Post by tominwashington on Oct 22, 2018 15:01:54 GMT
First I would like to give two big thumbs up to Renogy. As someone new to all this, couldn't be more pleased with the quality as well as customer service.
I bought a starter kit, two 100w panels, 20a Rover and using a single marine battery to get going and learn what i am doing. I went through the usual head scratching, video watching etc. Built a nice little stand that swings up and down for the seasons. I live up near Seattle so have pretty severe sun levels during the seasons. .
Just from initial testing, this system is going to give me everything I want. From March-October at least. It is grey and yucky here in the winter so am gearing toward those months to see what I might need to add.
My yesterday first test went well. Even in heavy morning fog I was getting an amp at 17 volts. I know, not much, but as the day went on it went up to 2 amps at 20 volts for the 6 hours I get sun where it is set up. I figure I got about 300 watts put into my battery. I think, which brings me to my question.
How in the heck do you tell what you have? From what I read, the Rover battery% is useless. Case in point, it was reading 100%. I hooked up my inverter to a 8watt light bulb and it immediately dropped down to 91% and after using the 8 watt bulb for four hours dropped down to 71%. No way. It is a 100amp hour battery. Which is somewhere around 1,200 1,400 stored watts. Right?
I kept hourly readings of amps and volts and can do the math, assuming solar math is math that I am understanding. amps x volts = watts
So assuming that the Rover battery% readout is unusable, how does one tell what is in the battery so you can gauge what you used to make plans of what you need in a system to get to that number. I am needing 300watts a day
I bought a starter kit, two 100w panels, 20a Rover and using a single marine battery to get going and learn what i am doing. I went through the usual head scratching, video watching etc. Built a nice little stand that swings up and down for the seasons. I live up near Seattle so have pretty severe sun levels during the seasons. .
Just from initial testing, this system is going to give me everything I want. From March-October at least. It is grey and yucky here in the winter so am gearing toward those months to see what I might need to add.
My yesterday first test went well. Even in heavy morning fog I was getting an amp at 17 volts. I know, not much, but as the day went on it went up to 2 amps at 20 volts for the 6 hours I get sun where it is set up. I figure I got about 300 watts put into my battery. I think, which brings me to my question.
How in the heck do you tell what you have? From what I read, the Rover battery% is useless. Case in point, it was reading 100%. I hooked up my inverter to a 8watt light bulb and it immediately dropped down to 91% and after using the 8 watt bulb for four hours dropped down to 71%. No way. It is a 100amp hour battery. Which is somewhere around 1,200 1,400 stored watts. Right?
I kept hourly readings of amps and volts and can do the math, assuming solar math is math that I am understanding. amps x volts = watts
So assuming that the Rover battery% readout is unusable, how does one tell what is in the battery so you can gauge what you used to make plans of what you need in a system to get to that number. I am needing 300watts a day
