Headache
Well-known member
I'm not positive but to me something isn't right. Please have patience with me as I'm not good with the technical details.
What I have:
150 watts solar suitcase
10 amp charge controller
That 12 volt meter that plugs into the cig plug
That battery Wal-Mart sells and from the looks of it is the 2 year one and I've had my van for a year.
I noticed about mid-February that occasionally my 12 volt dash fan would pick up speed. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary on the meter so I chalked it up to my ignorance of charge cycles. However, over time its occuring more often and today I saw the meter I have plugged into a 12 volt receptacle spike up over 15 a few times. I remember people talking about 15 being bad so I unplugged my panels and things settled down.
I noticed that the charge controller stays on all the time. For some reason I thought when the panels were unplugged it wouldn't be on anymore. The gauge on my dash never acts weird and when I'm driving nothing strange occurs.
Numbers on the charge controller:
21 Celsius
15 (Don't have my manual handy and forgot what this was)
E0 - No error codes
12.4 this is interesting because the meter plugged into the 12 volt which is wired to the battery shows 12.6.
Those are the numbers with panels unplugged. The weirdness seems to occur AFTER all my stuff is charged. My fan is plugged in and blowing and I may have my phone plugged in still but otherwise there is no heavy draw going on.
Oh yeah I forgot about this until just now! Another weird thing that happened and this only happened once; I was charging my phone but instead of going up it was going DOWN! Like the juice was being sucked out of it. The meter showed something weird too but I can't remember what it showed. As soon as I unplugged the phone everything settled down. I've charged it several times since without issues.
That's about all I can give for info.
Please be kind and dumb it down for me and please don't post if it isn't topical or relevant. Thank you.
What I have:
150 watts solar suitcase
10 amp charge controller
That 12 volt meter that plugs into the cig plug
That battery Wal-Mart sells and from the looks of it is the 2 year one and I've had my van for a year.
I noticed about mid-February that occasionally my 12 volt dash fan would pick up speed. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary on the meter so I chalked it up to my ignorance of charge cycles. However, over time its occuring more often and today I saw the meter I have plugged into a 12 volt receptacle spike up over 15 a few times. I remember people talking about 15 being bad so I unplugged my panels and things settled down.
I noticed that the charge controller stays on all the time. For some reason I thought when the panels were unplugged it wouldn't be on anymore. The gauge on my dash never acts weird and when I'm driving nothing strange occurs.
Numbers on the charge controller:
21 Celsius
15 (Don't have my manual handy and forgot what this was)
E0 - No error codes
12.4 this is interesting because the meter plugged into the 12 volt which is wired to the battery shows 12.6.
Those are the numbers with panels unplugged. The weirdness seems to occur AFTER all my stuff is charged. My fan is plugged in and blowing and I may have my phone plugged in still but otherwise there is no heavy draw going on.
Oh yeah I forgot about this until just now! Another weird thing that happened and this only happened once; I was charging my phone but instead of going up it was going DOWN! Like the juice was being sucked out of it. The meter showed something weird too but I can't remember what it showed. As soon as I unplugged the phone everything settled down. I've charged it several times since without issues.
That's about all I can give for info.
Please be kind and dumb it down for me and please don't post if it isn't topical or relevant. Thank you.