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thunt601 avatar image
thunt601 asked

Why is my solar in float mode when batteries are dead?

I have a mppt 100/50 charge controller. Woke up this morning to dead batteries. Charge controller has been in float mode for 6 hours now. I have 650w panels and it only brought in 30wh today and it's sunny. But shows my batteries have been as low as 0.01v and high of 12.4v. very confused but inverter will not power on. App says my current battery is 13.6v

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4 Answers
Mark avatar image
Mark answered ·

I think that there could be an open circuit condition between the MPPT output & the batteries.

Do you have a fuse/circuit breaker or some kind of disconnect device between the MPPT & the batteries? If so check it for continuity.

And yes even a cheap multimeter is a good investment & will be very helpful to troubleshoot any issues.

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thunt601 avatar image thunt601 commented ·

That was it. Fuse was popped. Thanks for help! I'm so inexperienced with electrical

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Mark avatar image Mark ♦♦ thunt601 commented ·

No worries, good to hear that it's now working.

PS. I'm not sure what amperage fuse your using, but it needs to be a fair amount higher than the max normal operation current to prevent it getting hot & blowing prematurely. Somewhere ~1.5x as a rough guide.

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adev avatar image
adev answered ·

What makes you think the batteries are dead? If they are at 13.6 volts in float mode, that means they are full. Can you run any loads? Do you have a multimeter you can use to check actual voltage at the battery terminals?

How long have you had the setup and was it working before?

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thunt601 avatar image thunt601 commented ·

So I had used them a lot through the night and woke up to the inverter beeping low battery (10.1v). I messed up and was looking at the wrong reading the batteries were never at 13.6v. So the inverter wouldn't turn on after it beeped low battery. I called battle born and and they said the batteries could be in low volt disconnect and I would have to hook up jumper cables to my van and batteries to get them awake. I did that. And got the batteries up to 12.2v and the inverter came back on and all seemed good. But the charge controller is only running 3-5w off the panels. Which are 650. So I got the power back up and have a reading of 12.2 but the solar seems to have an issue.


The set up is about a month old. Been working perfect but had never drained that low. Usually on a good day it would run at 400-550w in bulk/absorption and have almost 2,000kwh total. The last 2 days it has only peaked at 7w and 30kwh per day. So if I use the battery it just goes dead and the solar stays in float mode all day.


I don't have a multimeter but could pick one up if needed. But the batteries were obviously dead and now they're not after hooking up the van and jumping them.

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adev avatar image adev thunt601 commented ·

I agree with Mark’s comment. Get a multimeter and use that to check for continuity. Also re check over all your connections and any crimps/joins and make sure they are firm.

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des avatar image des thunt601 commented ·

Did you ever sort this because I have exactly the same problem. It was working for a month then suddenly nothing.

Thanks

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christopher-maric avatar image christopher-maric des commented ·

Did you recently do a firmware upgrade?

Mine was working fine a month ago, but the last couple of weeks I'm having the same issue.

Fuses are okay from the panels to controller and controller to battery.

Voltage at battery with a multimeter is 12.58, but the controller moves straight to float and sends no charge to the battery. I'm stumped.

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thunt601 avatar image
thunt601 answered ·

This is my current stats for the last few days


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erica100 avatar image
erica100 answered ·

Hello Thunt601. I see your post was a few years back ... but I have exactly those screenshots and exactly that problem, so I am hoping that you found the answer and can help me out? Cheers.

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kevgermany avatar image kevgermany ♦♦ commented ·
If you read the posts, you'll see it was a blown fuse
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