Club 80-90 Forums

Might seem like a daft question but how does a solar panel and split charging system work together.
I have had a split charger fitted to my van for a few years and it works very well. Yesterday I fitted a solar panel on the roof and was wondering how they both work in conjunction with each other.
The solar panel is run thru a charge controller and seems to be doing its job very well. So I am wondering how this works when I start the van up and the split charge starts to work when the starter battery reaches 12.8 volts and the relay starts to allow charge to the leisure battery.
Am I right in thinking that the main charge to the leisure battery will come from the engine running thru the relay and the solar will only top up thru the controller when needed.
Thanks

With engine running, the solar controller sees 14v at battery so thinks its fully charged and therefore goes to sleep, When engine isn't running and split charger not energised, solar controller wakes up again

So yes, your last statement is correct. Personally I disconnected split as solar was fine on its own but I'm running 200watt.

Thanks for the reply, I probably will disconnect myself when I get another panel. When I put another panel on do the wires just go Into the controller as normal.

You can run each set of pos and neg wires from the solar panel to a double solar socket and run the single from that to the controller.

As CovKid said you don't need to worry about the split charge when the engines running. The controller will dump the excess.

Personally I'd keep the split charge for when the days are dull etc.

Re your question about top up when - that's correct. It also depends on what controller you have. The dual battery ones can be programmed to share the solar charge output between the 2 batteries. I have mine set to 80% to leisure and 20% to starter batt.

Depending on the size of your panel it will charge the batteries well on a sunny day. I have a 100w panel and can be parked up for days with the kids charging all manner of electric crap and the solar keeps the batt topped up


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I have a 100w flex on and a dual controller, so should be ok when I add another panel.