Solar Panels and Battery Charger??

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Elmer T
Elmer T Registered Users Posts: 14 ✭
in Solar Beginners Corner #1
Thanks to this forum, and the people at NAWS, I have installed the following system on my sailboat;

3 Kyocera 135 watt panels, combiner box with 3, 10- amp circuit breakers, Blue Sky Solar Boost 3024iL Controller. The system works great. My question is, when my boat is at the dock we are hooked up to shore power, and so my Xantrex 2500 Inverter/Charger is charging the house batteries ( 2-each Lifeline AGM 4D 220 amp hours each / new when the solar panels were installed)

So basically during the day light hours the batteriies are being charged by both the solar panels, and the battery charger. Is this OK, or am I damaging my batteries, should I turn off the solar panels at the combiner box, which has a 10-amp circuit breaker for each panel.

Anyn help, suggestions, advice would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Jeff
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  • Cariboocoot
    Cariboocoot Banned Posts: 17,615 ✭✭✭
    #2
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    Re: Solar Panels and Battery Charger??

    It's fine; both charge sources are regulated. No chance of over-charging or one source doing damage to the other. Lots of us do this with off-grid systems.
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  • BB.
    BB. Super Moderators, Administrators Posts: 33,439 admin
    #3
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    Re: Solar Panels and Battery Charger??

    Watch the voltage at the battery bank... If it stays stable at ~13.2 to 13.7 volts or so, the battery is "floating" and will be fine.

    If the battery is above 13.8 volts for significant amount of time per day, the battery is charging and will use a fair amount of water... Also, overcharging will eventually wear the battery out. Conversely, if the battery is cycling (being discharged and charged again via the inverter/chargers)--you are cycling the batteries, so it would be better to bypass the inverter and just run shore power instead.

    If the batteries spend significant time on just charge/float (3 to 12+ months a year), it apparently helps their life/capacity to cycle them significantly once in a while (draw them down to 80% state of charge or so).

    Since you are using AGM batteries--make sure none of your chargers (solar, AC) are set to equalize (or are set to AGM mode).

    -Bill
    Near San Francisco California: 3.5kWatt Grid Tied Solar power system+small backup genset
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  • Elmer T
    Elmer T Registered Users Posts: 14 ✭
    #4
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    Re: Solar Panels and Battery Charger??

    The Blue Sky controller has factory set points of14.4v charging, and 13.2v float. The charging voltage recomended by Lifeline are, Bulk/Absorb 14.2v - 14.4v, and float of 13.2 volt - 13.4v

    So I should be OK,

    Jeff
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