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Wahoo Sails · 01-05-2007, 10:22

We are underway from Boot Key Harbor to the Abacos, and one major fly in the ointment has come up. I have 2 BP 160W solar panels, running through an Outback 60 MPPT charge contoller, then into 4 golf cart batteries. From my standpoint, the system works to perefction! It has run for weeks at a time without needing to run the engine at all.
Now for the problem, the Outback 60 puts out so much RFI that my handheld radio starts "hissing" 40' away from the boat! I did the obvious this morning ... I called the manufacture, and talked to a very nice young man, his solution was very, very simple "Just build a lead box around it" ..... ???? I asked if that wouldn't cause it to overheat (as though I had access to lead for such a box) he figured that could be a problem. Since that was going nowhere, I called Affordable Solar, the place I spent my money at. Gee ... I talked to yet another bright, young man, his comment was "Actually ... I would suggest building a Farraday cage around it instead"

.... OK, these people (who should know) are apparently clueless ... anyone got any realistic ideas?
Bob

sv_makai · 01-05-2007, 10:40

We have the BlueSky energy MPPT controller and after 3 years of use there appears to be no noise from the unit. Are you picking up any noise or other interfernce from your onboard vhf or HF radio? 40 feet away must be causing some issue with other items onboad.

Are you absolutley sure it is the outback. PC's are very dirty when it comes to RFI. Have you checked all possible sources.

Have you tried to place ferrites on the power lines to and from the outback unit? These work to suppress RFI if it is being fed in the lines.

Also are you sure that the the outback unit it self isn't having any problems. I have not heard anyone else having a problem in the same magnatude.

Good hunting