- Sep 15, 2016
- 142
- 118
- Funster No
- 45,131
- MH
- 2015 Auto-Trail V600
- Exp
- 8 years motohoming and counting
Looking forward to getting this fitted.
I have an Auto Trail V600 with a 12v Compressor fridge and which has the Sargent EC500 with an EC480control panel. I have 2 104AH AGM batteries. I've recently replaced the basic 10A PWM solar controller with a Victron MPPT 75-10 as a straight swap together and set the smart charge solar feature on the control panel to Leisure battery only. If I have it on smart it tends to switch back & forth between leisure and vehicle batteries and I never seem to get the benefit of a full days sun going into the leisure batteries. I can always switch to vehicle battery if needed, but want the peace of mind that it will always be topped up by the battery master. I also added a Victron smart battery sense and a Victron Orion smart DC DC 12-12-30 charger yesterday ( with an isolator relay to switch off the Sergeant charging the VB when driving) so should hopefully get much better use of our leisure batteries and stay off grid, longer than 4 days or so. For monitoring I have a Victron BMV 700 with Bluetooth dongle. Actually, thinking about the solar controller, if I was to ignore the Sargent solar charging electronics altogether, I suppose I could have bought a larger capacity MPPT and connect it directly to the leisure batteries. I got the 75-10 only because Sargent system is, they tell me, limited to 10amps, plus I only have room on the roof for the one 100w solar panel. I'm not sure if I could replace it for a same physical size but a larger capacity panel, does anyone have any recommendations? I am getting 4-5 amps in bright sunshine now though which is better than the PWM controller ever did. THE Orion was giving 10Amps with the van just ticking over. I'll be wiring the BM to the Orion terminals as per posts I have seen on here which I have found to be really helpful, so thank you.
I have an Auto Trail V600 with a 12v Compressor fridge and which has the Sargent EC500 with an EC480control panel. I have 2 104AH AGM batteries. I've recently replaced the basic 10A PWM solar controller with a Victron MPPT 75-10 as a straight swap together and set the smart charge solar feature on the control panel to Leisure battery only. If I have it on smart it tends to switch back & forth between leisure and vehicle batteries and I never seem to get the benefit of a full days sun going into the leisure batteries. I can always switch to vehicle battery if needed, but want the peace of mind that it will always be topped up by the battery master. I also added a Victron smart battery sense and a Victron Orion smart DC DC 12-12-30 charger yesterday ( with an isolator relay to switch off the Sergeant charging the VB when driving) so should hopefully get much better use of our leisure batteries and stay off grid, longer than 4 days or so. For monitoring I have a Victron BMV 700 with Bluetooth dongle. Actually, thinking about the solar controller, if I was to ignore the Sargent solar charging electronics altogether, I suppose I could have bought a larger capacity MPPT and connect it directly to the leisure batteries. I got the 75-10 only because Sargent system is, they tell me, limited to 10amps, plus I only have room on the roof for the one 100w solar panel. I'm not sure if I could replace it for a same physical size but a larger capacity panel, does anyone have any recommendations? I am getting 4-5 amps in bright sunshine now though which is better than the PWM controller ever did. THE Orion was giving 10Amps with the van just ticking over. I'll be wiring the BM to the Orion terminals as per posts I have seen on here which I have found to be really helpful, so thank you.
