Solar charging advise

[Seayfam]

To all my fellow solar techies.
I just wired in three 75w solar panels and my morning star controller. This setup is for charging a 12v system. My battery bank is a 24v system with a 12v wire tap going to a equalizer. I have the controller/charger going to the 12v side of the equalizer. Everything seems to be working fine. My question is.... will this set up charge all four 8D batteries evenly? If not... should I add another panel and set it up for 24v?
Thanks
Gary

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[Ralph7]

     1 depends on how your batterys are connected
      2  are the pannnels 19.5V or 29.5V??
      3  is the controller capeable of multi voltages  input n output
     4 I konw nothing about running back through a equalizer!!!!
     5 personally series 2 @ 19.5V pannels on the input of the controller and set the output to 24V
       6 carefully check the V. of all the batts


       # 3 is very important
      Wire size is a big deal, also and fuses on each side of controller
      this is just a start

[Seayfam]

     1 depends on how your batterys are connected
      2  are the pannnels 19.5V or 29.5V??
      3  is the controller capeable of multi voltages  input n output
     4 I konw nothing about running back through a equalizer!!!!
     5 personally series 2 @ 19.5V pannels on the input of the controller and set the output to 24V
       6 carefully check the V. of all the batts


       # 3 is very important
      Wire size is a big deal, also and fuses on each side of controller
      this is just a start

I have two battery banks, each have two 8D's wired in series to make 24V. The 24V then goes to the 24V side of my Ventron 100A battery equalizer. Then each battery bank has a 12V tap from between them and that goes to the 12V side of the equalizer.

My three panels are wired parallel and are 21V.

My controller is a ProStar 30M that will switch to 12V or 24V automatically depending on the battery input.

Because my solar panels are putting out 21V, I connected the 12V side of my equalizer to it. Its showing a good charge and everything seems ok. My main concern is if the equalizer will keep all my batteries in check with this setup. Or will I just be charging one battery on each bank? If this isn't the proper way to do this, I can just hook up two of my solar panels in series and power up my ProStar with 24V from the 24V side of my equalizer. But I am hoping to use all three of my panels because they are already up there and paid for.
Thanks again


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[Mex-Busnut]

You might want to do some reading on this website. This guy has a lot of info and solar powered RVing.

http://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/about/

[bevans6]

The main question is will your equalizer convert 12 volts to 24 volts - some do, some don't.  An equalizer, by design, either splits the voltage perfectly, or doubles it perfectly (within a few tenths, anyway), so if your 24 volt is reading twice what the 12 volt is when the charging is taking place, then it's working right and the 8D's are being charged.  In other words, if the output of your controller is 14 volts, the output of the equalizer should be 28 volts, and therefore the 8D's are getting a charge.

I have one equalizer that I use for exactly this purpose.  It's sold as a combination equalizer, 12 to 24 volt converter and 24 volt to 12 volt converter.

Brian

[Seayfam]

Thanks for that website Mex-Busnut! Some good reading there.

Brian, Thanks for the info! I went and did some testing including all the batteries. After a good day in the sun, I tested all the batteries separately and got really close to even readings. So I think my equalizer is keeping things even. I really wasn't sure about my equalizer and couldn't find any information on the Ventron, it almost looks identical to a Vanner.

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