Hello –
I have prepared a system on a 4‘ x 4‘ piece of plywood with a multi plus inverter, a solar charge controller, a Cerbo GX, cellular modem, and an auto transformer.
As my off grid cabin site is 132 miles north of me I would like to test the system somehow prior to taking it up to our cabin site. If something isn’t working, or it needs a part or cable, I would like to know that prior to driving up there.
Would love to hear your advice on how to test it. It’s a 48 V system.
Thank you!
I bench tested my 24V RV setup before installation, mostly to verify communications and battery settings for my DIY lithium pack. I used the battery from the install, and some spare 12V batteries for house & chassis.
A space heater, heat gun, and shop vac to simulate loads on the AC system, an old set of driving lights for 12V load, and a 60V 5A power supply to simulate PV on one of the 4 solar controllers. It worked pretty well to see how the system behaves in the corner cases. It was a bit of work, but made commissioning the system much easier.
As long as the battery is connected to the inverter, then the system can be powered up for testing.
Grid can be used to test in place of the generator, If you have a powersupply of 60V or more, this can be used to test the solar charger, otherwise not to bother, they are usually pretty reliable, and will show up on coms if it’s working.
You should also be able to check out the remote coms and set up the VRM.
Would it be ok to connect a 12v battery to the solar charge controller to just enter the settings? The SCC is a 48v version…
Going up to the cabin site tomorrow to bring the equipment up
If you first power up with a 12V battery, the automatic selection will set the MPPT to 12V and auto detection is then disabled. You will need to set it to 48V manually before making changes to settings.