater...

Is this actually even something you have to worry about with solar? I know you need one with a wind generator, but how does solar handle excess current?

[roetter]

Solar does not cause a problem when the batteries are full. The charger just disconnects from the panels and all is fine.

[twinboat]

Left my 675 watt system with my TriStar MPPT 60 on for 3 months, on the hard with no load and all was fine.

[sailorboy1]

there was a recent thread where the OP did the same thing and cooked their batteries because they would go into absorption each day and boiled out the water

can you adjust the time settings for your controller so that it either doesn't stay in absorption, or can you change the voltage settings etc

[barnakiel]

Our controller drops to something like 13.7 (?) once it hits 14.5 and that's that. No harm done. No boiling.

b.

[djmarchand]

As others have said, solar panels are a bit unique. The controller simply electrically disconnects the batteries from the panels when the batteries are full. It cycles the connection rapidly to maintain the float voltage. There is no harm to the panels as there might be with a wind genearator.

David