Need the solar/power pros to weigh in

[TantoTrailers]

crappy weather weekend done and results are confusing! I arrived on Friday too late to catch any solar and in the rain. Fridge was hooked into system at noon Friday. It was cooled for 24 hours on AC and full of what I was bringing during that time. After the rains stopped Saturday around 11am I started generating solar and everything was looking good. At 1pm the Renogy App was showing 12Ah back into the battery. By 5pm Saturday the power meter had shown that I consumed 23ah and max 50.8w. At that same time the Renogy App was showing over 20ah back into the battery. The clouds rolled back in and charging tapered off. The last Ah reading I snapped was 22ah back into they battery at 6:30 or so. The fridge was in the shade of my awning for 95% of the day and I kept the galley shut each time I wasn’t in it keeping eye on temps. Outside temps got up to 87 during the day but the galley only saw a high of 86 when the sun was beating on the black door as it set. The fridge was set to 34 and kept things nice and cool enough to chill a coors can. I was running out of things in the fridge so I put some galley temp waters in there about 2 hours before sunset and the fridge was almost back to its temp around midnight. That may mean it ran for a few hours straight. It got relatively chilly overnight and it dropped to 68 in the galley still shut, however when I woke up the fridge was off due to low input voltage. I checked the power meter and it showed 43.5ah consumed (since everything was connected) and max 53w power draw. So with a 100ah battery should that have happened? According to the Renogy App I generated over 22ah yesterday. I’m confused. I know I should have added the water throughout the day as I took stuff out I just wasn’t thinking about it since this is kinda new to me. Should I have been ok with battery alone in this instance assuming the power meter is accurate? Bad battery? What did I do wrong?

1pm Saturday


5pm






Sunday morning (why is that battery max voltage so high?

 

[67cj5]

Crappy weather weekend done and results are confusing! I arrived on Friday too late to catch any solar and in the rain. Fridge was hooked into system at noon Friday. It was cooled for 24 hours on AC and full of what I was bringing during that time. After the rains stopped Saturday around 11am I started generating solar and everything was looking good. At 1pm the Renogy App was showing 12Ah back into the battery. By 5pm Saturday the power meter had shown that I consumed 23ah and max 50.8w. At that same time the Renogy App was showing over 20ah back into the battery. The clouds rolled back in and charging tapered off. The last Ah reading I snapped was 22ah back into they battery at 6:30 or so. The fridge was in the shade of my awning for 95% of the day and I kept the galley shut each time I wasn’t in it keeping eye on temps. Outside temps got up to 87 during the day but the galley only saw a high of 86 when the sun was beating on the black door as it set. The fridge was set to 34 and kept things nice and cool enough to chill a coors can. I was running out of things in the fridge so I put some galley temp waters in there about 2 hours before sunset and the fridge was almost back to its temp around midnight. That may mean it ran for a few hours straight. It got relatively chilly overnight and it dropped to 68 in the galley still shut, however when I woke up the fridge was off due to low input voltage. I checked the power meter and it showed 43.5ah consumed (since everything was connected) and max 53w power draw. So with a 100ah battery should that have happened? According to the Renogy App I generated over 22ah yesterday. I’m confused. I know I should have added the water throughout the day as I took stuff out I just wasn’t thinking about it since this is kinda new to me. Should I have been ok with battery alone in this instance assuming the power meter is accurate? Bad battery? What did I do wrong?

1pm Saturday
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5pm
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Sunday morning (why is that battery max voltage so high?

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Well TT, Does your fridge have an adjustable voltage cut off ? If so what was it set to ?? If it was set to high then set it to lot MED and if it was set to MED then set it to low then it will keep running hopefully, You only need to set them to high or med if you are running it off of your starter battery If you only have one battery but if you are running it off the Trailer battery then you might want to set it to LOW,

Other option is add another battery the same size to the trailer to give you double the run time and leave the Panel hooked up as much as possible then you should be good to go, Ok.

 

[calicamper]

What fridge do you have? I recall that most of the typical truck fridges burn 3-4ish amps per hour. So # hours running x amps per hour used gets you rough amps burned say over night.

22amps generated in rough theory should get you roughly 5-6 hours of fridge run time. Keep in mind how your power in vs out is measured. Is power in before or after the burn rate used during the solar cycle? So 22amps generated but possibly 20ish burned during that same period? Etc

 

[calicamper]

The easiest way to think of it is amps used vs generated. Watts aren’t really useful in this situation. Your just trying to get a figure on whats going in vs out regarding your Amp hours.

 

[TantoTrailers]

Well TT, Does your fridge have an adjustable voltage cut off ? If so what was it set to ?? If it was set to high then set it to lot MED and if it was set to MED then set it to low then it will keep running hopefully, You only need to set them to high or med if you are running it off of your starter battery If you only have one battery but if you are running it off the Trailer battery then you might want to set it to LOW,

Other option is add another battery the same size to the trailer to give you double the run time and leave the Panel hooked up as much as possible then you should be good to go, Ok.

It was indeed set on the High battery protect mode. I should have read the manual! I set it to medium to see how that goes.

What fridge do you have? I recall that most of the typical truck fridges burn 3-4ish amps per hour. So # hours running x amps per hour used gets you rough amps burned say over night.

22amps generated in rough theory should get you roughly 5-6 hours of fridge run time. Keep in mind how your power in vs out is measured. Is power in before or after the burn rate used during the solar cycle? So 22amps generated but possibly 20ish burned during that same period? Etc

The fridge is nothing fancy but it it only pulls about 2-3 amps when running in the mode I had it running this weekend. I realized this was in eco mode once I read the manual just a bit ago.

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[67cj5]

It was indeed set on the High battery protect mode. I should have read the manual! I set it to medium to see how that goes.


The fridge is nothing fancy but it it only pulls about 2-3 amps when running in the mode I had it running this weekend. I realized this was in eco mode once I read the manual just a bit ago.

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TT, when you load the fridge try and leave an Air Gap across the middle front to back and try and leave a gap between the walls inside and the grub and drinks you have in there, that way the cold will circulate through out the fridge and the temp will be more even, doing this is normal because without knowing we actually do that with our Home Fridges, never try and pack it tight like you would a cardboard box or you will limit the cooling effect and the fridge will run all the time,

These fridge freezers have about 3 or 4 different duty cycles and they all boil down to how you pack them, Pack it tight and it will run for a lot longer leave some Air Gaps and it will run for about 12 to 18 minutes and then shut off for anything up to 2 hours, So even if it does read 3 to 4 amps while it is running the meter might be reading something like 0.965Ah or 1.263Ah being the power that it has used but then if it shuts off for 90 minutes add the 16 minutes run time to the 90 minutes and that's 106 minutes, So divide that 1.263Ah by 106 minutes = 0,01191 amps per minute, Multiply that by 60 = 0.7149 Amps Per Hour it is using or Ah to be the right way of saying it,

So let the inner walls Breath and it will run better and run less using less power in the process, Ok.

It might take 2 or 3 hours to settle in to it's cycles but don't worry the longer it is closed the better it will work.

Give that ago and let us know what happens,

good luck, hope that helps.

 

[TantoTrailers]

I will be able to test everything again in 2 weeks when I do the northern half of the Trans Wisconsin Adventure Trail. That trip will be a bit more of a challenge as we will most likely be traveling during the daytime when solar would normally be deployed. I am trying to see if I can rig something in the bed of my truck to lay the panels on while driving...its fairly calm back there wind wise.

 

[TantoTrailers]

I spent 4 days on the road, covered 1300 miles, and I ran out of juice pretty quickly! I am a bit frustrated because from my tests I am not consuming more than 30Ah per day and I am re-charging some while driving and while at camp. Having the 100Ah battery, it should last at least 24 hours on battery alone, right? I think I am going to buy the Renogy BVM and install it permanently to track things. I got a good battery tester and the battery came back healthy with no damaged cells. The fridge was set to 35* and I ran my MaxxFan on level 3 for about 8 hours and in 24 hours the battery was just about dead...from being fully charged on shore power for about 2 weeks prior to leaving. What am I messing up here?

 

[calicamper]

Amps out vs in. Its not hard. Something your doing has a thirsty amp appetite

 

[TantoTrailers]

Agreed, it shouldnt be hard but the math doesnt make sense in what I am seeing, so either something is off meter wise, or...I dont know. My 100Ah AGM battery should have at least 60Ah of usable power right? If I measured a 30Ah use over the course of 24 hours...where should the battery sit assuming steady 98% reading after being disconnected from shore before any load was on the battery?

 

[luthj]

So you are confirming its getting a full charge? That is ~14.4V for 4 hours minimum, it may take even longer though. Hold this voltage until the return current drops below 2A. Measure the voltage at the battery terminals. Then do a capacity test. Its very possible to have chargers configured wrong, so they go to float very early, and the battery gradually drifts down.

If your SOC meter is zeroed, just count Amps out until the voltage drops to 11V or so. (You do have a SOC meter that tracks amps with a shunt right?)

You have the shunt wired right? Nothing besides the battery negative one one side.

 

[TantoTrailers]

You do have a SOC meter that tracks amps with a shunt right?

I do not, this is what I am purchasing today. I was using a cheaper no-shunt inline type of meter to get my prior results.

 

[calicamper]

30ah full 24hr cycle are you counting the solar in during solar hours? If its not charging the battery by much during the day you either have a higher use some how or your panels or charge control aren’t putting power back into the battery.

What size solar are you running? Example peak amps at peak hours off the panels this time of yr pending how far north you are can be less than half the amps you get in July.

Heck my house system does 52kwhrs in July and 12-14 in December. Today we might get 23kwh.

30amps burned in 24hrs you need solar capacity to do at minimum 6-8amps an hour for 4-6hrs, assuming that 30amps is day time loads also.

 

[calicamper]

My set up is typically only 4-6 amps burned and my 2 10watt panels do about 1.5 amps during peak solar hours. Lol I only run some LED lights and charge phones or Ipads. Even on foggy coastal trips we rarely have issues with more out than in.

My house on the other hand is 8.2KW system and its a power hog with pool filter, ancient Subzero fridge and plugin hybrid. Lol

 

[TantoTrailers]

I have 2 x 120w foldable Aims Power panels wired in series to a Renogy Rover 20A MPPT controller.

Is the Victron BMV-712 worth the extra ~$120 over the Renogy Battery Monitor? I kind of like the idea of having the historical data rather than what is on the memory of the monitor itself but it is over double the price...worth it? I am tempted to save the money and go Renogy since I have the Renogy AGM battery and MPPT controller...but...bluetooth and app on the phone for reference...