Testing the trailer solar setup

This should have been done in the morning, but I became distracted.  Anyway, with the arrival of the Projecta DC-DC Charger I decided to test the solar system for the camper trailer.  Apart from the solar panels, all the connections were temporary.

In this next photo you can see the Projecta IC25 Charger at the lower left.  The wiring connects from the MPPT solar input to the solar panels on the lawn.  On the other side of the charger the wires go through a cheap Watt Meter and then a circuit breaker to the 150A AGM battery terminals.

In this next photo you can see why I shouldn’t have done this test in the afternoon.  Sunlight is only striking the top left corner of one panel with the rest in shade from the house.  The cable wasn’t long enough to move the panels into the sunshine.

However the panels were producing just enough electricity for the charger to work. 

The Projecta automatically recognised the battery as AGM and then identified the solar panel connection.  This resulted in the “charging” and “Solar” LEDs illuminating.

The Watt Meter gave an indication of the charge

0.22 amps at 13.19 Volts going into the battery.  The battery is already fully charged which meant it was never going to take much even if the panels had been in full sunlight (well I’ll test that comment tomorrow morning).  

I’m rather pleased with the result.  The panels should produce a maximum of 20 Amps which should be sufficient for the battery ‘Absorption’ and ‘Float’ charging stages, plus run things like the two fridges, lights and water pump.  Most of the time the “Bulk Charge” will be provided by the vehicle alternator whilst I’m travelling.