Hello there, did you ever figure out how to automatically keep charging - when the sun goes back up again? In order to do that you need to press and hold (setting button) next go to (AMP section) then press and hold the setting button for 5 seconds then and let go. After that keep pressing (setting button) to get to (OFF setting) then change to (ON) with arrow button - this will allow it to auto start charging when the sun goes back up again.
I think the lock symbol has something to do with the automatic charge initiating, for example if you lock the keypad the MPPT might think that you've done setting it up and want to leave it alone so from that point it will charge the battery automatically. I'd say locking the keypad might put it from setup mode to automatic charge mode.
The reason why it wont auto-on in the "morning" is because you have not saved this setting to power-profile. Press and hold SET aand then scroll down to off and change it to ON and SAVE. It now should auto turn on, mine does. Its a very odd controller btw but hey i t works, but not as efficent but for the price i cant complain.
@@bobcatt2294 not anymore... there are better ones today. This one was very slow to recover charging after a shade hits the solar panel... painfully slow.... dont bother
@@ahah1785 Which ones are better? Most MPPT controllers are capped to charging 12/24 V batteries or do step down rather than step up. This and the CTK300 are the only ones I can find that allow you to charge a higher volt battery with a lower volt PV.
I've had this in my watch list for some time at £25 (I suspect events of the last few weeks means this price is long gone though) but the fact it only worked on 24v+ systems has put me off. My shed is fully 12 volt. There must be a way you'd have thought to make sure it kicks in again automatically. Only so many options to try with four buttons I guess. I did suggest this to one gentleman as an option to charge his ebike - I think it's serving his purpose quite well, which was nice to hear. Thanks for both videos. Very interesting.
If this could do 12v battery, it would be very useful. You said it can be set to 12v battery setting and I look forward to a follow up if that works!!!
Seems like it should ramp-up the boost converter, but is starting from too long a duty cycle in the converter. You can still get power on an overcast day (about 10% of max I believe).
Seems to me that the lock symbol is there for a reason, maybe once you turn it on you have to lock it, might even be as simple as holding the OK button when you turn it on. The panel voltage, are you sure that's the max ? maybe that's the minimum voltage you want the panel to be before it cuts off the charge, when it tried to charge initially, the panel voltage went down below your set parameter and all you got was a pulse.
what if you lock it to save it. how do you tab to the lock and switch it. Maybe that will lock in the settings and cause it to lock in the on position. My thought is that the diodes stop it from draining the batteries when the sun goes down.
i looked back a little in the comments but not too far. The reason it would not come back on is the battery, not the solar panels are suppose to power the charge controller. You normally never disconnect the batteries in a system. You always connect the batteries to the charge controller before the panels or you can damage the charge controller.
i have a feeling that Lock icon has something to do with the on/off state resetting after simulated night. maybe try to find the setting to lock the "on" setting, changing the lock icon to closed?
Looks like the solar panel voltage setting is the minimum voltage that the charger will pull the voltage down to when charging. I'd like to bet that if you set the voltage lower it will sit in CC mode more.
Maybe - wild guess - you actually need to set the nominal voltage of the solar panel too? Because it seems odd to me that that field can be highlighted, maybe it's expecting a higher voltage from the panel and it cuts out because of that.
I wanted to like this little unit but just plain will not work for me for multiple reasons. nice that you can set the voltage though to charge lithiums.
Julian, check the manual again (or the page at banggood you linked to.) - you have this flow chart of the menu when setting it. At pickture 8 you have an optional step, "Long press SET" and you end up in Screen turn off mode. after 3 presses you end up at the lock symbol, THEN you can change the On/Off settings, try it out.
what if you use the battery to also power the unit with say 12v? would require a seperate unit to switch from solarpanel and battery(with buck converter?) though?
Thanks for the video. This unit looks like it has potential, I have been looking for something to charge rc lipo batteries via solar. Does the battery have to be a higher voltage than the panel?
Curious device to confound your friends and confuse your frenemies :P I eagerly await part the third! I see now where you were going with the "This is England" video :P Did you try the sardines while you was over in the Algarve? :D
mppt chargers don't work well with poor sunlight. especially when the DC DC converter is so inefficient in boost mode. input voltage drops considerably causing the unit to drop out. the chargers I have designed work down to 3 or 4 volts. still not efficient but at least it will stay running
I noticed that the unit failed to charge when solar panel voltage dropped below what wat the set voltage. Possibly the solar voltage is a minimum setting to abort charge? Since it is a boost converter, I would try setting solar voltage to around 12V and see what that does for you. Additionally, if trying to set output to 12 or 13V, I would set input even lower (perhaps 9 or 10v) and see if that works for a 12V battery.
i just checked on this and the voltage can go as low as 15 volts. equalize is 15.1 votls average charge is 14.4 for lead acid and 14.5 to 14.9 volts for sla for average charge
Julian Ilett We had lots of sun hours recently. Only today is cloudy. Tomorrow it goes back to 30°C in shadow and lots of sun. In my Town, we didn't have thunderstorms but all around me had. Strange.
I wonder why the fan is blowing full speed all time when there is no current going out or only very little. So this seems not to be very efficient or well designed, is it?
Looking at one alibaba page with what looks to be the same unit re-branded. Looks like it has a charge timer, you can even set the capacity of the battery. Set fan speed, LCD brightness. Seems like a pretty interesting unit. The lack of a decent manual seems to be a big problem. And it's pretty weird that it is a boost only unit. What if I had a 24V panel and 12V battery system? I guess I would have to look for a different charger. Looks like a typical Chinese mix of awesome and crappy.
Thats my problem too. 24v panels and 12v batteries. That and the fact that it has to be manually started. If it was 10$ i would buy one to charge multiple lithiums.
But that's the thing it CAN be set to auto ON. Julian just didn't find the feature due to the extremely lacking instruction manual. The biggest problem I can glean from the little information that I find is that it's boost only. Which sucks.
The alu box plus fan suggest that this needs to dissipate several watts of power as heat. Why? I thought this kind of circuit could be better than 90% efficient, but it's running the fan while showing zero watt transfer.
Exactly, that fan sounds like it's about to take off while the display shows zero watts so either it's dissipating all the power internally (why would it??) or the fan's programmed to expected power dissipation rather than actual power dissipation...
How complex is (and expensive) to build a solar panel angle is changed (according to time e. the location of the sun)? The energy of the sun to get max, whit best angle.
Question please: I have this device powered by a 20 watt solar panel from which I can get 22 watts in the sunshine. From there I am charging a 48V 17.5Ah li-ion battery. Problem is that I can barely get much amperage flow. During charging it's showing a amp rate of .18, not even 1 amp. Is that because the battery is already near fully charged state? Do I need more power from the panel? Perhaps boost up the amps allowed while programming? I would love to get at least 2 amps, Any ideas?
@@daveyJ213 Have more reasonable expectations. Understand ohms law and conservation of energy. Make sure your panel voltage is set to the Vmp of the panel (probably around 16 volts). A brand new 20 watt panel in full direct sunlight, aimed directly the sun and well cooled, can expect to output 0.4 amps at 50V assuming the charge controller is 100% efficient, which it is definitely not. What you are asking is how come your 20 watt panel isn't outputting 100 watts. It's not a smart question.
i don't think its charging because it detects there is not enough power available to provide the 45v at 2 amps you have it set at, thats 90 watts and you have it hooked up to i believe you said a 20 watt panel. just a thought
Using this MPPT controller is easy, but it doesn't do what I set it to do. It doesn't work with either 16 or 43v panel, neither with 12v or 24v battery system.
I watched one of those "Teens react to" videos, where they showed them floppy disks. Most of them didn't know what they were, other than a physical representation of the save icon :)
Julian Ilett yes that little one with 10 turn pots.buck converter with opamp on board. (i think i made mine after thats design, it worked, charged my 6V SLA batt with much higher current than direct panel connection)
Simon Dambro lol thanks for the title, seems that one was it, it was so long ago. it seems absolutely was tested, but i remember a design review somehow, lol.
Fairly obvious, I would have thought, that without any batteries connected and removing the "sun" would reboot the MPPT controller....try and run it as it would run in real life...
Yeah, I got a little further in the video, and notices the little squares, but the app wouldn't let me change it from 5 to 4.. lol Used to love the case on the Nexus 4. Much prettier than both the 5 and 5X.
Jullian !!!! Don't you think it would be a good idea to figure out how it works first ... and then make the video .... then the thousands of viewers might learn something...
Check section 3 of his videos. They can be set to power on every morning on their own. Mine are setup that way. Drok has instructions that show how to do it. 1. Push SET with the power off but hooked up. 2. Push SET again to move to Panel Voltage. 3. Push SET to move to Charge Voltage. 4. Push SET to move to Amps. 5. Push SET and hold for a few seconds. Release and it will then move to Time Out Time. TOT sets how long the display stays on before going blank. 00:00 is continuous display. 6. Push SET and it moves down to Battery AH Rating. 7. Push SET and it moved down to Charge Timer. 8. Push SET and it moves to OFF. Change that to ON and it will turn itself on every morning. 9. Push SET and OK to save. You can then kill the panel and return power from it and it will power itself up. Make sure you do it in Data Set 00 as that is the Data Set that it boots to after a power off state as in every morning.
Hello there, did you ever figure out how to automatically keep charging - when the sun goes back up again? In order to do that you need to press and hold (setting button) next go to (AMP section) then press and hold the setting button for 5 seconds then and let go. After that keep pressing (setting button) to get to (OFF setting) then change to (ON) with arrow button - this will allow it to auto start charging when the sun goes back up again.
I think the lock symbol has something to do with the automatic charge initiating, for example if you lock the keypad the MPPT might think that you've done setting it up and want to leave it alone so from that point it will charge the battery automatically. I'd say locking the keypad might put it from setup mode to automatic charge mode.
The reason why it wont auto-on in the "morning" is because you have not saved this setting to power-profile. Press and hold SET aand then scroll down to off and change it to ON and SAVE. It now should auto turn on, mine does. Its a very odd controller btw but hey i t works, but not as efficent but for the price i cant complain.
Do you recommend this device?
@@bobcatt2294 not anymore... there are better ones today. This one was very slow to recover charging after a shade hits the solar panel... painfully slow.... dont bother
@@ahah1785 Which ones do you recommend for the intended use for a trike or mobile use?
@@ahah1785 Which ones are better? Most MPPT controllers are capped to charging 12/24 V batteries or do step down rather than step up. This and the CTK300 are the only ones I can find that allow you to charge a higher volt battery with a lower volt PV.
Great video I have the same mppt I'm using 200w panels each at 20v and I can get the current to hold
Muito top seus vídeos vou assistir pra aprender parabéns pelos videos
love your videos.. thanks for sharing :)
I would like to see more testing on this unit, maybe add a second solar panel in series to see if it really does track the maximum power point
It's good......
I look forward to your completed review of this product.
24V battery set up may be an issue tho...
Cheers
loving the 3 videos in one day! keep them coming, you are doing great reviews!!
Thumbs and thanks for your Brit humor.
Hello...
Where do you get those clips for the tool batteries ?? Your videos are most entertaining and useful !!
I've had this in my watch list for some time at £25 (I suspect events of the last few weeks means this price is long gone though) but the fact it only worked on 24v+ systems has put me off. My shed is fully 12 volt.
There must be a way you'd have thought to make sure it kicks in again automatically. Only so many options to try with four buttons I guess.
I did suggest this to one gentleman as an option to charge his ebike - I think it's serving his purpose quite well, which was nice to hear.
Thanks for both videos. Very interesting.
Yeah, it's a shame it doesn't support 12V systems. I have now found the setting for auto switch on at reboot. That's in part3 which I'm uploading now.
+Julian Ilett Excellent. Thanks for letting me know.
If this could do 12v battery, it would be very useful. You said it can be set to 12v battery setting and I look forward to a follow up if that works!!!
Seems like it should ramp-up the boost converter, but is starting from too long a duty cycle in the converter. You can still get power on an overcast day (about 10% of max I believe).
Seems to me that the lock symbol is there for a reason, maybe once you turn it on you have to lock it, might even be as simple as holding the OK button when you turn it on.
The panel voltage, are you sure that's the max ? maybe that's the minimum voltage you want the panel to be before it cuts off the charge, when it tried to charge initially, the panel voltage went down below your set parameter and all you got was a pulse.
That's a thought, I'll try that
Please update us when you find a way of you do anyway. I might want one ;).
Maybe you have to save your settings after you turn the battery output on? Certainly not the expected behaviour.
what if you lock it to save it. how do you tab to the lock and switch it. Maybe that will lock in the settings and cause it to lock in the on position. My thought is that the diodes stop it from draining the batteries when the sun goes down.
i looked back a little in the comments but not too far. The reason it would not come back on is the battery, not the solar panels are suppose to power the charge controller. You normally never disconnect the batteries in a system. You always connect the batteries to the charge controller before the panels or you can damage the charge controller.
i have a feeling that Lock icon has something to do with the on/off state resetting after simulated night. maybe try to find the setting to lock the "on" setting, changing the lock icon to closed?
Looks like the solar panel voltage setting is the minimum voltage that the charger will pull the voltage down to when charging. I'd like to bet that if you set the voltage lower it will sit in CC mode more.
Maybe - wild guess - you actually need to set the nominal voltage of the solar panel too? Because it seems odd to me that that field can be highlighted, maybe it's expecting a higher voltage from the panel and it cuts out because of that.
You want great weather? Come to Mauritius dear ! I would personally welcome you !
I wanted to like this little unit but just plain will not work for me for multiple reasons. nice that you can set the voltage though to charge lithiums.
And what if you press and hold OK... Won't it lock?
Hi Julian
I think you need to make solar simulator to do this experiments at any time ,tell us your ideas about light source for it ,cheers!
zvfà.
Julian, check the manual again (or the page at banggood you linked to.) - you have this flow chart of the menu when setting it. At pickture 8 you have an optional step, "Long press SET" and you end up in Screen turn off mode. after 3 presses you end up at the lock symbol, THEN you can change the On/Off settings, try it out.
Yes, I eventually found it - and it works :)
sweet, so a follow up later on then :)
Yes, I'll make a part 3 video tomorrow :)
whaaat? dont complain about the sun being away... its only nighttime...
Great! Try it with all your panels - it should handle a few hundred watts.
what if you use the battery to also power the unit with say 12v? would require a seperate unit to switch from solarpanel and battery(with buck converter?) though?
Could you try one of the Sun Yoba MPPT controllers on ebay, they are similarly priced and at least look from the images that they handle night cycles.
Thanks for the video. This unit looks like it has potential, I have been looking for something to charge rc lipo batteries via solar. Does the battery have to be a higher voltage than the panel?
That's how it appears to me.
well done ;)
Did not try to turn panel over with lock symbol on? Lock ON
Oh lol... There were more people with this idea I see
Curious device to confound your friends and confuse your frenemies :P
I eagerly await part the third! I see now where you were going with the "This is England" video :P Did you try the sardines while you was over in the Algarve? :D
Pretty sure I had sardines on toast one evening as a starter :) At Paulo's I think it was.
Nice one! :D
Prior to going to the Algarve many many years ago, my friends were all urging me to try the sardines. Very delicious! :)
Just step away look for others #
You should set the panel voltage to minimum panel voltage which is 12 volts in your case.
Hi Julian, are you going to do a review of the 900w boost converter in your last video?
mppt chargers don't work well with poor sunlight. especially when the DC DC converter is so inefficient in boost mode. input voltage drops considerably causing the unit to drop out. the chargers I have designed work down to 3 or 4 volts. still not efficient but at least it will stay running
I noticed that the unit failed to charge when solar panel voltage dropped below what wat the set voltage. Possibly the solar voltage is a minimum setting to abort charge? Since it is a boost converter, I would try setting solar voltage to around 12V and see what that does for you. Additionally, if trying to set output to 12 or 13V, I would set input even lower (perhaps 9 or 10v) and see if that works for a 12V battery.
Can you switch it on then save the profile, maybe it powers up in the off mode as this was its state when the profile was saved.
Aha, I've just found out how to save the ON state into the parameter set - I'll explain in part 3
Hold down the OK button?
How efficient this boost converter compared to real MPPT charge controller with transformer?
Does a long press on the OK button do anything? That lock icon has to do something somehow.
i just checked on this and the voltage can go as low as 15 volts. equalize is 15.1 votls average charge is 14.4 for lead acid and 14.5 to 14.9 volts for sla for average charge
Come to Germany. Hot and tropical summers every year with 40°C in shadow!!! - And Thunderstorm every evening...
Sounds like it's hot and cloudy - less than ideal for solar panels!
Julian Ilett
We had lots of sun hours recently. Only today is cloudy. Tomorrow it goes back to 30°C in shadow and lots of sun.
In my Town, we didn't have thunderstorms but all around me had. Strange.
+BloodySword.. Dunno.. I'm here now.. On holiday.. And only on the 1 autobahn.. I touched 30°.. Today a nice 26 with sun... Hot enough!
+Andrew van Leeuwen You should have been here earlier. Currently it cooled down a bit.
+BloodySword ive got here Wednesday, leaving today at 11 ☺️ but I could be possible, in the Netherlands it was also 32° in the shadow
so would this work as solar charger for a 24v battery on a ups, to run ups off solar.
Isn't that upper voltage indication a lower voltage limit for the cell?
At amp settings long press the SET button to allow the settings of the other parameters. You can even set to default to ON
^ This
hi what maker of solar panels would you recommend?
Hello. When you say battery protection, do you mean a BMS..?
Hi, the Solar panel input have to be higher voltage than output, otherwise it will not charging the battery. Ok
Take it apart, find the CPU's VCC pin, disconnect from the internal supply, and connect to a powerbank.
Luke Den Hartog what will that do?
I wonder why the fan is blowing full speed all time when there is no current going out or only very little. So this seems not to be very efficient or well designed, is it?
Julian you could use an Ardinuo with LDR to push the go button when the sun comes up.
Looking at one alibaba page with what looks to be the same unit re-branded.
Looks like it has a charge timer, you can even set the capacity of the battery. Set fan speed, LCD brightness. Seems like a pretty interesting unit.
The lack of a decent manual seems to be a big problem.
And it's pretty weird that it is a boost only unit. What if I had a 24V panel and 12V battery system? I guess I would have to look for a different charger.
Looks like a typical Chinese mix of awesome and crappy.
Thats my problem too. 24v panels and 12v batteries. That and the fact that it has to be manually started. If it was 10$ i would buy one to charge multiple lithiums.
But that's the thing it CAN be set to auto ON.
Julian just didn't find the feature due to the extremely lacking instruction manual.
The biggest problem I can glean from the little information that I find is that it's boost only. Which sucks.
Yes, it can be set to auto on. Part 3 shows how. Also LCD brightness adjustment, fan speed adjustment, zero current calibration and other stuff.
hello.. just press and hold ok button. to lock the on function.
The alu box plus fan suggest that this needs to dissipate several watts of power as heat. Why? I thought this kind of circuit could be better than 90% efficient, but it's running the fan while showing zero watt transfer.
Exactly, that fan sounds like it's about to take off while the display shows zero watts so either it's dissipating all the power internally (why would it??) or the fan's programmed to expected power dissipation rather than actual power dissipation...
How complex is (and expensive) to build a solar panel angle is changed (according to time e. the location of the sun)? The energy of the sun to get max, whit best angle.
The mechanics are the problem. Big bearings and motors. The electronics probably not too difficult.
Question please: I have this device powered by a 20 watt solar panel from which I can get 22 watts in the sunshine. From there I am charging a 48V 17.5Ah li-ion battery. Problem is that I can barely get much amperage flow. During charging it's showing a amp rate of .18, not even 1 amp. Is that because the battery is already near fully charged state? Do I need more power from the panel? Perhaps boost up the amps allowed while programming? I would love to get at least 2 amps, Any ideas?
You want 2 amps at 48v... 96 watts from your 20 watt solar panel. Good luck!
@@ackattacker8338 Advice, instruction please.
@@daveyJ213 Have more reasonable expectations. Understand ohms law and conservation of energy. Make sure your panel voltage is set to the Vmp of the panel (probably around 16 volts). A brand new 20 watt panel in full direct sunlight, aimed directly the sun and well cooled, can expect to output 0.4 amps at 50V assuming the charge controller is 100% efficient, which it is definitely not. What you are asking is how come your 20 watt panel isn't outputting 100 watts. It's not a smart question.
@@ackattacker8338 Thanks?
Should it be locked
i don't think its charging because it detects there is not enough power available to provide the 45v at 2 amps you have it set at, thats 90 watts and you have it hooked up to i believe you said a 20 watt panel. just a thought
Those are max settings and the controller would have no way of knowing max amps without a load.
ah, thought was the requested charge current.
I'm surprised it does anything with only a 20w panel on it.
When changng paramaters go down below the 00 and the floppy disc try go down to on off and press setr
There is a way - I just found it. Long press SET when battery current is highlighted.
can you please do a b3606 tutorial not b603
Tell me, you REALLY didn't notice the lock symbol under the output state.... what could it possibly mean?
That locks the keypad to stop further key presses
+Julian Ilett
Hold ok to lock it on maybe?
Using this MPPT controller is easy, but it doesn't do what I set it to do. It doesn't work with either 16 or 43v panel, neither with 12v or 24v battery system.
What about just charging 1 of the 18v batteries?
Yeah, that might work
I think it kep stopping because you had the current level too low and it peaked over it; so then shut off.
Well I found the manual and tried to post it on here but it won't post.
Post a link to the manual.
Charge 2 - 12v batteries in series.. :)
solar test without sun. ok?
I watched one of those "Teens react to" videos, where they showed them floppy disks.
Most of them didn't know what they were, other than a physical representation of the save icon :)
i think you have one manual solar charge controller module somewhere on your bench, that you unboxed few months ago. still lying untested, unused.....
Is that the device with 10-turn pots on it?
is it this one= MPPT Solar Panel Controller 5A DC-DC Step-down CC/CV Charging Module LED Display
Julian Ilett
yes that little one with 10 turn pots.buck converter with opamp on board.
(i think i made mine after thats design, it worked, charged my 6V SLA batt with much higher current than direct panel connection)
Simon Dambro
lol thanks for the title, seems that one was it, it was so long ago.
it seems absolutely was tested, but i remember a design review somehow, lol.
when are you going to post another video?
Fairly obvious, I would have thought, that without any batteries connected and removing the "sun" would reboot the MPPT controller....try and run it as it would run in real life...
Nexus 5 I presume?
Nexus 4
Yeah, I got a little further in the video, and notices the little squares, but the app wouldn't let me change it from 5 to 4.. lol Used to love the case on the Nexus 4. Much prettier than both the 5 and 5X.
OK where's the little black flashlight w/ "JULIAN ILETT" on it??? :) How can we know this is not an impostor posing as the real J.I.?
He he. The torch is probably easier to copy than my voice :)
Is that called a torch in the UK? Live and learn!
I still think this video needs to be re-done w/ the "torch" prominently displayed in every scene!
Look at the tiny panel lol no wonder
Jullian !!!! Don't you think it would be a good idea to figure out how it works first ... and then make the video .... then the thousands of viewers might learn something...
The lock symbol has got to do something
It locks the keypad (to stop fiddling with the settings). But it's easily unlocked by holding the OK key.
Thats why there is no load connection
Nice (sorry for my bad english)
Why don't u read the instructions wowzers
Clearly you have not takin your advice. The instructions are incomplete, J is doing us a great service.
how to set ON automatically when sun is down to up: czcams.com/video/IfHyPNkxlrU/video.html
it seems very noisy !
So. Pretty much worthless as a solar charger if it won't wake up in the mornings.
Check section 3 of his videos. They can be set to power on every morning on their own. Mine are setup that way. Drok has instructions that show how to do it.
1. Push SET with the power off but hooked up.
2. Push SET again to move to Panel Voltage.
3. Push SET to move to Charge Voltage.
4. Push SET to move to Amps.
5. Push SET and hold for a few seconds. Release and it will then move to Time Out Time. TOT sets how long the display stays on before going blank. 00:00 is continuous display.
6. Push SET and it moves down to Battery AH Rating.
7. Push SET and it moved down to Charge Timer.
8. Push SET and it moves to OFF. Change that to ON and it will turn itself on every morning.
9. Push SET and OK to save.
You can then kill the panel and return power from it and it will power itself up. Make sure you do it in Data Set 00 as that is the Data Set that it boots to after a power off state as in every morning.
@@gravelydon7072 Yea, I was sure I missed something in that nature.
you would have much better luck charging 1 battery pack
ALGARVE haha too much heat in the summer