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Different voltage on control panel vs solar power app

ThomasHJ

ThomasHJ

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T5 SE 140
Seeing 11.9v on the control panel while the solar app (by roger) says battery is 13.07v.

Shouldn't this be (approx.) be the same number?

(This is after a night without hookup). The roof is up so cant restart the control panel without closing the roof first.
 
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Seeing 11.9v on the control panel while the solar app (by roger) says battery is 13.07v.

Shouldn't this be (approx.) be the same number?

(This is after a night without hookup). The roof is up so cant restart the control panel without crossing the roof first.
Also, the apps history says battery voltage has not been below 12.6 while I'm seeing 11.9 on the control panel.
 
Seeing 11.9v on the control panel while the solar app (by roger) says battery is 13.07v.

Shouldn't this be (approx.) be the same number?

(This is after a night without hookup). The roof is up so cant restart the control panel without crossing the roof first.
Yes, they should be the same, UNLESS, the Solar +tve ls connected to the rear leisure battery BELOW the 75amp cube fuse and the cube fuse has failed.
In that case your Solar app is showing the voltage of the rear leisure battery and the Control Panel is showing the voltage of the front Leisure battery as the 2 batteries are no longer wired in parallel.
 
Yes, they should be the same, UNLESS, the Solar +tve ls connected to the rear leisure battery BELOW the 75amp cube fuse and the cube fuse has failed.
In that case your Solar app is showing the voltage of the rear leisure battery and the Control Panel is showing the voltage of the front Leisure battery as the 2 batteries are no longer wired in parallel.
@Roger Donoghue installed the setup so I have no worries about that. Could the control panel just be slow cactching up? Theres always been a 0.1v or 0.2v difference in the readings but 11.9v vs 13.07v is a lot.
 
What does a multimeter say? I would go by that as the adjudicator!
 
@Roger Donoghue installed the setup so I have no worries about that. Could the control panel just be slow cactching up? Theres always been a 0.1v or 0.2v difference in the readings but 11.9v vs 13.07v is a lot.
No.
I connected my solar +tve below the cube fuse for exactly this reason . If the cube fuse fails there is a mismatch in voltages. So I would check.
 
On holiday now. No tools at my disposal. Leaving tomorrow so Will check at home with a multimeter. Thx for the input.
 
What does the control panel say when the engine is running.?
If it shows a good voltage then I agree with WG about the cube fuse.
 
Ok, so I am back home now and will attempt to solve this now that I have the Cali on the driveway and the tools I need. I have little knowledge of electricity, but have removed the rear leisure battery before to check things and solve a (different) problem.

Is there anything I need to worry about / take into account?

The idea would be to use a multimeter to check if the cube fuse failed. Am I correct in believing this is the right way to do it:

Place one lead on the bottom of the cube fuse on the + terminal and place the other lead on the top of the cube fuse?
 
Ok, so I am back home now and will attempt to solve this now that I have the Cali on the driveway and the tools I need. I have little knowledge of electricity, but have removed the rear leisure battery before to check things and solve a (different) problem.

Is there anything I need to worry about / take into account?

The idea would be to use a multimeter to check if the cube fuse failed. Am I correct in believing this is the right way to do it:

Place one lead on the bottom of the cube fuse on the + terminal and place the other lead on the top of the cube fuse?
Yes, if you use Continuity or Resistance mode on the multimeter.
Or, remove +tve red lead, but insulate it ( put in a rubber glove ) as it's still connected to front Leisure battery. Multimeter in DC volts and then black probe on -tve battery pole and multimeter red probe on top of cube fuse. Should read 12+v. If not replace fuse. While you are at it remove cube fuse and measure voltage direct of battery . Both batteries should have a similar voltage before replacing fuse and reconnecting the red lead from front battery.
Control panel will show voltage of front battery.
 
Ok, so I am back home now and will attempt to solve this now that I have the Cali on the driveway and the tools I need. I have little knowledge of electricity, but have removed the rear leisure battery before to check things and solve a (different) problem.

Is there anything I need to worry about / take into account?

The idea would be to use a multimeter to check if the cube fuse failed. Am I correct in believing this is the right way to do it:

Place one lead on the bottom of the cube fuse on the + terminal and place the other lead on the top of the cube fuse?

So what I did just now is measure the cube fuse. I did as I described above and measured a number very close to zero. Which I believe means the cube fuse is intact?

Also...

When I first arrived as the Cali the control panel said 13.5V and the solar app said 13.57.V
The Cali has not been driven with today.

I turned on the fridge and hooked up my phone to use some electricity. The panel showed 12.5V and the solar app showed 12.67V. The solar app showed the battery went from float to bulk, as expected.

So, it seems like everything is fine with the cube fuse and the control panel and the solar app are now once again showing readings that differ by a mere 0.1 which seems normal as well.

This still does not explain the 1.0V difference between the control panel and the solar app that I saw whilst on holiday.

I plan to leave the fridge and some other electrical applicances drawing from the leisure batteries for the coming day to see if a difference arises between the readings on the control panel and the solar app when the leisure batteries are less full then they are now. Thanks for the help so far. Will update this thread when there's news.
 
Yes, if you use Continuity or Resistance mode on the multimeter.
Or, remove +tve red lead, but insulate it ( put in a rubber glove ) as it's still connected to front Leisure battery. Multimeter in DC volts and then black probe on -tve battery pole and multimeter red probe on top of cube fuse. Should read 12+v. If not replace fuse. While you are at it remove cube fuse and measure voltage direct of battery . Both batteries should have a similar voltage before replacing fuse and reconnecting the red lead from front battery.
Control panel will show voltage of front battery.
@WelshGas Thankf for replying. Our posts crossed each other. I measured with everything still in place. Am I right in assuming that a (near) 0 reading on the multimeter means the cube fuse is -not-faulty?
 
@WelshGas Thankf for replying. Our posts crossed each other. I measured with everything still in place. Am I right in assuming that a (near) 0 reading on the multimeter means the cube fuse is -not-faulty?
Yes.
 
I'm keeping an eye on the V-readings on both the control panel and the solar app while the fridge is running and slowly draining the leisure batteries. So far the readings on the control panel and in the solar app stay the same. Which is normal behaviour.

However, there's hardly any sun yet. If the sun shows up, I expect (in time) a difference to occur between the V-reading on the control panel and the V-reading on the solar app, when indeed the solar panel charges the rear leisure battery and not the front leisure battery, which will not be independently charged by the alternator either because I will not be driving the cali.

If no difference in V-readings occurs then the problem I had during my holidays (1.0V difference between the two V-readings) seems to have magically disappeared. Which is hard to believe.

If a difference does occur, it still suggests that the batteries are not connected. Even though me measuring teh cube fuse seems to have indicated that the fuse is not faulty.

Is my thinking still correct?
 
I'm keeping an eye on the V-readings on both the control panel and the solar app while the fridge is running and slowly draining the leisure batteries. So far the readings on the control panel and in the solar app stay the same. Which is normal behaviour.

However, there's hardly any sun yet. If the sun shows up, I expect (in time) a difference to occur between the V-reading on the control panel and the V-reading on the solar app, when indeed the solar panel charges the rear leisure battery and not the front leisure battery, which will not be independently charged by the alternator either because I will not be driving the cali.

If no difference in V-readings occurs then the problem I had during my holidays (1.0V difference between the two V-readings) seems to have magically disappeared. Which is hard to believe.

If a difference does occur, it still suggests that the batteries are not connected. Even though me measuring teh cube fuse seems to have indicated that the fuse is not faulty.

Is my thinking still correct?
Yes, within the limits of accuracy of the displays. The Control Panels only displays to 1 decimal point so should round up or down by convention , 12.66 would show 12.7 and 12.64 show 12.6v.
 
Seeing 11.9v on the control panel while the solar app (by roger) says battery is 13.07v.

Shouldn't this be (approx.) be the same number?

(This is after a night without hookup). The roof is up so cant restart the control panel without closing the roof first.
Have a look at your history on the app (trends I think it's called) and set it so the two plots are panel wattage and battery voltage. The trend you expect to see (while the van is parked and the engine isn't being ran and when NOT on hookup) is a gradual decay in battery voltage overnight with solar dropped to 0W, then as light dawns the panel wattage will gradually increase, as will voltage, wattage will probably undulate a bit depending on weather until the battery reaches float, the the voltage will drop to float voltage (13.4/13.5v or something I think from memory) and the wattage will also drop to whatever is needed to sustain that voltage (if no draw on the system, it'll be something like 4W, the fridge on will cause "spikes" as the fridge cycles on/off as the thermostat does its thing).

Anyway, long story short, the above will tell you when the panel is doing what it is supposed to be doing. If you scroll back far enough to when you were having difficulties, look to see what happened during and after your journey away from that location; if the wattage spikes once you were moving (assuming daytime) and the pattern is more normal once at the other end, to me that points towards a bad connection somewhere that driving "jiggles" it about, so when you come to a stop sometimes it's ok, sometimes it isn't. I had this exact situation (in my case, the battery earth clamp had come loose somehow, there was also a bit of insulation trapped under it on the spade connector, so I stripped the insulation back a bit and redid the connection) and it resulted in a hard-to-believe 1v difference. Turns out the bad connection was increasing resistance and giving duff readings to the solar controller. Until then I'd assumed this sort of pretty basic wiring was pretty binary in that it either worked or it didn't, but it turns out there are other possibilities.

At the end of the day, the solar panel, MPPT and battery themselves are very unlikely to be "wrong" as in defective, along with the overhead display in the van itself. The next most reliable are the fuses; yes they can go, but I don't think it's as common you might think. That leaves the most likely culprit which is the wiring itself, more specifically anything added or modified as part of the install. Again, wiring itself less likely than the connections . . . as I found out!

FWIW, I'm pretty thorough and have a basic grasp of electronics, yet it took me several attempts to get to the bottom of the situation. Eventually I lost patience and stripped the system totally and rebuilt it on a busy campsite in Annecy, much to the combined amusement and bemusement of other campers, but it has worked flawlessly ever since . .
 
Have a look at your history on the app (trends I think it's called) and set it so the two plots are panel wattage and battery voltage. The trend you expect to see (while the van is parked and the engine isn't being ran and when NOT on hookup) is a gradual decay in battery voltage overnight with solar dropped to 0W, then as light dawns the panel wattage will gradually increase, as will voltage, wattage will probably undulate a bit depending on weather until the battery reaches float, the the voltage will drop to float voltage (13.4/13.5v or something I think from memory) and the wattage will also drop to whatever is needed to sustain that voltage (if no draw on the system, it'll be something like 4W, the fridge on will cause "spikes" as the fridge cycles on/off as the thermostat does its thing).

Anyway, long story short, the above will tell you when the panel is doing what it is supposed to be doing. If you scroll back far enough to when you were having difficulties, look to see what happened during and after your journey away from that location; if the wattage spikes once you were moving (assuming daytime) and the pattern is more normal once at the other end, to me that points towards a bad connection somewhere that driving "jiggles" it about, so when you come to a stop sometimes it's ok, sometimes it isn't. I had this exact situation (in my case, the battery earth clamp had come loose somehow, there was also a bit of insulation trapped under it on the spade connector, so I stripped the insulation back a bit and redid the connection) and it resulted in a hard-to-believe 1v difference. Turns out the bad connection was increasing resistance and giving duff readings to the solar controller. Until then I'd assumed this sort of pretty basic wiring was pretty binary in that it either worked or it didn't, but it turns out there are other possibilities.

At the end of the day, the solar panel, MPPT and battery themselves are very unlikely to be "wrong" as in defective, along with the overhead display in the van itself. The next most reliable are the fuses; yes they can go, but I don't think it's as common you might think. That leaves the most likely culprit which is the wiring itself, more specifically anything added or modified as part of the install. Again, wiring itself less likely than the connections . . . as I found out!

FWIW, I'm pretty thorough and have a basic grasp of electronics, yet it took me several attempts to get to the bottom of the situation. Eventually I lost patience and stripped the system totally and rebuilt it on a busy campsite in Annecy, much to the combined amusement and bemusement of other campers, but it has worked flawlessly ever since . .
@RockinNRollin thanks very much for your reply and suggestion. I have read it but...

Thing is, the solar power app has always communicated that the battery was full (13.07 V) . While the control panel read 11.9V at the exact same time. This was all while at a camp site and drawing from the batteries (fridge and phones/etc) while in hot weather (Portugal).

So I would assume that the solar is working just fine.

I just can't explain why the control panel would show a circa 1.0 lower V. The situation I (with help from people at this forum) could come up with is that solar works fine and charges the leisure battery in the back but somehow doesnt charge the leisure battery in the front of the van. Which would explain the two different V-readings because the battery in the back would be charged by solar but the one in the front would not (and neither by the alternator because of no driving).
 
@RockinNRollin thanks very much for your reply and suggestion. I have read it but...

Thing is, the solar power app has always communicated that the battery was full (13.07 V) . While the control panel read 11.9V at the exact same time. This was all while at a camp site and drawing from the batteries (fridge and phones/etc) while in hot weather (Portugal).

So I would assume that the solar is working just fine.

I just can't explain why the control panel would show a circa 1.0 lower V. The situation I (with help from people at this forum) could come up with is that solar works fine and charges the leisure battery in the back but somehow doesnt charge the leisure battery in the front of the van. Which would explain the two different V-readings because the battery in the back would be charged by solar but the one in the front would not (and neither by the alternator because of no driving).
That's my point really; it seems to be fine sometimes, not at other times. That all points towards a bad connection somewhere. When it's not making the best connection, it might be adding resistance to the circuit and tricking the MPPT, giving you the discrepancy in voltage.

Sorry if you've done this already, but if you measures the voltage of each leisure battery, are they the same?
 
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