solar (1 Viewer)

[Wildbill]

solar panel putting out 13.84 v but after regulator 1.38 amps is the regulator us?

 

[Wildman]

you are mixing your units Bill, volts measure the state of charge of your battery, the amps is the RATE of charge or discharge, if you are reading 1.38V you have a pretend battery or a flat AAA, hee hee.
double check your readings with a separate meter. 13.8 is a fully charged battery and the regulator will stop it charging further so amps will be virtually zero. Even a low battery will not receive much of a charge at this time of the year a fraction of an amp would be normal apart from midday with the sun full out.

 

[Wildbill]

you are mixing your units Bill, volts measure the state of charge of your battery, the amps is the RATE of charge or discharge, if you are reading 1.38V you have a pretend battery or a flat AAA, hee hee.
double check your readings with a separate meter. 13.8 is a fully charged battery and the regulator will stop it charging further so amps will be virtually zero. Even a low battery will not receive much of a charge at this time of the year a fraction of an amp would be normal apart from midday with the sun full out.

thanks' roger that is now as clear as mud now to me
but I still thing regulator is us
how can I find out

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[gwyntaxi]

solar output

Hi there,
you dont say what size panel you've got,e.g.70watt or what but on a cloudy-ish day like today i'd say that 1.38 amps is about right,you could put a multi-
meter across the plus&minus terminals on the output side of the regulator
with the solar panel covered over with a sheet of cardboard or towel and you
should have a reading of 0 amps then remove towel/cardboard and you should have a reading of 1.38amps or higher if bright and sunny just a basic test really.hope this helps you:thumb::thumb:

 

[cmcardle75]

solar panel putting out 13.84 v but after regulator 1.38 amps is the regulator us?

Probably not. That is just under 20W. Not that bad for late November. A fancy MPPT controller might squeeze a bit more out in such marginal conditions. The controller will also drop the amps if it thinks the battery is full to prevent over charging, so you should only really check the ampage when you know the battery is at least 20% discharged.

 

[Techno]

Hi there,
you dont say what size panel you've got,e.g.70watt or what but on a cloudy-ish day like today i'd say that 1.38 amps is about right,you could put a multi-
meter across the plus&minus terminals on the output side of the regulator
with the solar panel covered over with a sheet of cardboard or towel and you
should have a reading of 0 amps then remove towel/cardboard and you should have a reading of 1.38amps or higher if bright and sunny just a basic test really.hope this helps you:thumb::thumb:

A multimeter set to the amps scale must be connected in series with the positive to obtain a current reading
Connecting across the +ve -ve will not read amps

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[Wildbill]

reding 1.38 uncovered reding covered 0 thanks simple solution that works cheers bill

 

[cmcardle75]

A multimeter set to the amps scale must be connected in series with the positive to obtain a current reading
Connecting across the +ve -ve will not read amps

Indeed. It will read large sparks and new multimeter. As a general rule, never use the amps setting on a meter unless you know what you are doing!

 

[pappajohn]

A multimeter set to the amps scale must be connected in series with the positive to obtain a current reading
Connecting across the +ve -ve will not read amps

but it will fry your meter. oh:

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