Post by alta on Aug 5, 2018 18:35:36 GMT
Copied from old Forum:
Looking for information on Commander 20A. I'm using 2x100 (12V) panels + 12V wet cell marine battery for a 24x7 remote video camera, consuming about 1/2 Kwh/day.
1) Equalization. The manual says equalization occurs every 28 days and runs 2 hours by default. On page 3 of the manual, it states in a warning that there should be no load on the battery while in the equalization stage. There doesn't appear to be a manually triggered equalization feature on the Commander 20A. So, how does one know when it will equalize and is there any way to trigger it manually? I'd like to equalize my battery, but can't take the camera offline during it, even if I knew when it was going to happen. Should I be setting the equalization time to a normal voltage or the equalization time to zero because of this?
2) I've noted that in contradiction to manual, the power accumulator counters on the MT50 don't all zero on power-reset as specified. By the way, I'm using a 125 foot extension cable to bring the MT50 into the house and it is working fine.
3) Renogy support told me that when using two 100W panels, I had to configure them in parallel, because the Commander 20A did not support them in series. That I had to buy the adapters to connect them in parallel. I thought 24V to 12V was the whole idea behind MPPT.
4) With a 100 watt inverter and only 30 watts max consumption, can I use the DC output of the Commander controller, while testing my system? I'm drawing less than 3 amps on a 20 amp system in a controlled testing environment, so don't see the problem. I'd like to use the load stats on the MT50 to better understand the real-world load on my battery and efficiency of my inverter before putting the system back into the field for unattended operation. For production, I plan on running the inverter directly off the battery as recommended - just in case there is a short.
Looking for information on Commander 20A. I'm using 2x100 (12V) panels + 12V wet cell marine battery for a 24x7 remote video camera, consuming about 1/2 Kwh/day.
1) Equalization. The manual says equalization occurs every 28 days and runs 2 hours by default. On page 3 of the manual, it states in a warning that there should be no load on the battery while in the equalization stage. There doesn't appear to be a manually triggered equalization feature on the Commander 20A. So, how does one know when it will equalize and is there any way to trigger it manually? I'd like to equalize my battery, but can't take the camera offline during it, even if I knew when it was going to happen. Should I be setting the equalization time to a normal voltage or the equalization time to zero because of this?
2) I've noted that in contradiction to manual, the power accumulator counters on the MT50 don't all zero on power-reset as specified. By the way, I'm using a 125 foot extension cable to bring the MT50 into the house and it is working fine.
3) Renogy support told me that when using two 100W panels, I had to configure them in parallel, because the Commander 20A did not support them in series. That I had to buy the adapters to connect them in parallel. I thought 24V to 12V was the whole idea behind MPPT.
4) With a 100 watt inverter and only 30 watts max consumption, can I use the DC output of the Commander controller, while testing my system? I'm drawing less than 3 amps on a 20 amp system in a controlled testing environment, so don't see the problem. I'd like to use the load stats on the MT50 to better understand the real-world load on my battery and efficiency of my inverter before putting the system back into the field for unattended operation. For production, I plan on running the inverter directly off the battery as recommended - just in case there is a short.
