My van battery died suddenly

[doublegregg]

The first set is a learner set for most   Set it on 4 amps and leave it for a week checking the acid level daily.  Do not add acid, only distilled water.  You really need a bigger charger.  Your charger is more of a battery maintainer and not a real charger unless you have a small lawn mower battery.  It may or may not charge it.  After you disconnect the charger, wait at least 10 hours and check the voltage.  This is called rested voltage and the rest removes the surface charge.  If you can get the battery to an auto parts store, they will charge and test it for you.  They have a proper charger.

It sounds like you need some real hands on help with your setup.  Hard to do across the interwebs.

If you post your general location, someone may be nearby to help or able to point you to a reputable place.

i'm in the bay area, oakland...  if there's a reputable place nearby, that would be cool. i was hoping to use my solar panels and controller as my charger; but now i'm questioning my panels due to a failed current test. i may be doing something wrong in the test --- altho i was pretty careful. i would like to know if my panels are working. they're brand new, as is my controller.

 

[B and C]

I am near houston, so I can't help.

 

[doublegregg]

did I read that right.  did you feed 19+ volts into a GEL Battery?  if you did you ruined it.

it also sounds like from your description that you unplugged the battery from the controller with the panel hooked up?  you might have also fried the controller.

highdesertranger

this battery is a FLA from my van. previous two batteries, yes, were gels and i *think* i set my controller to gel. in any event, it charged them at voltages in the 18 to 19v range, but at 2 amps or less.  how do i tell if the gels are ruined? 

i'm careful to unplug the panel first, plug battery in first, unplug last.

 

[doublegregg]

I am near houston, so I can't help.

too bad......... i'm getting frustrated... would like to be able to do a current test on my panels, which i tried to do. came up with zero amps, basically. i thought you basically 'shorted?' the panel leads, to read current............. kind of hard i guess learning solar on all new equipment, plus used batteries....  not sure if other people have this much trouble... maybe they have a dealer to go to..mine was amazon.

 

[jonyjoe303]

with 300 watts of panels you should be getting at least 15 amps of charge power with mppt, with pwm you might get 8 amps. I would check all the connections again. Even 8 amps is enough to put a good enough charge on your battery.

I left my lights on in my van one time, in the morning the battery was dead about 10 volts. I was able to hook up my 240 watt panel/mppt to the start battery, 3 hours later it put enough amps back into the battery to crank me over. So charging a completely dead start battery is possible with solar and it won't take all day.

But if the battery is beyond repair(internally damaged), you can't jumpstart it any more, then it probably won't take any charge. When I kept having to replace batteries and having slow cranks when the van was just sitting overnight, I was able to rule out parasite power usage. I found the problem was a loose sidepost, the bolt was too short and it wouldnt tightend all the way down. It was something simple, I replace the terminal and that fix it.

 

[doublegregg]

right now, i've put aside the van possibly draining the battery.. i guess i'm suspecting something was left on, as it happened overnight. i am trying to determine if my panels are ok. i'll deal with trying to test the current they are putting out... trying to locate the panel manuals to see if they need some special way to test them with a VOM meter. it reads up to 10a ---- it has a fuse that'll blow over that.

 

[B and C]

I ponied up and bought a DC clamp on ammeter: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O1Q2HOQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

A pretty good meter that reads volts and ohms too.

 

[doublegregg]

thanks, brian... i have one of those. it seems pretty accurate. i blew a fuse in my VOM. so that's why it wouldn't read amps. just gotta replace that. i'm assuming a current test on the panels will show if they are working correctly or not - independent of the controller.

 

[B and C]

You can test each panel by itself with a DC ammeter that has leads. Set for amperage scale higher than what your panel will put out. Put the positive lead to the positive cable and the same for the negative. Put panel in sun and take reading. You probably won't get rated amperage as testing is done in the lab, you are in the real world were other factors come into play such as latitude and particulate matter in the air. Lots of variables.

Once the panels are verified, connect the controller to the battery, then the panels to the controller. Now you can use the clamp on ammeter to check amperage (one wire only!) from the panel(s).