Sola may ruin your Deep Cycle Batteries

Wot a load of cobblers. If you use a regulator betwean the panel & batterys there will be no problems at all. I have a battery which is now 9Yrs old & been on a solar system with a regulator all its life. It certainly hasnt hurt the battery, it has lost some of its capacity but i would expect that after 9Yrs it never ceases to amaze me what sales men will tell people.

I thought that is exactly what I said. Where is the cobblers?????

"dbish posted:
Wot a load of cobblers."
What a charming way to start a post. Especially when you are actually agreeing with the aforementioned "load of cobblers."

Whatever happened to common courtesy?

Sorry about that Boobook wasnt aimed at you was my description about sales people. Was in agreance with what you said. I have a general dislike of sales people & reps from when in busines< the amount of lies they spin to try & sell you something is incredable. After reading some of the other threads it apears im not the only one to disagree.

No Problem. :-)

calcium batteries cannot be made deep cycle. If you look at the world leader in solar regs http://www.morningstarcorp.com you will see no calcium battery settings. My camper battery 7 yrs old been connected to solar everyday with Morningstar Prostar 30
whoever you are dealing appears to be a solar crook ready to jump on his horse and ride off into the sun leaving you with the crap. If you have been sold a calcium battery for a deep cycle battery the battery wont last long. check websites like Fullriver and you will not find calcium deep cycle batteries. if you do a search on the net you will find the best way to look after a battery is with solar panels left connected full time and decent solar reg and leave connected. I dont own a battery charger as dont need one.

".(which I understand is not sufficient to fully charge a Deep Cycle Battery) "

People have problems charging Wetcell DeepCycle in cars because it takes a long time, not because of voltage problems usually.

"calcium batteries *cannot* be made deep cycle" ha ha ha

Mate that's a huge load of horse manua
My Delkor Deep Cycle (DC27) batteries were calcium and I replaced them @ 6 years old, and only then because I was worried they must be somewhere *near* the end of their useful lifespan.
I used one as my Cranking battery for about another 12 months.

Just because MorningStar does not have a Calcium battery setting may indicate they may not be a Solar "world leader" but just another a follower with a lower price point than the Solar technology leaders ha ha.
Many Solar regulator companies have Calcium settings, so by your own reasoning, they must be superior products ?

Steca (German made) definitely have all the correct settings including automatic equalization, SoC settings and large LCD display, I would not supply anything less than what I would, and do, use myself.

Maîneÿ . . .

Motherhen
yes, fortunately you use a quality Solar system that's correctly installed :-)

Peter is possibly dealing with a ****** ?

Maîneÿ . . .

please dont follow the wiring diagram due to bad design

Yes,
I also agree, it's not the most efficient wiring system
(and no further comment entered into)

Maîneÿ . . .

Gents,

aside from not showing shunts to measure charge current from the battery charger and vehicle and another to measure discharge current directly from the battery to the vehicle and the fridge, what exactly is wrong with his wiring diagram?

Looks like a pretty standard -ve controlled regulator setup to me....Plasmatronics perhaps?

Criticism should be followed up with enlightenment. Enlighten me....

Cheers

Russ

Why is the Fridge connected directly to the Battery, rather than to the LOAD terminal on the regulator, so it could keep track of the load it draws.

G'day Mike,

Depends on the regulator. The Plasmatronics PL-40 only has a 7 Amp load terminal and often the 'fridge is separated like shown in this diagram so as to not overload that terminal.

Additionally, some people prefer the 'fridge to be directly connected to the battery in case of regulator failure. I have a similar setup and I have a 60 Amp reg. In my case, I use a shunt so that the Reg knows how much current the 'fridge is drawing.

It's not always necessary, but neither is it an issue.

Cheers

Russ

Not showing a Fuse DIRECTLY at the Battery Positive shows it was designed by a very naive person.

Point taken on the fuse, but one suspects that there would be a fuse there in practice. After all, it is a drawing supplied by a caravan manufacturer. The principle of the drawing is sound and could be followed by anyone wishing to install their own solar setup. You'd be surprised at the number of solar setups that I have come across that don't use the load terminal of the regulator at all - and I reckon that would be a worse scenario than the drawing shown above.

In practice, I'm not a huge fan of fusing main cable connections, instead preferring to mechanically protect the cables. I do use fuses where the cables cannot be adequately protected. Fuses inherently cause volt drop and overdoing them achieves little. So long as the cables are protected and the distribution connections are fused there shouldn't be a problem. Let's face it, the only reason for placing a fuse at the battery is to cover the possibility of cable damage. The individual appliance fuses do the rest.

I have seen dozens of Engineer designed, low voltage DC installations using only terminal fuses, especially in areas requiring intrinsic safety. They once used airtight fuseboxes and sealed cartridge fuses but there seems to be a move away from those.

Additionally, if the fuse panel were just, say, 400 mm from the battery and the cable could be protected, would you fuse it? I sure as hell wouldn't. There is absolutely no need to. I do think that there should be a fuse in the lead going to the vehicle and, again, there probably is in practice.

Cheers

Russ

Thank you Russ and Sue,
One correction tho, I designed this to ad-dapt to the wiring in the van.It was not done by Windsor. To do it correctly I would have had to dismantle the panels of the van. Concequently the 12 volt power and light are as one.

Now to the critics out there.
The fridge is directly wired to the battery as it lives next door. Also by having it direct there is less resistance. Why stuff around reading what the fridge is drawing when it only runs on 12 volt while while being towed by the 4wd. On 12v, 35 ambient the fridge hold 5-6 degrees. below 28deg. the cook aint happy. On gas or 240v with an ambient temp of 28 degrees the Electrolux/Dometic runs around 2and3/4 on the dial cycling between 2-4 degrees. 35 ambient the fridge on a setting of 3 has the same cycle readings. Any more and once again the chief cook ain't a happy jack.
Any long cables are protected by a sheath. [These are no more than 600mm in length.]
It is not a bad design, it may be basic but it works for me. As far as I am concerned the less wires the better, less confusing, less voltage resistance. Why have 10 wires doing the job when 1 does the same thing. Same goes for the shunts.
You would have to see the set-up in the van.
Fuse inline to the battery? There is one. I boobood and didn't show it in the diagram.
The solar charger is a Plasmatronic and it gives me all the data I reguire.

Mainy can you remember the post where the other bloke was envolved? Maybe they would like to read that also.

Tony

There is one thing I didn't mention and that is what is on/in the vehicle to protect the wiring.

Tony,
I've said " it's not the most *efficient* wiring system "
(and no further comment entered into)

The problem with putting diagrams up here is *everybody* will find a different, nicer looking or more efficient way of doing it, the fuse missing is an example :-)

Maîneÿ . . .

Mike,
I will be more brutal and won't entertain any 'political correctness'

Yes, the regulator MUST be a "crappy regulator" if it can't/won't regulate :-)

Maîneÿ . . .