PL solar controller

[wazzaaaa]

Perhaps a silly question but my controller regulates state of charging by voltage it reads, it's voltage reading is different to battery actual voltage depending on how much charge the solar panels are producing it seems.
My question is how to get my Winston cells to 13.8v that I had set bulk at when in actual fact voltage is much less.
I adjust it to above 14v but still goes to float early.
Now that I force the issue and keep going to bulk repeatly it seems to be reading voltage closer to correct as it gets to actual 14v and charge is not as much.
Is my rambling clear?

received_337819996767789.jpeg

received_231337061068793.jpeg

These readings are as actual voltage is 13.87

At 14v approx actual individual paired paralleled cells read....
First one--------3.413
Second one---3.465.
Third one------ 3.545.
Fourth one ----3.624

[T1 Terry]

A few serious issues to sort there. First off it appears you have no cell over voltage charge cut by the look of it because you have a cell over 3.6v and that is asking for trouble and a short cell life.
Easy enough to get the PL series to read battery voltage rather than solar input voltage, although the difference between the 2 says the wiring from the controller to the battery is under size or has a high resistance joint some where.
To get the PL series controllers to read battery voltage, connect a small gauge wire from the battery negative to the B- terminal in the small green plug located under the cover, top left hand corner from memory but that bit could well off cause the memory is kinda stuffed

T1 Terry

[bagmaker]

long shot but -not internal resistance from power being used by something at the same time?
PL is measuring at the pos end of batt, Victron at the neg end

[wazzaaaa]

Bagmaker no load at all, I even disconnected battery cut off while I was manually watching.
Terry charge was cut at this point and alarm sounding.
Have replaced battery cables from controller to battery thinking voltage drop may have been a problem.
Solar panel cables are 6 awg battery cables are bigger now.
I measured controller end voltage reading and same as controller was showing.
At rest this morning both controller and battery voltages are reading the same it only seems to be up to .5 v different when there is a high charge coming in.
Not really a problem but battery is not actually getting to 13.8v.

Have been using system without a problem for nearly 5 years,usually when in use we use 260amps a day no problems.
Originally with a PL40 and shunt
but more recently a PL80 and shunt

[T1 Terry]

PL60 & the Newer PL80 most definitely need the separate battery voltage sensing wire, I was thinking you meant a PL20 and they have enough of a problem. The negative and positive sense terminals are shown on page 25 fig 7.5.3B in the big manual http://www.plasmatronics.com.au/downloa ... al_6.3.pdf Lots of reading and learning in that download, simply amazing bits of gear that can do some many things as well as being one of the best solar regulators on the market.
Drop me a PM if you want me to build an auto charge cut control that will work as an interface between the lithium battery and the PL80. It can also be customised to work with inverter/chargers and mains chargers and more specifically, the brilliant Projecta IC range of chargers.

T1 Terry

[wazzaaaa]

Brilliant Terry!!!!!
I read that file I don't know how many times in the past and never picked that up!
I do have an ic5000 I bought years ago on your advice but have never needed it to date on the lithium pack.
Big thankyou!