hookups

dr650dude

Have a tristar 40,6 trojan 6volts,400 watt panel.
What would the best way to hook up a generator to the system?
Directly to the batteries? output leads of the tristar?
Are there any feedback issues to the controller?
Have a disconnect at the controller output for charging?
Generator has 12 volt supply...wire before tristar...let controller handle it?
I dont want to damage controller.

BB.

Welcome to the forum dr650dude.

Lots of questions...

The TriStar 40... Is that a TS 45 PWM (pulse width modulation) type controller, or a TS 45 MPPT type (maximum power point tracking)?

What kind of generator are we talking about... A "real" DC generator or an AC alternator + rectifier? What kind of regulation does the generator/alternator have?

In general, a series type charge controller works by turn on/off to adjust the average current going into the battery. DC generators and especially AC alternators output voltage can dramatically increase when the output it switched on/off under load (12 volt alternators can easily exceed 120 VAC when their output is disconnected and the alternator is turning fast. And I would worry that the inductance of a generator/alternator can cause high voltage spikes--Both of which can damage attached solar panels and the solar charge controller itself).

Also, alternators/generators designed to attach directly to a battery bank generally have very poor voltage regulation (as above, very wide output voltage when unconnected to a battery bank). If the generator/alternator is designed to run without a battery bank (stable DC voltage direct to attached loads)--Placing the output in parallel with the solar panels may cause other issues.

On average--I would not suggest paralleling solar panels+generator input to the solar charge controller unless you know exactly how your generator behaves electrically.

-Bill

dr650dude

dr650dude said:

Have a tristar 40,6 trojan 6volts,400 watt panel.
What would the best way to hook up a generator to the system?
Directly to the batteries? output leads of the tristar?
Are there any feedback issues to the controller?
Have a disconnect at the controller output for charging?
Generator has 12 volt supply...wire before tristar...let controller handle it?
I dont want to damage controller.


Tristar is a regular on...not mppt.
generator is a eu1000 honda...newer one with clean power.
Trying to figure out how to charge the bank when sunlight is an issue.
and not f-up the controller.

vtmaps

dr650dude said:

generator is a eu1000 honda...newer one with clean power.

The 12 volt supply on your generator is not adequate to charge your batteries.  You need a battery charger... something that is powered by the generator's AC output. 

--vtMaps

BB.

Yes--Do not use the eu1000i 12 volt charger. It is (usually) ~8 amps (~96 Watts @ 12 volts) and usually requires you to turn off ECO Throttle (run at high speed). A few folks said their Honda manual said you cannot use the 12 volt output and the 120 VAC output at the same time (my eu2000i manual for my 10+ year old genset did not say anything).

As vtMaps said--Just get a good AC battery charger and power it with the eu1000i 120 VAC output... Typically, a non-PFC Iota 20 Amp @ 12 VDC should run OK on the eu1000i. A 40 amp @ 12 VDC charger may be too large (to high of VA input) for the small Honda.

-Bill

Brock

I would second the suggestion to just get about a 20a to 30a standalone 12v charger and connect that to the batteries and power the charger from the Honda, then you don't need to worry about what the solar is doing, just let the charger from the genset do it's thing.

I have an iota DLS-54-13, a 13 amp 54v (48v) charger.  I just plug that in to our Honda eu2000i and let it go.

dr650dude

Tks for the input....