Problem, or not?

[banderabob]

We have a factory installed Go Power solar controller. My recollection in the past is even if plugged in to shore power, and sunny, the controller would show solar amps being drawn, even if the battery icon was showing full with a 13.8 level. For the past couple of days, plugged to shore power, while the icons show solar being drawn, the solar amps read zero. Problem, or not?

[Al and Missy]

Power from the solar power system (and the converter) will be used when there are things in the trailer that draw current. The solar charger and converter have an output voltage that is slightly higher than the battery voltage to force current into the batteries. Loads in the trailer will take current from the solar power system and the converter instead of from the batteries. So the current being drawn will depend on the active loads in the trailer as well as the amount of sunlight.



Short answer: hard to say whether this is normal or not. Watch it for a while under varying conditions. If there is never any current from the solar controller, that may well be a problem.

[richard5933]

The solar control panel and your trailer's built-in battery voltage reading are independent, and whenever the solar system is charging the battery voltage should high enough to get a 100% reading. That doesn't mean your batteries are at 100% though, just that the solar charge controller is outputting that voltage.

To get a true view of your batteries' condition with a voltage based monitor, you have to disable all charging sources and all loads for half an hour or so. Then once your batteries stabilize you'll be able to see the actual level of the batteries.

If you have a shunt based battery monitor connected, then perhaps your batteries are fully charged. In this case the fact that your solar charge controller shows various amp levels likely reflects the load that is being drawn from the battery bank. Once your batteries are full, the solar charge controller will open/close the current flow (amps) as needed to power whatever devices are turned on while keeping the batteries charged. If you turn on lots of 12v stuff in the trailer when it's showing 0 amp you should see the number increase to keep up with the increased load.