MPPT to IOTA

[Dirt Rider]

This has probably been touched on already, but after reading many posts I am still not sure. If I add solar with an MPPT controller going to my battery is there any change I need to make to my IOTA? My Grandby is a 2004 which is pre solar wiring. I had read that there might be changes I need to the IOTA to make this work right?

 

[Vic Harder]

This has probably been touched on already, but after reading many posts I am still not sure. If I add solar with an MPPT controller going to my battery is there any change I need to make to my IOTA? My Grandby is a 2004 which is pre solar wiring. I had read that there might be changes I need to the IOTA to make this work right?

Good thing is a Grandby that old should have the IOTA charger with the separate dongle, not a built in one. The dongle will enable a higher voltage charge. That is ONLY necessary if you are changing battery chemistry too.

Get yourself a smart shunt too....

 

[Dirt Rider]

Could you expand a little on the dongle, how it works, where it goes ? can I just put in the mppt connection to the battery?

 

[Dirt Rider]

Hello Vic,

After much research and tearing into my camper I found the IOTA and where the dongle goes! now my question is do I need an AGM specific dongle or will the IQ4 smart controller do the job?, I ask as I might go with lithium in the future and don't want to keep changing out the dongle.

 

[Beach]

You can contact Iota online or call. They are very helpful.

 

[Dirt Rider]

Called IOTA and they were less than helpful, they said call the battery company and find out what the requirements are for that battery. Think Im going to buy an IQ4 and cross my fingers..

 

[Jon R]

OP- It might help to know what your usage of the camper is like with respect to battery charging. If you do a lithium conversion in the future and shore power is not going to be a big part of your charging activity, you may not need to make any change to the Iota at that time because you won’t use it for battery charging.

I have a lithium set up with adequately sized solar and a dc to dc charger for truck alternator charging, and I left my original Iota in place because I never need to use it as a charger. It can’t effectively charge the lithium battery, but it still works fine as a converter if I ever want to connect to shore power. I almost never do that though. The solar system is my primary charging method. The dc to dc charger sometimes gets used in the gray winter or dark forest camping if the solar falls behind. Most of the time i have it turned off. I use a Noco Genius 10 amp charger if I need to charge at home during indoor storage. I’ve done that only twice in three years.

 

[Dirt Rider]

Mostly concerned with non use storage to maintain the battery till I get solar installed, as the solar charger will be able to switch between battery type. till then its plugged into the 110 house connection.

 

[Vic Harder]

Dirt, the nice thing about LiFePo4 batteries is that they prefer to be stored NOT full. So the fact that the iota can’t fully charge them is actually perfect….