Solar Setup - WS-12-250-DC - Need Help!

[erikwebper]

Ah yes so that was an older picture we posted up for reference.

The Tri star is using the cut outs now, and when we did use 36 volts we had the controller set to Auto. Which i believe was mistake number one.

Also that was just the ground wire, not a probe.

Here are pictures of our new setup, as well as a graph from last nights useage...

we went up and charged all of our batteries (AGM 12v 55AH) up to 46 volts in total. (4 12v Wired in series)

Then left them overnight with all our devices on. (One rocket m5, one titanium, and one powerbeam 400)

We lost about 24 volts in a span of 16 hours... These batteries are one week old, and only discharged down to 3v each once.

We are at a loss here. Over the summer with 36 volts we were totally fine, only loosing 4 volts over night. We even has mismatched batteries.

Now with 48 volts and Optima blue tops.. We are loosing power rapidly... I do also realize that our panel can only put out 40v and 330 watts so our batteries wont be fully charged.

Wondering if we need higher AH batteries? Maybe 12v 55ah isn't enough? Our system isn't that power hungry, max is about 35 watts..

[sirhc]

I do also realize that our panel can only put out 40v and 330 watts so our batteries wont be fully charged.

This is not good for 48V bank, maybe you would be better off configuring the batteries in a 24V bank?

2 sets of 2 in series in parallel with each other to achieve 24V.

[erikwebper]

After talking with a few solar friends we are going up to add another panel in series so we can fully charge our 48v bank. We believe that not chraging our batteries to full capacity is what is causing our issue.

[sirhc]

After talking with a few solar friends we are going up to add another panel in series so we can fully charge our 48v bank. We believe that not chraging our batteries to full capacity is what is causing our issue.

Yea I would agree.

Only Charging to 40V on a 48V bank is not good and would wear out your batteries FAST.