I have a travel trailer with the following:
- Solar panels on the roof feeding a SmartSolar 100/30 wired close to the batteries.
- A second set of solar panels on a portable rack with a second SmartSolar 100/30, this one mounted behind the panels. There is a 10 AWG, 10m cable that connects these panels to the trailer. This second set of panels can be tilted and turned to keep them gathering the most sunlight possible throughout the day.
- A SmartShunt reading charge/load.
Everything is connected via VE.Smart network.
My issue is that the SmartSolar in #2 sometimes reads significantly higher voltage--sometimes in excess of 1v higher--when charging current is higher. That seems to cause both controllers to go into absorption mode sooner than I would expect. I do have a couple of connectors inside the trailer to upgrade that may help this a bit, but I still have a few things I'm not sure about:
- Shouldn't the SmartSolars be using the voltage reading from the SmartShunt? VictronConnect shows that they are, but they still go into absorption mode when the voltage at #2 is close to the absorption voltage setting in both SmartSolars. If I bump up the absorption voltage in #2, both go back to bulk mode.
- Would a Smart Battery Sense help somehow?
- Would it make more sense to put SmartSolar #2 close to the batteries, like SmartSolar #1?