Solar Panel Charge Controller Question

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powbongo

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Can anyone help with this one? I am about to instal a 100w solar panel and charge controller, as well as an input for the panel and output for the batteries the controller has an output for load. Must the output for load be connected in order to use any excess energy production and be connected to someting eg a light,or does the charge controller manage the excess energy production itself, and the load connection is an optional feature, the instructions that came with the Chinese made unit are very poor. The advice of the forum would be appreciated
 
No just don't connect anything to the load terminals and it will work fine.
The load terminal function is not much use on a boat. Occasionally the load terminal can be made to do something useful like turning a light on when it's dark, or activating a relay to turn a fridge on when the batteries have reached float, but most of the simple regulators do not allow for the load terminals to be programmed.
 
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I use a Steca 30 30 30A charge controller thru the load outputs as it gives me full monitoring especially how much I am using. Obviously any vital electrics nav stuff should be direct from the battery via fuses. When it is getting low, I go around and switch non-essentials off.
The charge controller may switch the load off if the voltage gets to low. Mine does. It is a useful option. You could try upgrading your charge controller if your doesn't have a display.
 
Make sure the controller is the type with a "float" control - sorry cant remember the terminology - but it's not the cheap on-off-when-full type :D
(but it wouldn't be the cheap type for a boat would it :D :D)
 
Be careful what you buy and how you intend to use it. My friend installed a panel and was sold a 'charge controller'. In fact it was no more than a simple voltage regulator. It did nothing clever as far as battery charging was concerned.
And, my freind, also wanted to 'split' the charge into two battery banks using a lo-voltage-drop splitter. This wouldn't work either because the so-called charge controller wouldn't work with out a directly connected battery load. It's internal electronics were not powered by the panel but by the battery.
He was sold the wrong kit by a new industry that still does not seem to really know what it is selling.
 
You can get charge controllers that can d/w two battery banks. I've got a PWM one that does both house and start batteries from the one panel. Not expensive- about £20-£25.
 
Without any load at all, the output voltage of the panel would be about 20v but with the batteries across it the regulator should bring that down to 13 to14V. The "load " connection should then be linked internally to the batteries.
 
When I bought my controller (from MR Controls) I was asked if I wanted the load output to be converted so that it would charge another set of batteries once the normal set were fully charged.I agreed and they did this free of charge.As I have 3 sets of batteries (bow thruster,engine start and services)I wired the bow thruster batteries to be charged from this output as well as services.Reason for this is as I only use the thruster once in a blue moon ,sometime ago I put the Frig. on a change over switch so that it can run on service or thruster batteries.M R Controls were an excellent company to deal with.The system works fine.
 
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