Solar/Generator Charging

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by travellerw

Location helps.. Right now in Grenada, my solar is putting in about %75 of the rated output (high puffy clouds). Thats about 50A. Down here we see %75 and above for about 3 hours every day.

here we are losing daylight at a rate of approximately 3 minutes per day .
At the height of summer I saw 18 amps output for many hours
But 400 watts will only give me at a max 22 amps output.
That's at the max rated output for the panels.

[travellerw]

Originally Posted by newhaul

here we are losing daylight at a rate of approximately 3 minutes per day .
At the height of summer I saw 18 amps output for many hours
But 400 watts will only give me at a max 22 amps output.
That's at the max rated output for the panels.

Unfortunately down here the summer sun is offset by the thuderstorms. However on really clear days its shocking how much solar we actually put in. Just last week, one of the big named storms switched the winds and had all the boats pointing north at the height of the day. Our solar actually produced more than the 900 rated watts for about 20 minutes (about 920W). Its pretty cool to see your solar put in more amps than your dock charger is capable. The peak down here is between about 11AM and 3PM (with an hour of blocked sun for showers).

This will be our first winter on our LFP bank. I'm very interested to see how it functions. I'm really looking forward to not stressing about getting back to 100% every 5-6 days.

Anyway.. I'm gonna bow out now as the OPs question has been answer 5 times over.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by travellerw

Unfortunately down here the summer sun is offset by the thuderstorms. However on really clear days its shocking how much solar we actually put in. Just last week, one of the big named storms switched the winds and had all the boats pointing north at the height of the day. Our solar actually produced more than the 900 rated watts for about 20 minutes (about 920W). Its pretty cool to see your solar put in more amps than your dock charger is capable. The peak down here is between about 11AM and 3PM (with an hour of blocked sun for showers).

This will be our first winter on our LFP bank. I'm very interested to see how it functions. I'm really looking forward to not stressing about getting back to 100% every 5-6 days.

Anyway.. I'm gonna bow out now as the OPs question has been answer 5 times over.

agreed
An aside.

I will just be happy to get my new Lfp bank installed before the spring thaw

[smac999]

Originally Posted by travellerw

Yes, your charger is double your solar. However your solar is far from irrelevant while the generator is running. It can still contribute roughly another 25A to the total output (unless its dark out). Not sure I would call %30 of total output irrelevant.

a good setup would have 200-300a charger on a lfp bank. 25a becomes irelivent.

even most AGM banks I install gets 200a of charging.

[newhaul]

Originally Posted by smac999

a good setup would have 200-300a charger on a lfp bank. 25a becomes irelivent.

even most AGM banks I install gets 200a of charging.

just an fyi as to his comments my Lfp bank is only 100ah and the solar is my primary charge source

[Bleemus]

The OP never mentioned LFP and if he did have them I presume he would have.

He also asked a simple question about the interaction between a generator and a solar charge controller.

One would assume that he has a standard FLA or AGM setup like most of us. The answers provided by John and a few others are enough for him to move forward.