Regulator wiring.

[Gordonmc]

I have a single solar panel which goes through a regulator... and it doesn't appear to be doing much at all. I assumed it was because of the age of the unit. I inherited it with the boat.

I was repacing the strip connectors at the regulator and decided to trace the wiring. The neg. wire from the panel goes direct to a battery neg. post. The Pos. goes to the correct post on the regulator. One wire from the regulator goes to the same battery pos. post.

The third wire from the regulator is wired direct into the battery roter switch (+) on the battery feed side.

Surely this is wrong. It has the same effect as putting two regulator wires on a pos. post!

How does the regulator know the battery is fully charged?

Anyone enlighten an ignoramus?

 

[halcyon]

There must be a wire from the reg to battery neg for it to work,
Any marking on the reg.


Brian

 

[bedouin]

Sounds wrong to me - there ought to be a connection from the regulator to battery negative somewhere I would have thought.

The set up you describe could work if the regulator was simply a current limiting device rather than a voltage regulator (theoretically possible to regulate the solar panel, but I don't know if anyone does it that way).

The two connections to positive is not necessarily wrong. Regulators can use positive in three ways: as power into the reg itself, as charging feed to the battery and as battery voltage sense. In a simple installation these can all be the same place, but in other cases you would distinguish between the three.