A technology used to harvest the maximum power from a renewable resource.
THE METER READING HALF SCALE IS ABOUT 20 AMPS TO THE BATTERIES.
This is my electronics and electrical bench.
Southwest winters are mild. Very comfortable during the day, chilly at night. This time of year, energy from the sun is low. However this type of charge controller coupled with a high energy array will find the maximum power available. In the summer, it will limit the power and condition the batteries.
The voltage output from these arrays would be too high to efficiently charge 12 volt batteries. At the time I got the solar arrays, I needed a fast easy installation. These adhere to the roof of the trailer. The PVL-144 are solar laminate.
The Morningstar TRISTAR MPPT 60 includes an Ethernet port and web server. Presently I don't have internet connectivity to the tail of my trailer, where I've mounted my solar arrays, batteries and the new charge controller. However I have a spare router. I've run an Ethernet connection from the charge controller to the router and WiFi connected my tablet. Now I can wirelessly connect to the TRISTAR to read it's web formatted data.
Today is cloudy, it's 10am and the LED lights in the trailer are shining bright. The MPPT is converting 150 watts from my solar arrays. The battery voltage is 12.6 volts. When I step outside, it's cool and cloudy with almost no shadow. How can it be I'm getting almost 12 amps from my solar arrays? The way it had been, I'd be running my generator on a day like today. Yesterday was sunny all day and my charge controller logged 1500 watt hours.
Techie:
The analog meter below the monitor is shunt calibrated to read power. It will read full scale on summer solstice, but in winter, reads only about a third scale.
