Inverter charging

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Brian asked May 22, '22

Inverter charging

Hi, can you please explain to me why my battery's wont charge when the inverter is on? In the photo I have amps in at 9 A, and amps out is 4.83A. It seems the battery should be charging with the leftover energy. But it is not and the batteries continue to drain. The only way to charge the batteries is to turn the inverter off or plug into shore power. Even when all ac appliances in standby. The charger light on the inverter never comes on when I am unplugged from AC power. I'm trying to troubleshoot if there is something wrong with the hardware, settings or something else. Thanks for any help.

smart solar charging behaviour

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Answer 1 · 2022-05-23T04:39:51Z

elvis answered · May 23, 2022 at 04:39 AM

I guess I'm confused about your question.

From your screen shot it appears that your solar is producing 23.0 amps either into the battery or the inverter loads. It appears to be working fine. Are your inverter loads exceeding the solar charger output?

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Brian commented · May 23, 2022 at 07:45 PM

Thanks for the reply. The batteries will drain even with all ac appliances in standby drawing 317 wattts. Everything was working fine, but i thought i had an issue with the panels as many people beileve when the batteries are charged the mppt shows the panels behaving erratically, so I did however use a multi meter on the mppt to check the panels were producing amps, and used the wrong 10 amp setting which threw sparks on the PV pos and neg on the mppt. Since then i am experiencing problems with charging. But as you can see it appears to be working… somewhat. But no charge when inverter is on, only drains batteries? Are yiu saying the panels are producing 23.3 amps?

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elvis Brian commented · May 25, 2022 at 01:38 AM

Current measurements are made in series not parallel.

Dont measure current the way you did. Its not a wrong setting on your meter, its that you shorted the pos/neg together by making the measurement in parallel. Thats why you had sparks.

Your solar panels are producing 317 watts with an output current of 23 amps (13.36V).

That 23 amps is going somewhere, either to the loads or the battery or both.

Your shunt indicates that you are draining 4.3 amps from the battery.

That means you are using 27 amps total. (23+4.3).

Your system appears to be working fine.

How many panels do you have?

What size and how many batteries?

27 amp draw while only producing 317 watts wont last long if you have a small battery. On the other hand if the battery is big its going to take a long time to charge with a large continuous draw.

FYI and for your safety, Get a clamp-on current meter its much safer.

Measuring current can be dangerous.

1 amp in the wrong place on your body can stop your heart.

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Answer 2 · 2022-05-25T03:37:15Z

Matthias Lange - DE answered · May 25, 2022 at 03:37 AM

Can you please give us some more information about your system? What components do you have exactly?

An inverter can't charge your battery and a MultiPlus can charge your battery only if shore power is connected.

If the current into the battery goes up when you switch off the inverter than there must be something at the AC output of the inverter using that power.

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