Defective Charge Controller?

[H0neybug]

Installed our solar panels and charge controller today, but the charge controller is getting no power from panels.  Tested the leads coming from solar panels and they are testing at 21 volts.  Our charge controller is a Renogy 20amp mppt charge controller.  We happen to have 2 of these and neither one is getting power.  Customer support verified everything hooked up right, but what are the odds that two controllers are bad?  Are we missing something in the set up?

 

[Seminole Wind]

only other thing i would check would be the remaining connection and wire to the charge controller. but if you have power from the panels and everything is hooked up right. they should work.

maybe renogy got a bad batch and that is why you ended up with 2 that dont work. renogy is not at the top of the list of high quality and when you (they) scrimp on costs things happen. hopefully they will send you a couple more

 

[ped]

Is battery fully charged? Put a load on the vatteries a d see what happens.

 

[jonyjoe303]

when the battery is hooked up by itself does it have blinking lights or lcd come on? does the controller work when connected to the battery but your not producing amps from panel, is that what you mean?

 

[highdesertranger]

I am confused(not hard). you say that the controller is getting no power from the panels but that the output of the panels is fine. that doesn't make sense. unless the wire is defective.

did you check the power right at the controller?

also if the controller is not getting power from the panels why would the controller be bad? no controller is going to work without input power. highdesertranger

 

[H0neybug]

when the battery is hooked up by itself does it have blinking lights or lcd come on?

does the controller work when connected to the battery but your not producing amps from panel, is that what you mean? 

Yes to both questions

 

[H0neybug]

 unless the wire is defective. Checked and the wire is fine

did you check the power right at the controller? Yes

no controller is going to work without input power.   The charge controller is hooked up to house battery and has power, but when the lines from the solar panels are hooked to charge controller it is showing no input from the panels.

so the volts from the solar panels were reading 21 volts with the volt meter but showed 0 on the charge controller.

 

[H0neybug]

renogy is not at the top of the list of high quality and when you (they) scrimp on costs things happen.

ironically we chose Renogy for ease of install since we are amatures ? do you have recommendations on a better brand of charge controller that will work with our Renogy solar panels? ?

 

[B and C]

I recommend you find someone to put eyes on it for you. Very tough to troubleshoot over the internet. I have never even seen a renogy mppt controller so I am no help. I don't know if they need any programming or not to work.

I will ask the one simple question I know to ask, did you connect to the battery before connecting the panels? I know the controller needs to know what it is controlling before it can do anything. If not disconnect all and connect the batteries first.

 

[Seminole Wind]

not saying they are bad, lots of people use them and renogy seams to take care of warranty issues. it is just a cost of doing business on the cheap. sometimes they have to warranty things that fail.

my personal preference in victron controllers, but they are a bit more in the $ category. just about any charge controller will work with your panels. with 21 volts from panels you could use pulse width modulation (PWM) controller or the maximum power point tracking (mppt) controllers you could chose from just about any out there. just have to make sure the controller is rated for the max volts and amps (read the fine print on how the controller handles/fairs with overages in either)

depending on how many renogy panels you have and their wattage there are a couple victron controllers that would take care it

if you have 2 100 watt panels you could run the victron 75/15 mppt and wire the panels in series to better take advantage of the mppt function that controler runs about $120 on amazon. the next step up would be the victron 100/20 mppt at around $160 on amazon but with just 200 watts of panel (my assumption) you will rarely see any extra gain from the slightly higher rating

all in all since you have the renogy controllers if they will swap them out if you cant get them to work. i would be hard pressed to suggest you take the loss and toss them.

 

[H0neybug]

I recommend you find someone to put eyes on it for you.  

That was my suggestion from the gitgo, but what do girls know ?

 did you connect to the battery before connecting the panels?  

We did, everything working except for showing any input from the panels once connected.

Renogy did troubleshooting over the phone and wants us to send controller back so they can test it.  I just thought it odd that both controllers would yield the same results.

 

[H0neybug]

Thanks for the info @seminole Wind...I’ve looked at the Victron controllers, just went with Renogy since it came in the kit. We’ll see how the warranty works and go from there I suppose.

 

[highdesertranger]

ah ok I see now. you see I told you I was easily confused. sounds like you have a bad controller, LOL. keep us up to date on what happens. highdesertranger