Are my parts working together well

Hi,  MEK..,  Welcome to the Fourm.

Quick comments:

Four parallel batteries often cause imbalance in charge and discharge.   You need large interconnecting cables,  and proper attention to having identical-length cables,  wired for the best balance.

AND,   an inverter with a  GIGANTIC  (and probable overly  optimistic) output power rating,  AT 12 VDC,  will generally WASTE tons of  power,  just sitting idle. 

On balance,  from the little that i known about your system,   not very well balanced,  IMO. 

FWIW,  Vic

Hi Mark,

First,  the following Link shows some variations on wiring parallel batteries:
SmartGauge Electronics - SmartBank wiring diagrams

1.8 A Tare consumption (with no loads),   is not bad.

But,   really,  one would want to know the purpose/use of your system,   the maximum and minimum loads and the time of day, when they occur,   the estimated average total power consumed from the batteries,  and many other details of your system.

At 4000 Watts of load on the inverter (if the inverter and batteries could really deliver that),   there is nominally about 400 Amps going into the inverter.   This is a lot of current.   BUT,  probably,  you will not ever place that much load on the inverter.   4/0 cable is not rated for that much current,   but  the battery voltage would probably crash,  in short order at that current.

Please tell us more about your system.

As noted,  above,   a  4 KW, inverter needs a lot of current at 50 - 75% load.   Why do you need such a large inverter,  on a 12 V battery bank?   If you need close to this amount of power for any length of  time,  at all,   you would be better served by a 48 V system,   and so on   ...

Back to work here,   Others will chime in.   Vic

MEK1954 said:

Basically what I am asking is, is my solar panels (4x 195w panels) enough to maintain my battery's (4x 200 amp) The battery's get run down to about 60% and charged up to 85% on the average +-10%.

It's always hard to critique someone else's system without knowing why some things are selected. Also Someone in the Pacific North West who might get 1 1/2 hour of direct sunlight on average during rainy season and someone in the Southwest who gets 7+ hours of direct sunlight throughout the year will require different system. 

To directly answer this question, For systems which are cycled daily, we usually recommend at least 10% of the battery capacity available from the solar array at their maximum point in time. So for a 800 amp hour 12 volt battery bank, that would be about 80 amps. Your 780 watts array, is likely to produce only 600 watts at any one time. This is the difference between Standard Test Conditions and Normal Operating Cell Temperature conditions (STC vs NOCT) so 600 watts divided by 12 volt = 50 amps. So this would be less than I would recommend. If you have daily loads this will detract from the ability of the array to provide charging and should further enlarge your array to cover that... So if you have no daily loads something like a 11-1200 watt array would be needed. If you are running a fridge, figure another 200 watts of array. I'm just making rough estimates. Just your inverter running without load is 20+ Watts and if that is a 'quiet/sleep mode' that it draws 20ish watts than when in use it may double or more.

In reality, charging is done at 13-15 volts in general, so even worse than I'm suggesting!

For weekend use, generally you can drop that to 5% of the battery capacity. Again this will vary by your solar insolation. You can go to PVWatts web site to figure out your average daily exposure, Skip most of the info there as it's designed for grid tied use, add your location and follow through to the end and it will give rough estimates of the available hours of direct sun light for each month of the year.

https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/

MEK1954 said:

 The battery's get run down to about 60% and charged up to 85% on the average +-10%.

I don't know how you are measuring this? If you are using voltage, It is likely you are much farther apart than you think. Voltage is not a reliable way to measure your state of Charge (SOC) when a system is in operation. When charging your system voltage will always be higher than the batteries resting voltage, when discharging it will usually be lower than resting voltage.

In general if a battery is left below 80% for any legnth of time it will begin sulfating.

I understand at times it's necessary to have a large inverter,  starting large well pumps for instance. Sometimes it's also nice if you plan on expanding your system later and don't want to buy another inverter later. So I understand there are reasons.

In addition, there are reasons to have multiple strings of batteries, but it's very difficult for them to share the load and charging. Something many have found out over time. They tend to work fine for a couple years and you don't notice the uneven charging and discharging. We mostly just want to help you with this information.

In general higher system voltages help with this. I know you have a 12 volt system currently and replacing your inverter would not be cheap. But something too consider, particularly NOW. If you will need to replace your charge controller now to reach 80 amps delivery, understand that if you went to 24 volts, the same power (wattage) could be done with your existing charge controller as it would only need to deliver 40 amps at 24 volts to service a 400amp 24 volt bank. So you could add that money toward your new inverter. Move to a 48 volt system and it's only 20 amps for a 48 volt 200 amps battery bank!

FWIW - I ran my 16x60 mobile home with a fridge and window air conditioner for 7 years on a 1800 watt 24volt inverter. I did have to make some minor adjustments, I tried not to run the front loading washing machine at the same time as the window air conditioner as when the fridge would pop on sometimes it would create too large a draw on the inverter and it would shut down for safety reasons. But it was very 'doable'. Even ran a table saw from time to time, but with everything else shut off typically.

MEK1954 said:

All the battery's join at one point with 4ga wire and 1/0 ga from the batt to the inverter, with no power being used the inverter draws 1.8 amps.

If you think my components are not very well balanced, what are your concerns?

Others have suggested that the wiring is too small for this inverter. Let me show you...

4000 watts at 12 volts would require 4000watts/12volts=333amps

1/0 wire can handle about 230 amps;


4/0 would be required.

MEK1954 said:

And my issue with the battery charger is most I see are automatic 2/6/12 amp and it seams like charging 4- 200 amp battery's with 6 amps is no better then a trickle charger, so I was asking what recommendations you have.

It looks like you are looking at maintainers, There are chargers out their Iota is one brand which are designed to charge deepcycle batteries, here's one that's 55 amps from the forum's sponsor. (They make larger) I think they are pretty cheap, but you might find it cheaper elsewhere;

https://www.solar-electric.com/iota-engineering-dls-55-x-battery-charger.html

Alot of people try to charge in the morning with the generator and allow the solar array to do the finaly 15-20% as the battery accepts less current as the reach fully charged.