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Small Cabin Forum / Off-Grid Living / Solar charge controller question
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groingo
Member
# Posted: 23 Oct 2014 21:47
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It says under Control Parameters "Low voltage reconnect" then 12.6V for flooded battery.....what exactly does the Low voltage reconnect mean?

razmichael
Member
# Posted: 23 Oct 2014 22:14 - Edited by: razmichael
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Normally this is tied to using the "Load" output of the charge controller and pairs with the low voltage disconnect value. This is to protect the bank from discharging too deeply by automatically disconnecting the load at a pre-set low voltage disconnect set point then reconnecting the load at the low vlotage reconnect set point once the batteries have been recharged to the value set.

MtnDon
Member
# Posted: 23 Oct 2014 22:16
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Does that CC have a load control section? Without seeing the user manual section it sounds like they are talking about using the CC to turn a device (light, whatever) on or off when the voltage hits a certain high or low. If that is what they are talking about then when the battery voltage is higher than the low voltage reconnect, the load would be turned on.....

Can you point to an online version of the manual and narrow it down to the section/paragrapgh/page.... ?

MtnDon
Member
# Posted: 23 Oct 2014 22:20
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... if they topic area is under charging the batteries from the PV that could be what is sometimes called 'rebulk'. That is where the batteries have reached full charge and a load is applied to the batteries, large enough to drag the voltage down to the preset point. That usually also has a time function... certain voltage for so many minutes... Then the CC goes back into bulk charge.

Hard to know for certain w/o knowing the context of the quote.

groingo
Member
# Posted: 23 Oct 2014 23:00
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Don:
It is just listed under "Battery Parameters" then Control Parameter but I think you may be correct and it may have somthing to do with the timer mode which I have disabled.

razmichael
Member
# Posted: 24 Oct 2014 07:18
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Groingo, I took a look at your manual (you posted the kit you picked up earlier) and the parameter is what I thought it was up top. The load loop on the controller just provides an easy connection from the batteries to power 12 volt circuits (limited by the charge controller specs for current on the load loop). You may or may not be using this capability - don't know. For small systems this approach is good because the controller also provides low voltage protection in case the batteries are run down. The two parameters are Low Voltage Disconnect and Low voltage Reconnect. Set these two parameters to determine at what voltage you want to disconnect the batteries to protect them from over-discharge and then what point to reconnect them - powering the load circuit. This does not disconnect the batteries from charging or anything else - just the load loop.

As an aside, I have my main power to the cabin running from the batteries through a high capacity switch (and fuse) to a Sterling latching relay. The latching relay has the same type of parameters to protect the batteries if I forget to turn off the main power when I leave and something goes wrong which runs the batteries down. I also have my "security circuit" running off the charge controller load circuit that powers some motion sensor floods and two cameras. The charge controller has the low protect and reconnect parameters to, again, protect the batteries.

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