I have a Renogy Tracer charge controller and the 40 am breaker between the controller and my bank of six 6 volt batteries has tripped several times in the last 2 days. Obviously something is wrong.
Can anyone suggest the best way to troubleshoot this problem?
I have a spare breaker (somewhere) but I can't find it. My batteries and the controller are 6 years old.
How many watts of solar do you have?
From what I understand breakers get weaker with each fault, so you may need a new breaker.
You may have exceeded the 40 amps rating on the breaker. As Chuck asked how many watts of solar do you have on the roof? Even though you may not have exceeded the 40 amps previously, if you are borderline on current, the summer sun may have pushed you over the rating of the breaker, especially if it was borderline to start.
That shouldn't trip a 40 amp breaker unless it has weakened significantly. 500/12=41 amps.
I would change the breaker and see if it continues, before doing anything more expensive.
I don't think your battery would contribute. I am not an expert, but have a decent feel for solar.
Here's an update. I am in extreme heat in AZ, My battery voltage is dropping much faster than usual right now. Now I'm thinking one of the six is bad.
I have usually started the day at 12.3 volts or better (after running fans behind the reefer all night) and this morning they were at 12.1. They didn't get a full charge yesterday so I thought that might have been part of the problem but right now they are still getting a 1.4 amp charge and are already down to 12.6. Ordinarily they would be at 12.8+ at this time of day.
I wouldn't think that a bad battery could draw extra amps (ie more amps than the charge controller puts out) but maybe it can.
Any thoughts?
BUT, any contact between wiring "above" the breaker and any chassis metal would be a DEAD SHORT.
Worth a check of the wiring.
Sorry, we posted at the same time. Yes, the lower the battery voltage, the higher the amps (Mr. Watts law).
I can't find the spare breaker that I know is in this coach somewhere but I can easily switch the breaker (same thing) that's between the panels and the controller and see if the problem still exists.
That breaker was under-sized. Breakers are thermal-activated devices. Add a hot day to an under-sized breaker and you have a problem. Buy a 50 amp breaker. It will still protect your system.
Good answer IF (repeat IF) the wire is sized for 50 amps.
I have 850 watts of solar and rarely ever see 40+ amps. I may be wrong, but with 500 watts I don't see how you could get 40 amps to the batteries. I would suspect bad breaker or a short.
I switched out the 40 amp breaker with a 50 amp and will see what happens today.
Update: The new breaker solved the problem.
Thanks for the help!
I forgot to update this issue. As it turned out, one of my six 6 volt house batteries went bad and apparently caused the breaker issue. I ended up pulling two out (2 x 6 - 12) and am limping along with the other four until I can get a good deal on new house batteries.
If you rotate the batteries regularly the end ones last longer