T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] MPPT controller with load Diversion ?

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Re: [Electric Boats] MPPT controller with load Diversion ?

Hi Al

Load diversion and load disconnect are two different concepts and often the word "dump" is used interchangeably leading to a lack of clarity.

Load diversion refers to the load on the power source being diverted from the batteries to some other load such as a water heating element. When the power source is a wind turbine it needs to be under load at all times but when the batteries are full they can't continue to be charged so there needs to be another place to direct the power to. The role of a load diversion controller is to direct the power to some other device, a diversion load, when the battery voltage is high. This is often enough referred to as load dumping.

Load disconnect on the other hand is used to protect the batteries from getting too low, and some controllers, such as the one you refer to, have a feature to disconnect the load when the voltage is low. This too is sometimes referred to as load dumping.

The earlier thread was about load diversion.

Cheers

Chris

On 06/08/2012, at 12:59 AM, Al Thomason wrote:

A while ago a thread was talking about MPPT controllers which also had a 'Load Dump' feature.

Today I ran across this one: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/MPPT-15A-Solar-Power-Charge-Regulator-Converter-Controller-12V-24V-Auto-360Watt-/330773743156?pt=AU_Solar&hash=item4d03a6c634#ht_4029wt_1028

Which looking at the 'Users Guide': http://www.greenalife.us/supports/menu_solar_controller_mppt_01.jpg

Seems to have this capability. If I am reading section 2 "features" correctly: "When the battery voltage is low, the controller will automatically cut off the load from the system. If the voltage of the battery is back to normal and the load will restart working"

Unclear where they indicate 'normal battery voltage', but maybe this is what was being talked about?

-al-

__