Solar help

realtreeHD

realtreeHD

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I have a solar set up in the barn at my house because it was too expensive to run power that far just for the occasional use of lights or fans.  

My current problem is that I need 1 light to stay on for 5 hours.  The system isn't recharging enough during the day to run the light anywhere near that long. 

I'll post pics of my set up below but I have 4 - 100w solar panels, a renogy charge controller, 4 6v deep cycle batteries and a 3000w renogy inverter.  The lights in the barn are 60w led flood lights.  I need the light to stay on every night from 5pm to 10pm so on the output side of the inverter I plugged in your typical timer like you would use for Xmas lights.  Thinking this will have power 24/7 but only power the barn during those hours.  On the other end I leave the lights I want switched to the on position so that when the timer powers the barn, the light comes on. 

When I did my original calculations I figured I could power the whole barn (6 lights) for 6 hours and recharge with only 4 hours of daylight the following day. But it isn't working that way.  The other weird part is that the timer doesn't come on at 5pm like it's set to.  It's almost like the power isn't consistent enough to keep the timer on a 24 hour schedule.   It comes on at 5pm day 1, 6pm day 2, 7pm day 3 etc

Any experts care to weigh in?  Am I missing something?

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The highest it gets charged in the day is to 12.6 and once I turn on the lights it instantly drops to 11.7

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I would start with the output of the panels.  What is their orientation to the sun?  This time of year, my rooftop solar puts out about 1/2 what it does in June.  You may only be generating 200 watts at noon, and even less the rest of the day.

 
Dockmaster said:
Are you sure those batteries are good? Mix-n-match is never a good idea. 
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Checking the batteries is on my list today. When I set up the whole system I just used the batteries I had access to instead of buying all new batteries. 

 
How many flood lights do you have?  Can you stick an amp meter over your negative cable so you can see how many amps you're using when on?  Lets start there so we know what your demand is.

 
Another thing to consider, is the setting for your low batt cut out.

Like you mentioned earlier, they read 12.6 but drop to 11.7 as soon as you turn them on.  Inverters do not do a good job on their own of reading the battery SOC (state of charge).  You might need a shunt installed so you can see your batteries actual SOC, not just what the inverter is telling you.

ex.   My stacker has solar, inverter etc etc.  It reads 12.7 full.... if I turn on all the lights, it'll drop to 12.1..... I'll run them for 6 hours that night, and as soon as I turn them off, it goes back to 12.5 or 12.6, meaning I barely put a dent in the batteries.  You gotta use this info to change the setting on your lowbatt cutout.  Because if I had my setting cutout at 12.0, it would trip my inverter if I turned on a few more lights. 

 
I would also double check that the batteries are wired correctly. Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like the two black batteries are wired in series and the grey ones are possibly in parallel. It looks like there is corrosion on those terminals also. The black batteries, unless you filled them and some water spilled, look have been venting a lot during charging with all of the liquid that has flowed down the sides.

 
Racerx63 said:
I would also double check that the batteries are wired correctly. Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like the two black batteries are wired in series and the grey ones are possibly in parallel. It looks like there is corrosion on those terminals also. The black batteries, unless you filled them and some water spilled, look have been venting a lot during charging with all of the liquid that has flowed down the sides.
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Looking again, I see this too.

 
Racerx63 said:
I would also double check that the batteries are wired correctly. Hard to tell from the picture but it looks like the two black batteries are wired in series and the grey ones are possibly in parallel. It looks like there is corrosion on those terminals also. The black batteries, unless you filled them and some water spilled, look have been venting a lot during charging with all of the liquid that has flowed down the sides.
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Thats because 2 of them are 6v, and the other 2 are 12v.  You can tell by the fill ports.  3 on the 6v, 6 on the 12v.

 
r3meyer said:
Thats because 2 of them are 6v, and the other 2 are 12v.  You can tell by the fill ports.  3 on the 6v, 6 on the 12v.
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I thought I saw the same. Another bad battery issue. Two 6v in series paralleled to two 12v - not good!

 
Another item that the system should have is fuses. The wire looks like 4AWG or 6AWG gauging from the lug posts. That is fairly undersized for a 3000W inverter depending on the load. I am not familiar with efficiency of Renergy inverters but 3000W inverter can pull about 225A at full load on a 12V system and possibly spike higher for a short period of time.

 
Thank you all for the info!  You’re correct in that 2 batteries are 12v ( my mistake) and yes I had just topped them off with water when the picture was taken. I brushed some corrosion off and washed it away with the water. 

I thought if they were wired correctly it would be ok.  It’s been a working set up for 2 years already but I’ve just now been demanding the 5 hours a night run time.  Normally they are just on here and there to feed horses in the dark.  

Yesterday the system worked flawlessly but this morning at 9am the timer was reading 9pm and the lights were on, using battery when it should be charging. The inconsistency here is what I have an issue with, it’s like time doesn’t click away as it should on the timer, or the timer gets stuck.  I’m looking at different timers now. 
 

I ordered an amp meter from Amazon to test load, it should be here in a few days.

 
 
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