Review: Cheap but excellent Chinese 30A 12V/24V Solar charge Controller
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- Опубликовано: 11 авг 2016
- A cheap 30A PWM solar charge controller and it also charges Li-ion batteries!
Also, previously reviewed 20A charge controller:
• Review: 12V/24V 20A/30...
And 20A charge controller that can charge Li-ion batteries:
• Charge Li-ion batterie...
Dude, you have no idea what are you talking about. You can skip the chard controller and connect the solar panel directly to the batterry and it will still charge it kind of like mppt. That is $0 kind of mppt controller that costs nothing. Even better.
Dude, you don’t know what your talking about, without the charge controller you can put to much voltage into the battery as the voltage is not regulated, in effect, destroying your 12v battery.. any idiot knows this.. the only way you can put solar panels directly to your batteries unless your battery is 12v and the solar panels is 12v also.. this is basic information, so to say this man don’t know what he is talking about, you really need to check Your limited source of information and get your facts Right.
For me, it’s good to know that the controller regulates or knows if you have a 12v or 24v setup.. you don’t need ton adjust any settings,
It’s authentic.. I have a similar controller, so this is good information to know..
The only mistake I see is when he is charging the lithium cells, 12,7v is over charging the cells.. it need to be a maximum 12.6v.. and 1 or 2amp,
The charge controller can be pushing to many amps in the the cells.. he should have checked to see if he can adjust the amount of amps in the controller.. you could destroy your cells by pushing to much amps into it as well..
I did not know this controller can also charge lithium cells and you can change the voltage in the charge controller.. so this is useful information Nether the less.. also the two controllers are not same, there completely different..
Very helpful, thanks 👍
Thanks for this post Vuaeco. Just bought one of these and have found your explanation of how it works far easier to follow than the manual. Mine claims to have reverse polarity protection on the SCC. I wish to run a car fridge / freezer from mine. I am not sure whether to run from the load ports or directly from the battery. I may try both set ups and see how it goes. Cheers - Davo
I would use an inverter off the battery to run stuff like fridges.
thanks for video thats pretty good....
Great work, thank you.
How do you get the remote monitoring function to work? rs432 port gets connected to what?
ah ok sir thanks a lot...a very helful advised...best regards...
which one you like better, this or the wincong 30A?
Measure your panel voltage under load , surely it's being dragged down to battery voltage from 38v down to 12v
can it charge 16.8 volts and not overcharge?
Hi sir ...
How to connect temperature sensor??
It can use single cable or two cable??
How to connect in battery??
Thank you for this. It was quite helpful. I am just learning this. Is it possible to switch the temperature settings to F from C?
Italiano
Woow so impresss ...new friend here luv to watch your vidios...from philippens
Where can I buy this?
Hi, what is the output Voltage of the unit for the 24V light bulbs connected, when charging or not charging?
It will be the same voltage as your battery.
Hey man I got one of these in the mail today (Saw this video and decided to buy).. Looks and feels good, but I was wondering whether you've confirmed if it overcharges your lithium batteries like some other ones do? Or does it keep it at a nice steady voltage? Thanks for your vids, great stuff!
Mine doesn't. But there might be different versions of this model. You just have to try it for yourself.
Can you run 2 or more of these in parallel to the batteries? I'd like to run two 300 watt panels through each controller. then parallel them to the batteries.
Yes, multiple charging sources are fine.
No
can i know why the arrow on the charge controller from the panel to the battery stops indicating
If the panel wattage drops enough, there will be insufficient voltage for the pwm to step down to charging voltagel .. pwm do not step voltage up.
The pwm will stop until panel wattage goes back up.
doesnt show the amps from the solar panel
I'm still learning about solar..Is it not the purpose to connect the load terminals from the charge controller directly to inverter, if not the inverter would drain the battery? Like the solar controller puts a limit and disconnects if voltage is too low on batteries? Thanks
eibmoz76 this is an off grid controller. If that is your purpose just get a hybrid controller.
Inverters have a low voltage alarm around 10.4v and a shut off at around 10v. So no, an inverter will not drain your batteries dry... But do consider the draw of the inverter when calculating daily usage.
Mine is 48 volt works well.
name of this controller?
14:55 adjusting the charge voltage of your solar charge controller
Hey I bought a 250w solar panel that came with this controller and am wondering if it's ok to use with my 100ah lithium battery? or do I need a different controller?
It doesn't matter how many Ah your battery is. What matters is how many volts your battery has. It has to be 12.6V or 25.2V. Your solar panel also has to be less than 40V open circuit.
yeah sorry, it's a 12.6v battery and the solar panel is 21.6v open circuit. I was more curious if it was compatible with lithium as I've read that some are only good for lead acid and can ruin your lithium batteries lifespan.
So not charging with no pic of a solar panels what happened ?
I have the same one as you are looking at now but I have a 260watt 30.7v 8.50 amp solar panel I also have 2x12v 125ah battery's that I want to run 12v from can I use it on my panel please
Yes this reg will take up to 50V panel
Thank you for your reply
If your panel is 260watts and it is applicable to 24V system... much better to change the controller to MPPT because when you hook up your panel in 12V system, theres a lot of power losses.. It is a limitation of PWM...
MPPT uses PWM, so losses would be similar. MPPT just hunts for the greatest power output of the solar panel as amount of sun varies solar panel voltage and current output.
Vuaeco have you an update on how this unit has performed as I've seen another youtuber who called it a fake. I am considering buying one second hand.
I haven't used much of this 30A model. I've been using the 20A model (the blue one with 2 USB ports) everyday and it's been working flawlessly for over a year now. The 30A would be similar, I supposed, though I haven't got much use from it, yet.
I've use this 30amp charge controller for years and never had an issue with it, works perfectly for a PWM controller.
I would like to buy it for a 12V external light but I don't know if this controller has a crepuscular control in oder to turn on and off the light when it becomes dark outside. My panel delivers 38V without load. Would it be ok ?
You would need a Dawn/Dusk Daylight sensor in order to control (Automatically) your external Light. A company called KEMO (Germany) have a 12VDC Sensor, which remains powered 24/7 - but consumes extremely low power. The Kemo Sensor can switch up to 3 Amps (max) by internal relay. I have used this with the same Solar Controller as displayed here, for more than ten years, switching many external LED lights. So it is a great combination. Hope this helps you, or anyone else interested.
if i used 150 watts solar panel and then 40 amps pwm controller 240 ah deep cycle battery or two 120 ah battery is that good? can u please reply me about this set up because actually i have no idea about thist solar...thanks and best regards sir.....god bless
Your setup is fine. But it depends a lot on how much power you're trying to pull out of the system and how many solar panels you have to fill your batteries back up. There's a lot of variables you have to consider in a solar system and it will be out of the scope of this message.
Rule of thumb: for deep cycling it takes about 1W of solar for every Ah of battery capacity. In your case I'd run 250-300W of panel.
What's the maximum "PV OFF" voltage?.....i can't seem to find it anywhere. I want to use it with a 4S pack of 18650 and i need to know if it will reach 16.8V, and i need to know this before buying it. Thank you
Max voltage is 15V so you cannot charge a 4S Li-ion. I'd recommend this one: ruclips.net/video/IfHyPNkxlrU/видео.html
vuaeco Thank you sir! Great work! Love your videos!
buy a probe (wire with a thermometer on the tip) and install it on that empty terminal
showing how to connect the panel and battery would have been so useful. I can't even get mine to turn on. Some instruction, for beginners, rather than voltage and mppt (whatever that means?)jargon.
the charge controller have two screws with a drawing of a solar panel. Get the positive wire from the panel and screw it on the positive, get the negative and screw it on the negative. negative is black, btw. Red is positive. Do the same things with your battery on the screws that have a battery drawing.
Hows this controller fairing? Mine failed, reporting 12v battery voltage when it was dumping full charge into my batteries, Killed 2 100ah batteries,. Wouldnt trust one after this
can we use it for lithium-ion batteries??
Pwm works fine with LiFePo4 batts. It is important to provide the proper voltage to the cells... No different than lead acid really, just a little more finnicky perhaps. Just go by manufacturers voltage ratings... and ignore the ignorant among us that have no idea when it comes to battery charging with pwm ;)
24v how to setup
I just read an article claiming mppt not only gets 30% more to the batts, but that pwm systems are more expensive than mppt systems.
Two 140w mono panels thru $80 mppt vs. $25 pwm... Consistent 16 to 18 amps at 14.3v to batts, using pwm. That's 243 watts on average. Add mppt's alleged 30% and you get 316 watts out of 280 watts of panel... Wow, mppt's must have tesla coils built in !!! Who needs solar panels when mppt's can pull power out of thin air ?!!
As for cost, I pay about $0.70 per watt for panels. To make up the difference between 243w and 280w, It would require another 50w of panel... so an extra $35. The mppt is $55 more than the pwm... that leaves $20 for good heavy cabling ( 6awg vs. 10awg).
... Marketeers are not engineers; nor are they full time boondockers who actually deal with reality on a daily basis. They are salesmen looking to take money from the mis-informed.
Its cheap...but is it safe ? :)
Check out the back of the device after a while to check the temp of it.
what's better? 20 or 30 amp?
Depends on your needs. The 30A models don't usually have USB ports. The 20A models have USB but they can only handle 20A. The control interfaces are almost identical in both models.
This controller not show Ampere?
It's a fake see this video ruclips.net/video/zNcsfkXRS3M/видео.html I have the two model the original with mA ans Amp and the fake without
You can't find a decent MPPT Controller for less than 400 to 500USD?
I hook up one of that 30amp controller on a 300watt panel on one 200ah battery .by the next day the controller came off and never to come on.can any one tell me what happen there
This controller does not turn off. Once connected to a battery, it will be on unless it's dead or your battery is completely dead. What's the voltage of your battery and your solar panel?
vuaeco 40 volt max from the panel and 12v from a battery
unscrew the temperature connector, then connect a temperature probe...
Is that a PWM or MPPT controller ?
Looks like the common PWM
Let's look at efficiencies. In order for an mppt to harvest an etra 30% over pwm, that 30% would have to be available to harvest. 243w / 280w = 86.7% harvested by pwm. In order for there to be another 30% available, the pwm would have to harvest less than 77%... 77 + 30% = 100.1%.
So again, mppt simply does not harvest 30% more... except maybe in certain grossly mismatched set-ups, which would be inefficient to begin with, and therefore not worth debating over ;)
i think you got a fake one..compare the sequence and you dont find the amps reading that is suppose to appear after the temp.
¿What brand is?
CM3024Z
I was under the impression these Li-on batteries need to be balance charged.As they don't cope with over charging (explosion/fire).ie- on a 12.6 battery 2 cells maybe below 4.2v and the third cell will be over? I believe you can safely charge to 80% capacity without balancing.Check out the Julian Ilett channel for charging alternatives.
There is little deviation in the Li-ion cells' voltage under normal operating condition. You don't have to balance charge them every single time. What I do is I just charge my Li-ion batteries with my solar panel on a regular basis (where I don't have access to an AC outlet). And once in a while, I just plug them in their own charger so they can be balance charged.
I'm sure you know what your doing bud,but, there may be people watching without your know-how.Safety first.Cheers.
12,7V maximum charged voltage for 3 cells in series means 4.2333V per cell, and that is way too much....and has this charge controller liion charge program or its just linear?
How is 4.23 too much compared to 4.20? The difference is 0.03 per 4.20 and that's much less than 1% over voltage (0.7 percent to be exact). Since when 0.7 percent too much? Manufacturing tolerances are usually +/- 5%, mind you. So 0.7 percent is 7 times less than manufacturing tolerances and that's way too much???
every 0,1v more max voltage lowers discharge cycles by 50%(every 0,1v less you double count of discharge cycles), so 0,03v loses your discharge cycles by 16%. And its above maximum voltage in spec of most lithium ion cells, for me its like playing with fire(sometimes literally). I think its much better charge to 4,1v and have 4x more charging cycles then charge to 4,23v, but its your project
Where did you get this data of 0.1V over voltage loses 50% discharge cycles? Every manufacturer is different and you cannot just use one single data and apply for all manufacturers.
As always very good article on batteryuniversity
batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteries
First of all, your 0.1V data is way off. It is 0.15V. And yes, the difference is 50%. So, that makes your math in the previous message way off. Secondly, most of the information in that article is theory. It doesn't not have any concrete and practical evidence or proof whatsoever. They can just throw a statement saying 0.15V overvoltage cuts the battery cycle counts in half but they have absolutely no concrete evidence or proof to back up their claims. It's nice to know but without concrete evidence, it's hard to believe. Finally, if you really care about your cycle counts then there are many other more important parameters to worry about than the 0.03V over voltage. For example, the single most important thing you should worry about when using your Li-ion battery is to not let it completely discharged. That will reduce your cycle counts from a few thousand cycles (at least in theory) to just a few (may be 2 or 3 if you're lucky). And that actually happened to me quite a few times even with a brand new battery. I only completely discharged the battery once and the battery was dead and never took a charge again. The second most important parameter is the depth of discharge. The more you discharge your battery before the next recharge, the less cycle counts you're gonna get. So, if you only focus on that 0.03V over voltage and forgot about other things in using your Li ion batteries, you're going to kill it faster than you think.
It is a PWM and can never work as an MPPT, as you can see in the LCD Screen its just lower down the panel voltage and the ampere will stay the same,, If it is an MPPT it will lower down the voltage but also increase the Ampere ..
You are mistaken concerning pwm...
Real world test:
2- 140w 12v mono panels... 18v at 15.5a in... 14.3v at 19a out to batteries... A 3% loss.
So, no... pwm do not waste all the amperage.
@@ub2bn how do you know the panels are correct. He never measure the load.
You are correct. He never showed the load on the panels. Also his english accent makes me suspect something suspicious
@@cisltd The particular load of his bank has nothing to do with what I said. The point is, pwm controllers DO have bucking/conversion capabilities, just not as much as mppt.
My real world example proves this. A sufficiently discharged bank (i.e; load) will make use of all available power, in watts, minus inefficiencies only. In my case, 97% efficiency due to short heavy cabling, good connections, etc.
Did another run with the two 140w 12v mono panels, but in series for 24v. So, 24v solar to 12v 430Ah bank. I saw as much as 11.3 amps at 14.6v going to the batts... thats over 11a coming out of less than 9a max panels, for a current increase of over 25% !!! ... Impossible if pwm have no conversion abilities.
As for comparing 24v to 12v vs. 24v to 24v, or 12v to 12v... Yes, pwm will not harvest all of the extra power... but neither will mppt. There are always conversion losses, and anyone experienced in solar charging will tell you to match panel voltage to battery voltage. So, not even mppt, with it's magical powers per tesla, can make up for all the losses.
is it possible to regulate the output voltage to be constant at 12.1 to 12.7, regardless if the input is 14v ?
No it is not. The input has to be more than 14V (usually around 18-22V). The output voltage is adjustable but it has to be 12.7V minimum and not lower as it is designed to charge a lead acid battery.
If you require a stable voltage, use a step down converter designed to output your desired voltage.
This looks exactly like the $10 ones. Pretty sure only the shell is different. This is not safe to charge lithium batteries. Lithium batteries needs CC-CV for recharging. This little thingy can only do constant voltage
My pannel has 100 , battery has 50 solar controller is 12-24 can match
They may be a situation you would want to load that Load as a DUMP Load. MPPT are complete different animals. They can accept a voltage lower then you require and bump that voltage up providing some charge current. Accept Higher Voltages and Buck that down to your required Voltage with a Current Gain. All the PWM can do is Lower the Voltage.
As the pwm bucks the voltage down, the spare wattage is converted to anps.
Real world test... 280w mono 12v at 15.5a in... 14.3v at 19a out... Impossible if the wattage was just lost as heat.
i want to buy plz send me link this solar charge controller CM3024Z
the manufacturer says the case is aluminium - is that the case
The front is plastic. The back has a heatsink and it's aluminum.
Thanks mate.
they used a common 12 VDC connector for the thermocouple. somewhere some dumb cluck will plug 12 volts into that. using common power connectors for a sensor is bad engineering.
omg
My controller shows zero Amps from the solar panel, and the battery symbol empty and flashing. Looks like 10.4V on the 12V battery. No idea what im doing wrong with absorb, float seetings. In the Load LVD and LVR setting (no idea what that is) it shows the battery half full, but can be undervoltage i guess.
Hey mate did you figure this out?
Same as me
@@kaneotto6566 yea. Press and hold the 2 buttons and changed the battery type. Tried all 3 types. Then it worked... Something else wrong now, lets power through to pump but flasing error so not running at night... Could be faulty unit
MPPT is cheap now days
The Chinese ones maybe. Those that have "MPPT" printed on the label but not really MPPT. But if you search for a Morningstar, Outback, or Midnite solar MPPT controllers, they ain't cheap.
I have a design for a little circuit that you can put between panel and a PWM charge controller to add MPPT capability. It's only good for ten amps at the most, but it's always reassuring to know exactly how your equipment works.
vuaeco what you Think about the Chinees eco worthy 20amp charge controller ?
is this cm3024z a True mppt ? thanks for the good / clear review
Not correct .mppt will boost even 9 v to 14.7 volts easily .the pwm can only drop a higher voltage to a lower voltage .MPPT is better ,way better !
It's a fake solar charge controller CM3024Z that you have, because the original has mA and A charging and the total Ah that you have product
Afraid of open... No good.
Nothing excellent about PWM controllers, unless you like throwing away 30% + of your power.
That's not true. If you have a small system, this will do just fine without wasting any power. For the money you spend on it, it's worth it. You don't want to spend $500 for an MPPT charge controller when your system is only 100 Watts. That's a waste of money. You can only see benefit from an MPPT when you have a bigger system. The difference in efficiency is negligible between a PWM and an MPPT controllers in small systems.
I am just getting into this stuff for the first time... does this logic seem good?
I purchased one of these with a plan of connecting 4 100w 12v panels. Other videos are reporting this controller as being about 18% less efficient than mppt controllers. So the loss has a value of about 18% of my panel cost. If I connect 4 100w panels (2s2p config) at 100 bucks each, I am losing about 72 bucks worth of power from the panel set. You can't just hook up a 5th panel, so from an efficiency perspective, you lose out. From a cost perspective you save 100 bucks. Vs charging your cells at 18% faster rate.
I am still learning, so I will cut cost... down the road, I will reuse it on a portable system.
There may not *be* excess voltage for a PPT controller to convert. Consider what happens on a hot day with nominal 12v poly panels. Given conversion losses the MPPT might not be able to charge while the PWM could.
The question for many folks: is that 30% worth 300% the cost?
> Other videos are reporting this controller as being about 18% less efficient than mppt controllers.
That's a pretty good real-world guestimate. I'm not even sure this one is PWM; my guess is it's actually shunt. So let's say 20% less efficient because the on-off cycles are much, much slower.
> I am losing about 72 bucks worth of power from the panel set.
Not sure that is a useful way to think of it, since you were never going to get 400w from the panels unless you happened to be in lab conditions. ~300W on a good day in bulk is more likely. So you'd end up with something like 240w from PWM/shunt in bulk.
> From a cost perspective you save 100 bucks. Vs charging your cells at 18% faster rate.
That is indeed the rub: where to put the money. It's often cheaper to add another panel (maybe run 1s5p) than to upgrade to MPPT. Some situations effectively demand MPPT: hard limit on panel space (van roof, boat deck), requirement to extract max power (sailing, boondocking).
Note that MPPT doesn't just make more power when _charging_ ; they also make more power when you need it to run loads "off the panel", as they say.
As long as the batts are accepting what the solar system is providing, there is no good reason to take a load off the controller... That's what storage and inverting is all about.
If the bank is getting full, i,e; the amps have tapered sufficiently; and there is plenty of extra power still coming from the solar, then it is useful to dump that spare power to a heating diode to heat water for bathing, etc..
This is a fake model, it doesn't show the amps coming. Also doesnt show how.many amps have come or gone feom the battery
This regulatir chines is vety bad .