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I have a completely off-grid beach house in Mexico that I weekend at from fall to spring, but avoid during the hot months.
The electrical system currently consists of four 6v 215ah batteries setup as a 24v array, an 1800w prosine inverter, 2 110w panels running through a xantrex c35 and a 2.2kw onan generator running on propane when I need more capacity to run the welder and bigger power tools.
I also have a pair of 235w panels and a ts45 controller that I connect only when I am there at the house.
Until now, I have basically been using the smaller panels to charge the battery up while I am away from the house and then I draw the batteries down when I visit on weekends.
I try to get down there once a month during the good season, but I don't go for about 3-4 months during summer.
I can manually equalize when I am there, but I would like to get the whole system to run on an auto equalize schedule.
I ran into too good of a deal on a 24v wind turbine and I am looking to re-configure the system to add some extra charge capability.
I know I could add more panels and avoid the hassle, but they steal the panels when you put up new ones, but leave these old looking ones alone so lets just rule out more solar panels for discussion purposes.
I also recently got a 24v freezer which I plan to leave running so that I can store cold things there and not have to deal with stocking coolers with every last thing for the trip.
This changes my needs as I now will have a constant requirement for about 600wh per day to keep the freezer cold.
This will certainly suck up a good amount of the excess solar energy I have the capability to generate after the batteries are maintained full.
My neighbors are running hybrid wind and solar and they say it's worth putting up the little turbine I got.
I know that I need to setup a diversion controller and dump load once I add the wind turbine.
I don't want to run ONLY diversion controller with the solar and the wind though.
I prefer to run diversion to handle excess wind energy, but keep a solar charge controller so that it can throttle back the solar energy as needed to control the charge instead of purely dumping the excess solar energy through the dump load.
I have picked up another Xantrex C35 for a deal on ebay to use as a diversion controller.
My question is concerning how I should setup the controller voltages.
The gentlemen who started this thread specifically WANTED to be dumping his excess solar into his water heater.
Since I am not in need of hot water all the time that I am not there, I prefer to just not generate the excess solar energy and then have to dump it.
Am I good matching the bulk and float voltages on the charge controller and the dump controller and then setting them both to auto equalize while I am away?
From what I am reading in the Xantrex manual, they will equalize every 30 days for as long as it takes to get 2 hours of equalization voltage.
It also appears that the 30 day timer is based on when you power the controllers up or the last reset cycle so as long as I reset both controllers together, they should basically run their equalization cycles "in time" with each other I should hope.
My concern with having the two controllers on the system is that if they are NOT running in-time, the dump controller will simply dump my excess solar energy that the charge controller is trying to equalize the batteries with or that the solar charge controller will throttle back while the dump controller is trying to equalize with the wind energy.
Please weigh in with your opinions...
The electrical system currently consists of four 6v 215ah batteries setup as a 24v array, an 1800w prosine inverter, 2 110w panels running through a xantrex c35 and a 2.2kw onan generator running on propane when I need more capacity to run the welder and bigger power tools.
I also have a pair of 235w panels and a ts45 controller that I connect only when I am there at the house.
Until now, I have basically been using the smaller panels to charge the battery up while I am away from the house and then I draw the batteries down when I visit on weekends.
I try to get down there once a month during the good season, but I don't go for about 3-4 months during summer.
I can manually equalize when I am there, but I would like to get the whole system to run on an auto equalize schedule.
I ran into too good of a deal on a 24v wind turbine and I am looking to re-configure the system to add some extra charge capability.
I know I could add more panels and avoid the hassle, but they steal the panels when you put up new ones, but leave these old looking ones alone so lets just rule out more solar panels for discussion purposes.
I also recently got a 24v freezer which I plan to leave running so that I can store cold things there and not have to deal with stocking coolers with every last thing for the trip.
This changes my needs as I now will have a constant requirement for about 600wh per day to keep the freezer cold.
This will certainly suck up a good amount of the excess solar energy I have the capability to generate after the batteries are maintained full.
My neighbors are running hybrid wind and solar and they say it's worth putting up the little turbine I got.
I know that I need to setup a diversion controller and dump load once I add the wind turbine.
I don't want to run ONLY diversion controller with the solar and the wind though.
I prefer to run diversion to handle excess wind energy, but keep a solar charge controller so that it can throttle back the solar energy as needed to control the charge instead of purely dumping the excess solar energy through the dump load.
I have picked up another Xantrex C35 for a deal on ebay to use as a diversion controller.
My question is concerning how I should setup the controller voltages.
The gentlemen who started this thread specifically WANTED to be dumping his excess solar into his water heater.
Since I am not in need of hot water all the time that I am not there, I prefer to just not generate the excess solar energy and then have to dump it.
Am I good matching the bulk and float voltages on the charge controller and the dump controller and then setting them both to auto equalize while I am away?
From what I am reading in the Xantrex manual, they will equalize every 30 days for as long as it takes to get 2 hours of equalization voltage.
It also appears that the 30 day timer is based on when you power the controllers up or the last reset cycle so as long as I reset both controllers together, they should basically run their equalization cycles "in time" with each other I should hope.
My concern with having the two controllers on the system is that if they are NOT running in-time, the dump controller will simply dump my excess solar energy that the charge controller is trying to equalize the batteries with or that the solar charge controller will throttle back while the dump controller is trying to equalize with the wind energy.
Please weigh in with your opinions...
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