Getting Up to 14.8 Volts with Solar

[svpresent]

Hi,

Seems I've murdered my 1200 Ah Trojan battery bank by chronically undercharging.

I have 430 watts of solar from 6 panels, each on a separate MPPT controller. Next to that an unregulated Kiss windgen and a genset with a Victron Multiplus 12/120/2500.

I normally charge only with solar and wind. But I can't get over the 13.8 volts. With the multiplus I'll get the 14.8 but that is too little a load on the genset.

Any ideas if I can bypass the solar controllers? I'd be grateful for some advice here.

Cheers, Len.

[Nice N Easy]

I don't see how you can expect to gain much by disconnecting the a controller. The panels put out 17 or more volts, which may do more harm than good. Thats a lot of generating power, how much stuff are you running. Maybe you need to figure ways to reduce power usage. With that much output, you could run a lot of stuff. I have the usual stuff aboard, including a small fridge, a 450ah battery bank, and I do nicely with 300 watts of solar, and keep batteries fully charged unless I get two or three cloudy days back to back. And this is when out for weeks at a time, without ever going into a marina to plug up, and I have a small generator for an emergency back up that has never been started since new. Courious what all you are using that could draw that much power. Unless of course you are trying to run an AC unit, and that aint' even gonna work.

[witzgall]

What MMPT controller do you have? Many have a pot that you can turn, to adjust the charging voltage. I bet yours it set too low?

Chris

[MarkJ]

All the stuff I hear is to rip out the solar controllers unless you can over charge your battery bank..... at 1,200 amp hours you aint gunna do that!

[bill good]

Rip out controllers??? maybe but that may not be the reason for trouble but I would find out why & fix the reason. Mind you Mark Full steam ahead has got you a fair way round the world!! on KISS

Len check PM

Regards Bill

[mesquaukee]

Most contollers are adjustable, if not just bypass them for a few days and periodicaly check the voltage.
We regularly hit 14.25 (adjustable) volts with 320 watts and a 900 AmpHr bank.

[Hurricane Harry]

I would override the regulators and measure to see what happens. Thats a lot of amphrs. Be hard to hurt those batteries.
Good Luck
Harry