What can we really expect with solar?

[Busman]

Hmmm, when everyone is talking about around 70% efficiency, how come you have 105% Kevin ?
And why you using mode 1, I use 3 ?

[Toolman]

Bus has only been out of the shed and into the sun a few times, today I thought that I would see how much I would lose on a warm day
I did not expect to see that
I have 8 amp CB up on the roof in a combiner box, They got too hot and kicked out so will be replaced with bigger ones

As for the Mode, I have only used 1 and it seems to work OK, you will have to tell me why 3 would be better!

Kevin

[Busman]

Modes are really all about priorities, which soldier is in line first.
As I want my batteries recharged before anything else happens I choose mode 3.
Mode 1 will work, just the priorities are different.
From the manual for mode 3:

Renewable Energy has Priority to Charge the batteries.
The Combi Inverter has Priority to Support the AC load
with AC Power Support.

[T1 Terry]

not sure why the photo not showing, will try again

Near water, a glary sun glasses or squinting the eyes type sun with very light scattered cloud? If it was a clear sky day and not near anything reflecting the sun back against the clouds then I'd say your controller is telling porkie pies

[Busman]

That's just under 100 amps using 24 volts for the system

From 2250 watts of panels I would say really really unusual ! We regularly see 100 amps but that is from 3000 watts of panels.
I would be running the pack down a bit then putting the bus outside on a similar day again, WITH a good quality clamp meter on the main battery feed, with everything else off (apart from super combi of course)
Personally I would ditch the CB's on the roof, bring them all together properly and bring them down in a decent cable, say 90mm square (I don't believe in "acceptable" voltage drop, I say why have any?)
On VP we have 2000 watts on the roof, that comes down in a 70mm cable to a CB of 80 amps before the Sunstars, this arrangement has worked fine for several years now. The other 1000 watts comes from the trailer in 50mm all the way.

Something not quite right in what we are seeing here.

[Toolman]

yeah very unusual, before the cloud came over in bright sun at about 10.00am the were making 1400 -1800 watts.
But these conditions lasted long enough for me to go over to the house and get a camera
I am at 75mt above sea level and 3 kms from the Indian Ocean
Have 70mm cable down from the roof
The controller is good as I have clamped the output a couple of times so I trust it
About the same time I got on the roof and the panels were around 55 degrees
These are house panels in parallel
Also had one 3.5kw air con head running

Its OK as I did not believe what I was seeing

[dapope]

I have noticed with our setup that if there is a draw on the system, the solar output goes up....and you have a much bigger system Kevin.

[Toolman]

The Voltage was about 26volt and the cells were about 50%
The air con was pulling about 50 amps @24v

[Busman]

With our system you get what is available until the sunstars start ramping down as setpoint is approached. Of course if you are up there and turn an aircon or any heavy drain, the sunstar will start ramping back up again.

You must be charging to over 27 volts Kevin ?

[Toolman]

27.2