Plasmatronics PL controller issues.
I have a product which I wished to simply turn off overnight to save power
and also shed this load if for some reason the solar panels weren't able to
sufficently re-charge batteries to prevent them going flat.
Some people here use these mid-range solar panel controllers and might find the following helpful.
What I wished to do seemed straight forward enough - but it didn't work
and one gets into a loop - >
Have I blown up the controller !
Its got complex instructions - do I understand them !
The manufacturer insists the product should work - he must know what he is talking about right !
Will I send it back as a warranty claim !
Its not to easy to take on a supplier backed by local engineering support
on a
well known documented product, and care is needed.
Eventually got them to listen and sure enough the following limitations
should be kept in mind when using these solar controllers.
The state logic theory logic doesn't work fully in an inverted mode , so to
turn off a load and protect the battery , one should set the logic
backwards. (not needed if don't care about a flat battery)
I.E to turn something off from 12:30 am to 5am with battery protection
you set your Event controller logic Lset to 4 (=turn on) and invert your times
so that the on becomes off outside the times.
I.E. set times to on at 5 Am and off at 12:30 am so that it will be on in between.
(Bear with me as I do this step by step as there is another point)
The above inverted logic should be correct however the event controller
has issues working across midnight under some conditions hence you need to
adjust you switching times to not include midnight and consequently advance your
clock to compensate.
I.E to turn something off from 12:30 am to 5am with battery protection
set switch on to 4am and switch off to 11:30pm and advance clock to 1 hr before
the actual time so that the 4am switch occurs at 5am
Robin Miller