I’ll preface this by saying I’m very poorly versed with electronics, but I’ll try my best.
In the last week or so, the 150w solar panel on my camper van appears to have stopped functioning correctly.
The MPPT is frequently showing 0.01v, 0.0a and 0 watts even in full sun. The charger is off and the reason says OR1 insufficient pv power.
However, sometimes it seems to work as expected, usually in the morning, pulling in 20-30w and a voltage of 20v or so.
I tried taking a voltage measurement at the pv input on the MPPT and it showed 0.01v, same as the app reading, so that led me
to believe the panel must be faulty, if the voltage is that low on the input before it even reaches the MPPT. But then sometimes it works and reads a much higher voltage even if the vehicle hasn’t moved. So that seems to go against my thought of a loose connection somewhere.
I can’t get to the plugs of the solar panel without fully stripping the interior on one side of the vehicle, so thats the last port of call.
So my questions are, could a faulty panel cause the low voltage issue, but then just randomly work, would a loose connection at the plugs cause this and why would it change even if the vehicle hasn’t moved.
It first happend after the vehicle wasn’t used for a week unexpectedly and the battery protect kicked in and shut everything off. Before that happend, the solar was consistently bringing In 150-350wh a day depending on the weather then it dropped to 70wh and has been around 20-30wh a day for the last few days.
I’m at a loss as to what the issue could be except for a faulty panel, but I don’t know how to test for that.
I should say the system was installed in April 2023 and up until the last two weeks has been working fine.
Any help would be much appreciated!
