Connect a battery to the "light bulb" section on a solar controller

There's a few question marks for this one.

The light bulb terminals are for load, most controllers power these through a low
voltage cutout. Your problem will be the regulator expects to see a battery connected
to the battery terminals and may not start charging, if by some chance it does turn on then connecting the battery to the load terminals might work ok but not the ideal situation.

Have you considered using a bigger screw and re-tapping the thread?

Cheers
Leigh

Is it the Positive, or Negative wire that's not holding?

If it's Neg, then moving this wire to an adjacent -ve terminal should work, as I'd assume that all the -ve terminals are bridged anyway.. (they are on my Morningstar)

Not so if it's the Positive terminal though..
As stated above, the controller will need to see a battery connected to the 'Batt' terminal in order to function correctly..

:)

Joan,

The simplest way would be to solder the wire to the same terminal block location.

I was under the impression that the "light bulb" terminals were to run a light cell activated dusk to dawn night/security light.

before you start getting all excited and start butchering the thing.

You'd be best carefully getting the screw in question out.

It may well be that the screw its self is ringbarked.

If the wires will come out of the terminal....slip one or a couple of small blade screwdrivers under the terminal, and help it as you try and unscrew.

Then take one of the good unused screws from a vacant terminal, screw that in and see if it holds.

I have come across this exact problem many times......the above is not the fix every time.....but it works a lot of times.


OH another non butcherous solution.....in some of these terminal blocks the screws are less than wonderfull.....mostly they are cheap rolled threads and the thread depth and form is not what it should be.
If you work out the correct thread, a good quality machined screw will hold where what came will not.....sometimes the good quality screw has to be pushed thru, because the thread form in the terminal is not wonderfull either....if you have to push the new screw thru....check the treads after...it may be wise to have a second screw on hand and throw the first one away and put a fresh screw.

Most of these terminals are either M3 or M4 standard pitch these days.

If ya gona start soldering and all that sort of thing....best to find someone with the skills and replace the terminal block.....it will most likely be one of the standard forms...you may find a better quality terminal to replace it with.



cheers