Solar Not Charging Batteries

treyrobinson

Hi! Thank you for taking the time to read this. I am really struggling with my solar setup. 

So my batteries aren’t charging. Or at least that’s what my charge controller claims. The controller has been hooked up to the batteries for a few days but it is still reading that the batteries are empty. I have checked both at the peak of sunlight and at the end of the day, which leads me to believe it is not a case of the energy going back to the panels. 

In fact, I think the batteries are charging because before I hooked up the charge controller to the batteries they were reading about 8 volts but now they are reading about 13 volts. 

If I have learned anything about reading these forums then I am pretty certain this won’t be all the information you need. Please respond with any extra info needed and I will be happy to get that to you!

Thank you so much! 

Estragon

For a start, I'd reboot the controller by; turning it off, opening the pv breaker, then the battery breaker.  Wait ~1 minute, then close the battery breaker and wait for the controller boot-up sequence to complete.  After fully booted, turn the controller off again, the close the pv breaker.

I'm guessing the controller may have seen pv voltage before bank voltage, which can do odd things to bootup (like make it think it's a 24v bank).

If still it looks wrong, it would help to list details on panels, controller, bank, etc.

mcgivor

The thing that jumps out to me is the statement  "I hooked up the charge controller to the batteries they were reading about 8 volts but now they are reading about 13 volts." At 8 volts the batteries would be completely discharged, most likely damaged beyond recovery, the controller may elevate the voltage to 13V but my guess is that there's very little current flow due to lost capacity. 

Naturally with limited details this is purely speculation, can you provide some additional information?