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Charge Controller

  • Thread starter Karthikayan Balakrishnan
  • Start date
K

Karthikayan Balakrishnan

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,
Is there any charge controller that will allow me to charge the bat
teries when I have the sun out and when it is dark/cloudy charge using th
e grid power. I have a Prosine 1800W inverter and I would like to use it as
a UPS. The battery bank is charged by solar and I want to make sure that
it is always charged either using PV or the grid power. So I was wonder
ing if there was a charge controller that took in as inputs grid and PV. I
would appreciate any help on this. Thanks.
Karthik.
 
B

Bob Adkins

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,
Is there any charge controller that will allow me to charge the bat
teries when I have the sun out and when it is dark/cloudy charge using th
e grid power. I have a Prosine 1800W inverter and I would like to use it as
a UPS. The battery bank is charged by solar and I want to make sure that
it is always charged either using PV or the grid power. So I was wonder
ing if there was a charge controller that took in as inputs grid and PV. I
would appreciate any help on this. Thanks.

I guess everyone is baffled, so I'll give it a try.

I would break things down into 2 functions and use a switch to flip from sun
to grid power. You could even use a light-activated switch to do it
automatically.

Well, it *could work. :)

Bob
 
S

Scott Willing

Jan 1, 1970
0
Hello,
Is there any charge controller that will allow me to charge the bat
teries when I have the sun out and when it is dark/cloudy charge using th
e grid power. I have a Prosine 1800W inverter and I would like to use it as
a UPS. The battery bank is charged by solar and I want to make sure that
it is always charged either using PV or the grid power. So I was wonder
ing if there was a charge controller that took in as inputs grid and PV. I
would appreciate any help on this. Thanks.
Karthik.

I will assume that you're talking about setting up a so-called
full-time UPS, wherein the load always runs off the output of the
inverter, vs a standby system that cuts in (via a relay) only when the
AC fails. (The former is far superior as it also mitigates or
eliminates AC voltage variations etc. when AC is present, but the
latter is the most common arrangement for inexpensive so-called
UPS's.)

I have never seen a combination PV / AC controller/charger, but there
is no harm in parallel connection of a PV controller with a separate
AC-powered charger. They should each have their own appropriate
overcurrent protection and disconnects, ideally using breakers since
you get both functions in one device.

Depending on how fancy the units are (e.g simple float regulation vs
3-stage charging), how adjustable they are, and whether or not you
want full automation (vs some manual switching) it could be a little
tricky to set things up so that the PV controller is doing all the
work when the sun's out. Simply put, whichever controller is trying to
drive the batteries to the higher voltage will do all or most of the
work; the other source will be pinched off when the voltage it's
trying to achieve is exceeded.

Without a lot of Deep Thought, I'd say the best arrangement would be
to use a simple float type AC charger (i.e. with a set output voltage
of about 13.6V assuming a nominal 12V system) and a three-stage PV
charger. When the PV charger is doing its thing, the AC charger would
be alive (and drawing a bit of power) but not contributing any
current, i.e. pinched off by the higher output voltage of the
three-stage charger. To ensure this condition continues even when the
PV controller reaches its float stage (assuming sufficient solar
insolation is still available) the PV controller float voltage would
have to be slightly higher than the AC charger float setting.

If this *is* a full-time arrangement and the load is on 24/7, the AC
charger would need to supply enough power to run the load as well as
maintain the batteries. If you're thinking of drawing any more than
about 500 or 600W, that would imply a pretty dang hefty charger. My
old 75A Todd is about the biggest non-industrial unit I've seen
outside of the inverter-integrated types, and that's only about 1kW in
a 12V system.

If you're going to set up a standby system with a relay, and/or the
load is intermittent and/or relatively small, this could go together
relatively painlessly and work well, but if your requirements are
going to push the envelope, one wonders if it's really worth the
effort.

Commentary from others is more than welcome, this is lunch-break
stream of consciousness here...

....and I can see why you're shopping for a dual-input charger. Would
be nice, but I don't really think there's any such thing off the
shelf.

-=s
 
G

George Ghio

Jan 1, 1970
0
While it does not have provision for Grid input the PL series of Solar
Charge Controllers can be programed to control your charging from two
sources and log the data as well.

<www.plasmatronics.com.au>

George L Ghio

Karthikayan Balakrishnan
 
S

Steve Spence

Jan 1, 1970
0
one scenario is if you are grid connected, you don't need batteries. you
just feed your power back to grid, reducing your bill. this will not help
you in a power outage.

another is that batteries are only used for grid outages. the
inverter/charger keeps them charged.

another is grid is only used when solar input is insufficient. again, your
inverter/charger will maintain them from grid.

The prosine 1800 does not have an integrated charger. The prosine 2.0, 2.5
and 3.0 do.
 
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