Sargent and solar panel wiring

[britvic]

Good afternoon gents. AS Warwick Duo 2015. Struggling to keep cab battery topped up using the Sargent system.. I have owned vehicle 6 months and run up less than 3 00 miles. I had a solar panel fitted by the dealer and asked for a dual regulator system to allow me to control the amount of charge the cab battery received during winter months. Only two wires come out of the battery controller batt no 1 leaving batt no 2 empty . They have not done as I requested so can I fit another battery next to the one they put in and charge that as no 2 and then purchase a Van bits battery to battery master to take care of the cab battery . This will possibly save the problems of the Sargent system taking over the charging . I cannot find a better way of having piece of mind unless someone knows better.
Thanks for reading.
Ps. Can’t be arsed taking van back when they open again will negotiate a discount for later date.

 

[paddymcc]

If you are adding a second habitation battery you should wire them in parallel and the will be seen as one battery by the solar controller so no need to use the 2nd battery output. Having said that ideally the two batteries should be the same age (and definitely the same type ie lead acid gel etc) but if the current battery is not that old it might be ok. Was a new one put in by the dealer?

Let us know what battery, charger and controller you have.

 

[The Wino]

I think if you connected the second hab battery to the second battery output it would only trickle charge and how would you connect the second hab battery to the motorhome without the batteries being connected!!!! As the above post says wire the batteries together and just to the hab battery output from the controller. The vehicle battery could be wired from the vacant terminals on the controller but check they are battery charging terminals not "load" ones.

 

[britvic]

Thanks for quick response. The battery fitted was replaced 1 month before purchase of van and I have sourced a new one.The wires go into the EC500 and there is a black box buried inside the EC500 and that wiring appears to go to the battery. Why fit dual controller if you don’t use it? I wanted to bypass trouble and have the solar system independent as I always have on previous vans.

 

[britvic]

Yes Wino the output no 2 is definitely a battery charge terminal

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Kannon Fodda]

Solar controllers that offer dual battery connections will usually push the majority of charge to battery one and the second battery gets a tickle. So the heavy load / top off points to your leisure and the secondary is sent to your engine battery simply to maintain, not recharge, that engine battery against it's gradual discharge from alarms and losses of just standing there whilst doing nowt.

The Sargent boxes of tricks are an all in one, one size fits all solution (often with quite few limitations). You may be able to get a wiring diagram for your van from either AutoSleepers, or Sargent. The Sargent EC500, according to it's manual, effectively does the trickle charge to the engine battery if the solar was correctly connected to it, so you wouldn't need to use the second battery output of the solar controller. Nor would the Vanbitz battery master be much of an advantage when the EC500 should already be doing a bit of the work. On that basis I'm also confused why you needed a new dual relay thingy. The alternative is to completely bypass the Sargent unit for all aspects of battery charging, solar and engine, but that will be a lot more wiring changes than your installer would have been expecting based on your outline.

The issue for your poor charge rate may simply be the time of year that it's shorter days of daylight (is the MH parked in partial shadow for part of the day), and also if it's the basic PWM type controller rather than the more expensive but efficient MPPT controller.

Adding a second battery from which to then trickle charge the engine battery, which I think is your idea, seems a bit pointless. Surely you just trickle charge the engine battery direct from the solar controller's second outlet. If the solar controller is good you will have settings to check the proportion of current sent to whereever.

 

[britvic]

Ok how about this set up. Fit 2nd hab battery wire up in parallel all on no 1 terminal and leave it wired as is. Connect twin cable to terminal and run it to the cab battery . The controller gives a charge totally separate from terminal 1. The remote will allow me to decide the percentage of juice that goes to which batteries.

 

[Revolvor]

Ok how about this set up. Fit 2nd hab battery wire up in parallel all on no 1 terminal and leave it wired as is. Connect twin cable to terminal and run it to the cab battery . The controller gives a charge totally separate from terminal 1. The remote will allow me to decide the percentage of juice that goes to which batteries.

That's the conventional way of utilising a dual-output solar controller. You can usually define the proportions of power going to the hap and cab batteries. Usual is 90%/10% or 80%/20%. As the supply to the cab battery is basically a trickle charge, you don't need particularly thick cable.

 

[autorouter]

In the summer, splitting the solar power 90%/10% is a good idea. In the winter, during storage, you could set it to 50/50 since there is so little power anyway, to keep both the cab and hab batteries topped up.

 

[britvic]

Thanks to all that replied have got a plan.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}