Apollo T80 Never ever happy

Philter · October 2018

Never happy from day 1. Changed mother board, still never worked properly. With full sun, batteries at full charge
(48v off grid, 16 ,6v golf cart 225Ah) mid day on flood charge. Charge from panels is available but the Apollo takes load from batteries instead of increasing power to maintain full charge even with a very minimal draw or very very little.
worked this way from day one also with NO real help from company support
?? Has anyone found a way out of this situation without buying a different brand charge controller

Estragon · October 2018

What is the string Vmp of your panels?

Is there a "rebulk" or similar voltage setting, and if so, what is it set to?

What is the float voltage set to?

What is the bank voltage when this is happening?

It may be quite normal for the CC to let voltage drop from absorb voltage to float or rebulk after completing a charge cycle.

Dave Angelini · October 2018

There is no support because there is no company!
Sorry but for $ 500 you can solve this problem!

Philter · October 2018

I’ll try to start from the beginning 2005ish
4 solar world vmp 44.5, short circuit current 5.4 2 strings 2 series, those parallel
abs 58v. Adjustable float 55.5 adjustable no bulk setting
Bought batteries used (5years old)didn’t last but 3 more years ,,then just replaced 8 6v 225ah
and ran with just those 8. Very limited loads (led lights,deep well pump, small deep freezer with Johnson
controller with probe set for 35* to 39* differential)left over winter on float
Batteries fully charged approximately 60v
As power is drawn from small loads I expected ahr to be replaced ,,so at sun loss the batteries
would show full charge instead of down 8 or 10%
I bought control equipment inside with plans to load up more
Can I replace this Apollo with the Midnight Kid and increase the life of batteries
I’m sometimes about as numb as a bale of hay so I do apologize for that,, sorry.

Estragon · October 2018

At ~60v, the fully charged bank is above the float voltage setting of 55v. Once the absorb cycle is complete (likely based on a timer setting), the controller will let the voltage drop to float. I wonder if your "down 8-10%" is including this? Even with no loads or charging, the voltage would eventually drop to a resting voltage (~51v). Loads just speed up the drop.

Once the bank voltage drops to float, the controller should supply enough current to keep it there, to the extent it can with available sun. If loads + float current is less than available sun, no power is being drawn from the battery.

Assuming the batteries are flooded golf-cart type, you can (and should) check specific gravity regularly to see if your charging is appropriate.

Photowhit · October 2018

Philter said:
Can I replace this Apollo with the Midnight Kid and increase the life of batteries

So it looks like you have 4 roughly 200 watt panels, 800 watt array. 800 watts ÷ 48 volts (charging voltage for a near flat battery) = about 17 amps... This should be no problem for the Kid! You could likely expand to double the array and still not pressure the Kid as your actual production will be less than 800 watts

Here is a link to Midnite's array sizing tool for the Kid;

http://www.midnitesolar.com/sizingTool_kid/

Apollo T80 Never ever happy

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