Generator -v- solar panels

noelex said:
14.1 v is low for an absorption voltage. Are they gel batteries?
You did not state the size of your battery bank, but at around 1.5 - 2%. So when a 200AHr battery is accepting 3-4A the charging shoud be dropped down to float. At this stage the battery will be 90-95% charged.

The AHr counters do need appropriate parameters for battery efficiency etc it sound like yours might be reading a bit low, but its hard to sure without more details.
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The German made IVT 20 amp has no regulation, I know you wrote to buy a MPPT with means to regulate some parameters, I was stupid and bought what was available.
The 14,1 V may be !4,25 V, readout on a big screen digital voltmeter connected to the output of the regulator.
The Ahr counter is a 20 year old Mastevolt Batmann, measuring on a shunt mounted on the battery’s common negative pole. That counter reeds only 13,2 V ( chequed and confirmed with a cheep multimeter ) No parameters to set there as well, It just counts incoming and outgoing Amps. Has to be read with a bit of knowledge. Batts are wet lead, 4 X 130 Amps.
I never understood why there was such a difference of tension with only half a meter of thick electric cable connecting the regulator and the battery’s.
Only possible explanation is that the positive passes trough one of those big battery switches enabling to divide the battery bank into two banks. Maybe some loss in that ( short and well made ) switch - connection. ( Vetus three way switch )
BTW, two sunny days in a row now and all is full despite heavy laptop use. How I love that sun.
Some dark and cloudy days are enough to dump me into depression, hence my earlier post.
 
I am surprised you don´t get 110 % in the Caribbean. Even the wind is always perfect from what I have read.
Greece in winter, bit different. How difficult it is proves the number of liveaboards. Only 4 liveaboard yachts in the wide area. Two of them always on shore power, one on a permanent mooring running a deck generator minimum 5 h day ( he needs lots of power for his job ) and me, anchoring and most of the time coping with sun and wind power to achieve almost full.
If Med wintering off shore power was so easy, there would be much more overwintering sailors.
We wintered 11 years in the Fethiye Göcek bays, a wonderful wintering spot. The last years, only three liveaboard wintering yachts and 4000 empty yachts in the marina´s. Guess why ?

Know lots of crews who wintered once on board and then became migrators. Home in winter and on board in summer.
Modern yachts need electrical power to heat the yacht as well. Weberspachers need a lot of power or did at least when I was selling them 20 years ago.
An other plus for the Caribbean.
 
OldBawley said:
The German made IVT 20 amp has no regulation, I know you wrote to buy a MPPT with means to regulate some parameters, I was stupid and bought what was available.
The 14,1 V may be !4,25 V, readout on a big screen digital voltmeter connected to the output of the regulator.
The Ahr counter is a 20 year old Mastevolt Batmann, measuring on a shunt mounted on the battery’s common negative pole. That counter reeds only 13,2 V ( chequed and confirmed with a cheep multimeter ) No parameters to set there as well, It just counts incoming and outgoing Amps. Has to be read with a bit of knowledge. Batts are wet lead, 4 X 130 Amps.
I never understood why there was such a difference of tension with only half a meter of thick electric cable connecting the regulator and the battery’s.
Only possible explanation is that the positive passes trough one of those big battery switches enabling to divide the battery bank into two banks. Maybe some loss in that ( short and well made ) switch - connection. ( Vetus three way switch )
BTW, two sunny days in a row now and all is full despite heavy laptop use. How I love that sun.
Some dark and cloudy days are enough to dump me into depression, hence my earlier post.
Click to expand...

There certainly are a few issues with your electricity system

The charge voltage from the regulator is set much too low.
For wet cell batteries absorption voltage should be about 14.7v.
0.6v may not sound like much, but it makes a big difference to how much current the batteries will accept as they become charged.

If the battery bank is 520AHrs by the time it is only accepting 2.5A @ 14.1v the battery bank is going to getting very close to 100% and should really have dropped down to a float voltage a bit before this.

Your battery monitor is probably reasonably OK -8AHrs is 98.5 % which sounds about right for the current and voltage.
 
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