Charger controller Question

Denny

I have swinging gates and have them solar powered. Seems my controller has crapped out and they have sent me 4 Aleko LM118 solar charge controllers and each one when I hook them up I get nothing coming out from the load on the controller. They keep sending me one after another. Today with the controller that I checked out before install I had power coming off the load wires (I used smaller batteries to check it) They were under 24 volts as was the load during testing, that's good. There is 2 lights on the controller 1 light is charge 2 lights is over discharge. Test with power from the load 1 light. Soon as I hooked up at the gate both lights came on. Then when I tested the load I had 0. Those batteries were over 24 volts. I hooked the batteries to the control panel and opened the gate 4 times to get the voltage to drop to see if the load would show volts but got 0. I got these batteries with the 30 watt solar panel. My first thought was the batteries because what started this was at night the gate would stop working SOMETIMES. same during the day sometimes it would work then it would stop. System worked great for the first 6 months
Thank you for your time and trying to help me figure this out. I really need my gate opener

I need a controller that won't screw up in 6 months Any help on a controller that will work with my system.

I have a 30 watt solar and using the 10 watt I got to use as a back up with the system (for electric) so I hooked it up with the 30 w.solar panel and bigger batteries.
Dual swing gates. Lock Master model: LM 902

BB.

Re: Charger controller Question

I am not sure what is happening.

Just to make sure, you have the charge controller connected to a battery bank with a minimum of roughly 20 or 10 volts (24 or 12 volt battery bank). Many charge controllers will not turn on if there is not enough battery voltage.

Otherwise, look at any MorningStar small pwm type controller

http://www.solar-electric.com/inverters-controllers-accessories/chco/mochco/stpwmchco.html

-Bill

Denny

Re: Charger controller Question

Thanks Bill I have 25.7 volts going into controller and 0 coming out from load on controller

Denny

Re: Charger controller Question

BB. wrote: »

I am not sure what is happening.

Just to make sure, you have the charge controller connected to a battery bank with a minimum of roughly 20 or 10 volts (24 or 12 volt battery bank). Many charge controllers will not turn on if there is not enough battery voltage.

Otherwise, look at any MorningStar small pwm type controller

http://www.solar-electric.com/inverters-controllers-accessories/chco/mochco/stpwmchco.html

-Bill

I have hooked 3 new controllers up to get same results 0 volts coming out of controller load side, checked solar panels, checked batteries, checked lines from bat. everything is normal per say. I hook batteries up first then check load.

BB.

Re: Charger controller Question

Connect BATT output of controller to battery bank, Connect solar panel to Vpanel input?

And use the LOAD output to the gate electronics?

With LVD function, many will not "turn on" until the battery voltage is > ~13.5 Volts (27.0 volts for a 24 volt controller) or so (indicating the battery is getting "recharged"). And the LVD will turn off at ~11.5 volts (pretty near dead, 23.0 volts for a 24 volt battery). If you connect to a battery and it does not "go through" an initial charging cycle--I could see that being a "gotcha".

Amazon does have a couple complaints about the same issue (LVD not working correctly):

http://www.amazon.com/ALEKO%C2%AE-LM118-24-Volt-Charge-Controller/dp/B005UUK78A

If the charge controller is "working", you can connect directly to the battery bank and not use the LVD function of the controller.

-Bill