Tenergy Watt Meter

[Wayne49]

I looked up the remote display/interface for the Commander and I have now ordered one.
Should have bought one to begin with.
Both the Rover and Commander has been running with default parameters.

[Wayne49]

Update. No Renogy MT-50's are found on the Internet. EPEVER changed the programming when they took over the Tracer models after Renogy phased them out.

I purchased a Rich Solar 40 amp controller that looks the same as the now phased out Renogy Rover 40 amp. [Current Rover series is called Rover Elite.] One difference between my Renogy Rover 20 amp and the Rich Solar 40 amp is in the user interface. On the 20 amp Rover the up arrow is used to step through the displays. On the 40 amp Rich Solar the down arrow is used to step through the displays in the same sequence as the 20 amp with the up arrow.

That led me to think that Renogy had copyrights to the interface code used in the Renogy units including the MT-50 for the Commander/Tracer. Maybe besides that there are internal differences in the hardware of the units that may not affect performance.

The Chinese factory that was producing the units was able to sell the units (perhaps with internal physical hardware changes) as other brands after Renogy dropped those units, but the user interface had to be different. The icons used are run of the mill generic, so the displays can be the same.

That maybe why a non-Renogy MT-50 cannot talk to a Renogy controller. Yet they reused the exact model identifier for the remote instead of a different model identifier.

[Wayne49]

Back to the issue with the dueling controllers.
The Rich Solar 40 amp and the Renogy 20 amp are now functioning closer to what I would expect. Not an exact two to one ratio, but not as lopsided in the wrong direction as before.
Yesterday the 40 amp unit produced 51AH and the 20 amp unit produced 28AH.

[Wayne49]

Moving on to battery monitors.

I purchased this unit:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/173058142084
Wireless Battery Monitor Meter DC 120V 300A VOLT AMP AH SOC Remaining Capacity

I set the monitor to 200AH capacity. The Hall effect unit is mounted on the bank's negative cable.

I had charged each 100AH AGM separately on a PD60 charger before installing and connecting the solar chargers.
Everyday the controllers complete charging around 1200-1300. Still plenty of solar until 1400-1500 that is going unused except as replacement under load.

The monitor does not show the bank as ever getting back to 200AH.
Everyday somewhat lower ( ~ -20 AH) than the day before.
Yet the voltage under load at night is 12.6-12.7 the low at 12.5. Rebounding a tenth or two as soon as the load is off.

Though the monitor does not think the bank is full, I'm fairly sure it is.
Putting the PD60 on after dark gives a burst of amps about 20 at first, then very quickly, less than a minute, settles down to 1+ amp. The PD60 thinks the bank is full.

Is 200AH the wrong value for a bank of two 100AH AGMs?

Get a different, more $, battery monitor? Would a shunt unit be better? My first impression of a shunt back in 2015 was that it was something else to get in the way of electrons freely flowing. That impression is being overwritten, but the no touch Hall effect seems better, but not if it cannot function as expected.

I like the kind of monitor that I have, as it uses WI-fi to communicate with the display unit. I can observe the system running next door in my Tioga MH, while I am in my Tahoe TT. Unnecessary when I am dispersed in the MH, but very useful at home when testing and tuning.

[B and C]

I love my bogart engineering tm-2030-rv. I do not have the wifi dongle as my meter is right across from my in van camp seat and just inside the door. Easy to check from inside our out. It even has a voltmeter for the starting battery built in.

Edit to add: I do not use bogarts charge controller. I like my Midnite Kid.

[Wayne49]

Note about the 1 amp constant draw.

I got fed up with the 1-5 analog thermocouple controls that allow the fridge to go over 41 degrees during a hot afternoon and then allow the fridge to go below 30 degrees during the cooler night. Works well inside sticks and bricks. Sucks out here.

A headless (no display nor keyboard/mouse) RPi and a RedBoard Arduino together are the constant 1.1 amp draw. They are fed from a USB port on the inverter.
The RedBoard runs code that monitors the fridge temp and toggles the inverter on and off as needed.
The RPi is there to upload code to the RedBoard on power up and to log the RedBoard's output. The RedBoard performs the control loop every 60 seconds.

On 5/9/2020 with a high 97.1 and low 60.7, the fridge had average 36 F, min 31F, and max 39 F. Since that date I had tweaked the code with tighter boundary constants and removed code that was rounding the temp, to get the tighter range seen in yesterday's numbers.

My system resulted in a 24 hour average of 36 F, minimum 34 F, and a max 38 F, on 5/22/2020 with a high of 87.6 and a low of 57.3. My Tioga MH is not air conditioned, nor is it in shade presently. Extreme testing as the outside highs move into the upper 90s.

I don't plan on dispersing this season above low 90s anyway. I am focusing on upper 70s into 80s with, of course, the usual 30 degree cooler nights found at higher elevations.