Author Topic: PV charge controller brand recommendation?  (Read 9379 times)

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Offline Wolvenar

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PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« on: January 30, 2012, 04:58:33 pm »
Off to my next part of the  pv system, a charge controller.

Anyone have recommendations, experience with, features unique to, and particular commercial (or non) brand?
Trying to make power from alternative energy any which way I can.
Just to abuse what I make. (and run this site)

Offline rossw

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #1 on: January 30, 2012, 05:55:03 pm »
Off to my next part of the  pv system, a charge controller.

Anyone have recommendations, experience with, features unique to, and particular commercial (or non) brand?

MUCH more info required.

Power? Nominal array voltage? Nominal battery voltage? Logging or no?

I got a FlexMax-80, and it's been very good. Will handle nominal battery banks of 12, 24, 36 (?) and 48V, and arrays up to a maximum of 150V. The "80" is 80 amps out, so it'll do about 4KW for a 48V bank, 2KW for 24V or 1KW for 12V.

Offline Wolvenar

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #2 on: January 30, 2012, 05:57:54 pm »
24v banks with 2kw of solar, with logging if at all possible that can be easily fetched via computer without manual interaction
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Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #3 on: January 30, 2012, 06:08:27 pm »
What voltage is your system, and how much installed PV capacity?

One thing I've found out about solar controllers is that you tend to never buy one that's big enough.  A lot of people have a tendency to try to save a dime now so you can spent a dollar later.  So you always got one for sale every time you add some panels because you need a bigger, or another, one.  I'm not using this one on solar - got it on my wind turbine - but this is the "Cadillac".

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It'll scale from a "starter" PV array to 2.5 kW or so.  You can't blow it up on a cold day by wiring your panels at Voc close to its voltage input limit, it logs data for 380 days, and if you hook up an ethernet cable from its ethernet jack to your home router you can use the nice desktop application for it that shows how your system is performing from the comfort of your office:

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I've spent a small fortune on solar controllers every time I add more panels.  I got two Morningstar TS-MPPT's and they're both going to be replaced soon with one of the above units.

I would've spent less money if I would've bought one of the above units in the first place.  Just from here.
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Offline halfcrazy

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #4 on: January 30, 2012, 07:14:39 pm »
To add to what Chris said the App he showed is software based and can be used from off site as well as long as you port forward the port the Classic is on in your router. MidNite is also working on a web based version as well this should be rolling out soon.

Andrew at MidNite has been adding two way communication to the software I am playing with one here that allows me to alter the Aux settings and start an EQ cycle. Next should be wind curve editing on the fly.

Ryan

Offline tomw

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #5 on: January 30, 2012, 08:20:16 pm »
To add to what Chris said the App he showed is software based and can be used from off site as well as long as you port forward the port the Classic is on in your router. MidNite is also working on a web based version as well this should be rolling out soon.

Andrew at MidNite has been adding two way communication to the software I am playing with one here that allows me to alter the Aux settings and start an EQ cycle. Next should be wind curve editing on the fly.

Ryan

How many of these units do you have in the field now?

I kind of remember the start of it all and that seems not that long ago?


Tom
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Offline Wolvenar

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #6 on: January 31, 2012, 01:56:55 am »
I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer the command interface to gather the data so I can do what I wish with it.. I had been thinking about your and Ross's controllers  when I posted that question.
What I am looking for is that data acquisition that I can manipulate..
Secondly the ability for it to dump power into devices, OR use data from the controller I can devise something that triggers events such as this. My main goal is to use the inverter to take over from the grid power when the conditions are present to do so. After that if we have an outtage, it will take over. At least until I can get enough resources available to completely rid myself of the grid.
Nutty part is years back I heard of Minnesota proposing legislation that would require an off grid house to meter it in a way that auto reports your usage, and tax you on it. That went out the door I think when the feds introduced the tax breaks,, but they are now making it harder and harder for a person to install such systems without the state getting their cut in any way possible.
Trying to make power from alternative energy any which way I can.
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Offline Bryan1

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #7 on: January 31, 2012, 03:46:15 am »
Ho Wolv,
              With 2Kw of PV the MPPT is the way to go and for peace of mind and safety a FM60 or 80 would be the go to be the main controller/watchdog for your battery array. Now as we talked about those Duinomite boards on IRC before you could program one of them to also keep an eye on things and report to a pc via VT100  and the XModem commands. With having control of over 20 I/O's one could use that for engaging a dumpload just before the FM60 decides it's going to short the pv panels as the batteries are full. also there are a heap of other options one could program in like real time logging, temps etc and by either transmitting the data via usb or storing it in a text file(.csv for spreadsheet) on the SD card, one can get full data with all the fruit and biscuits.

            But having a FM60 or 80 as the main will give you the MPPT for the best power and the knowledge of the batteries being looked after for you automatically, that would be the best insurance.

Regards Bryan

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #8 on: January 31, 2012, 07:30:59 am »
I wonder how hard it would be to reverse engineer the command interface to gather the data so I can do what I wish with it.

I don't know about the FX but if you're using the MidNite Local Status panel for logging with a Classic, the data is recorded once every two seconds with a time stamp formatted in milliseconds since Unix Epoch and exported in CSV format.

I re-read this and decided to comment on a couple more thing:
My main goal is to use the inverter to take over from the grid power when the conditions are present to do so.

Wouldn't it be better in the long run to get an inverter that does this instead of using an external controller?  If your goal to move off-grid eventually and you run lots of computers and stuff (which it sounds like you do) it would seem that a suitably sized pure sine wave inverter that has all those options (grid xfer on power out, bat xfer on incoming RE power, etc.)  in it makes more sense. 

Quote
Nutty part is years back I heard of Minnesota proposing legislation that would require an off grid house to meter it in a way that auto reports your usage, and tax you on it.

I don't see how that's ever going to fly.  There'd be people grabbing rifles and shotguns, jumping in pickups and heading for St. Paul, and they'd level the place (or more likely turn it into a smoldering crater) if politicians were ever stupid enough to try it.
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Offline Wolvenar

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #9 on: January 31, 2012, 09:11:45 am »
Quote
I don't see how that's ever going to fly.  There'd be people grabbing rifles and shotguns, jumping in pickups and heading for St. Paul, and they'd level the place (or more likely turn it into a smoldering crater) if politicians were ever stupid enough to try it.

Wow, it sounds like you know (northern) Minnesotans!!
Trying to make power from alternative energy any which way I can.
Just to abuse what I make. (and run this site)

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #10 on: January 31, 2012, 09:59:14 am »
Wow, it sounds like you know (northern) Minnesotans!!

That's right.  My grandpa and grandma originally came from Norway and settled near Northome in 1899.  To this day all of northern Minnesota, north of 95, is a Sovereign State.  You got your Border Towns there like Cambridge where there's some civilization.  But once north of there, all the way to Warroad, Baudette and The Lake Of the Woods the State Capital in St. Paul is The Enemy Stronghold    :)
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Offline halfcrazy

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #11 on: January 31, 2012, 11:40:11 am »
To add to what Chris said the App he showed is software based and can be used from off site as well as long as you port forward the port the Classic is on in your router. MidNite is also working on a web based version as well this should be rolling out soon.

Andrew at MidNite has been adding two way communication to the software I am playing with one here that allows me to alter the Aux settings and start an EQ cycle. Next should be wind curve editing on the fly.

Ryan

How many of these units do you have in the field now?

I kind of remember the start of it all and that seems not that long ago?


Tom

Tom we are will over 2000 units out the door now. These things have been extremely reliable I handle all RMA's and it is a very small number I will say that. A great percentage of this number is actually people doing stuff beyond the Classics control.

Also the Classic uses open source ModBus protocol to talk to stuff, we freely publish this protocol so it is very easy to talk to the Classic with your own programs as well. We took a ton of flack at Outback when we did the MX60 and Mate and the FM stuff for the proprietary communications protocol so we decided to make it simple at MidNite.

Ryan

Offline Wolvenar

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2012, 12:29:23 pm »
Sounding better all the time.
Trying to make power from alternative energy any which way I can.
Just to abuse what I make. (and run this site)

Offline philb

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #13 on: February 28, 2012, 07:31:04 pm »
NAWS has the cheapest price for the Classic 150 I've found on the net. http://www.solar-electric.com/mnclassic.html

Midnite Solar has some neat on line software that lets you go through the menus on the Classic.

Mine is set for delivery tomorrow.

Offline ChrisOlson

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Re: PV charge controller brand recommendation?
« Reply #14 on: February 29, 2012, 11:14:25 pm »
I did get mine switched out.  I had two panels that I couldn't wire in series with the rest on a 150 because the voltage would go too high.  So I put those two separate on a BZ MPPT500 controller that I had.

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I eliminated my RD-1 and instead am using the Classic's Aux 1 in diversion mode to turn on a 2 kW water heater element when the bank reaches float.  The element is 240 volt, powered by the inverters.  This "fools" the solar panels into staying at full power during float and the controller shuts the element off when it switches back to Bulk MPPT, or if it drops out of float because of not enough incoming solar power.
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