Morning Star PS-30

stmar

I was gone overnight and when I got home my controller was pulsing, no charging from the array and the bank was at float. I had to reset the controller. Any ideas on why it did not automatically reset? The only thing different could have been very light load since nobody was home. It was a sunny weekend so the array would have hit the max voltage so as to put the controller in pulse.

Photowhit

Might post this in the off grid section, Doesn't appear to have anything to do with the grid. Not sure what you mean by

stmar wrote: »

my controller was pulsing, no charging

then

stmar wrote: »

the bank was at float

if it's in float the controller is doing it's job. If you're referring to the inverter not drawing from the array/battery then something else is going on.

BB.

I have no idea what is happening.

Are you saying the LEDs on the PS-30 where blinking?

If it is still in warranty, you can give MorningStar a call.

-Bill

stmar

PWM = Pulse Width Modulation so I used pulse to explain what was happening, the LEDs were blinking and there was no charge coming from the array. I am grid tied so the inverter/grid was charging the batteries and that is why they were at float. I did a reset and it worked. With a light load and the array getting full sun, I imagine it went to it's voltage limit then disconnected the array at some point. My question was what would keep it from resetting after the voltage dropped? The controller is 10+ years old so out of warranty.

BB.

I don't know... Some controllers take a fairly significant voltage drop to get out of system shutdown situations (like drop below ~13.5 volts or even 12.7 volts) before they reset.

10 years is a good run for electronics--Keep an eye on it.

-Bill

stmar

Sorry for my lack of correct terminology. For some reason I had a block on "regulation" and that is what I meant instead of pulse. The display did not show any faults and the green LED was blinking which meant it should be in "regulation" but the array was not charging. You may have hit on the answer: since it is grid tied it may not let the voltage drop enough to "reset" automatically once the controller disconnects the array. I will see if I can find anything on that but the documentation says it should all be automatic. Any Morning Star users have similar issues/experiences?
I found that HVD = 30.4 but it does not give a voltage for reconnect like it does with LVD.

BB.

Sorry, forgot you are on a 24 volt system... My numbers x2 for thoughts about HVD "reset" levels. But otherwise, It sounds like you have some actions you can try.

-Bill

stmar

Being the winter season and low temps the compensated voltage is running in the low 27's instead of 26.8 float so with the grid up it would not fall below that. I am trying to get HVD reconnect confirmation from Morningstar but I am thinking that is the answer. When we are here there is always a load using power so the issue does not occur.

stmar

Morningstar support said that HVD reconnect is 24.6, if he is correct then it would not reconnect with the grid supplying power. I am trying to find out what would cause it to disconnect then go to regulation and not throw any codes. Hate to do a bench test but may come to that. It has been working okay since I reset it, sunny day and using power today.

stmar

I don't know if it was HVD that caused it to disconnect, Morningstar said it could have been the absorption timer. I can't find much info on this with the PS-30, have a message in to support so I will see what they say. Does anybody know anything about the absorption timer function of the PS-30?

stmar

"This unit uses a duty cycle percentage, and then a cumulative timer."
That is what I got back from Morningstar. In the manual under Battery Equalization it has Calendar - 25 days so I assume that every 25 days it goes into an Equalization cycle and I just happened to look at it when it was doing that.