Solar controller as battery health indicator?

[Otis]

I have the 100 watt panel and Zamp 15amp controller as installed by FWC (a retrofit) with the factory installed group 24 75ah battery (the battery is about two and a half years old and was not treated kindly the first couple of years of ownership: depleted several times far below 50% of charge).

Currently (no pun intended) the contoller reads: 13.6v/full; 0.0amps; 25.7ah

I am understanding these indicators to be telling me that my battery is full, therefore it is not "taking" any more charge. My main question: is the "25.7ah" indication telling me that my battery has only 1/3 of its original charging/storage capacity? (Completely possible given the poor care the battery recieved!)

Thanks for any insights folks can provide - Otis

 

[DesertDave]

The controller has put 25.7 AH into the battery since it was last reset. Mine sometimes resets by itself after dark, otherwise I do it manually before bed so that each day I can see what amount of energy has been put back into my batteries.

0.0 A means that your panels aren't putting any current into the system, which probably means it is dark when you looked at the controller, or the panels were covered.

 

[Otis]

Desert Dave, thanks for the response - the readings I quoted earlier were after a full day of full sun, however your mention of reseting the system has me curious - I'm not sure how the controller resets itself nor do I know how one does that manually - I looked at the manual for the controller but didn't see any specific reference to a reset.
Maybe my battery is fine and I can spend that money on more interesting camper gear!!
Thanks again-

 

[Casa Escarlata Robles Too]

Desert Dave, thanks for the response - the readings I quoted earlier were after a full day of full sun, however your mention of reseting the system has me curious - I'm not sure how the controller resets itself nor do I know how one does that manually - I looked at the manual for the controller but didn't see any specific reference to a reset.
Maybe my battery is fine and I can spend that money on more interesting camper gear!!
Thanks again

I have a simple solar controller and a watt meter.
The watt meter has preset reading limits,like the total watts produced.
when it reaches 1000w it resets it self.
I think it's true for some other readings not sure as this one is the one I have noticed.
Frank

 

[Otis]

Thanks for the replies -
I gave a call to Zamp in Bend, OR and learned a bit about my solar controller, that the Ah indication is simply a tally of the amp hours produced over a period of time by the solar panel (which does seem to be a sort of useless number?!)
I also learned that my particular controller can only be reset by disconnecting power from both sides of the controller and waiting about 10-15 minutes. Not a very practical reset "button"! The controller does reset itself every 28 days for a "wet" battery, but not for an AGM battery.

The upside of pursuing my simple question is that I learned the solar controller does not provide any indication of battery health and that the Ah indication on mu controller is really a pointless number.
I also learned that the Zamp folks are very willing to answer any question about their products. My conversation was informative and pleasant. The person I spoke with is very excited about solar power. He also mentioned that Zamp is about to begin manufacture of solar panels in a new facility in Bend, OR. A positive converstion!
Thanks again for the replies-
Otis

 

[DesertDave]

I have a switch in the positive lead to the controller (from the battery). After dark, switch off, a ten count and it resets, and the light goes out. I started doing this because I wanted th light to turn off at bedtime.

In the AM after it lights up, I touch the top button once, it does the short diagnostics, and starts the AH at zero. I find it very informative to know what amount of AH I am getting back into the batteries. It is also nice to see the battery voltage in the AM before charging starts.


On an average day I get around 25 AH per 100 watts of panel. In a test under ideal solar conditions I can get up to 40 AH.

 

[LookyLou]

I have a ViewStar controller and one of it's readout is kWh given per day, month, and total so there's no resetting necessary to much output received each day.