Had connected pv120 panel to my station witch is working in UPS mode and noticed - solar energy used only when battery isn’t full. Most part of the day pv120 doesn’t produce enouth energy to putting station off-grid. So only way to use it - manually disconnect AC180 from outlet and keep battery “almost full”.
It looks like firmware limitation and trully said - there are no any sence of using solar panels in UPS mode in that case.
Maybe i missed something and it’s possible to configure AC180to combine solar energy with grid input?
Hi @Dmytr0, We would like to know which UPS mode you are using.
When charging the AC180 with the PV120, what is the solar charging power? We would also like to know how much load your AC180 is handling and what the load power is. If the load and charging power are nearly the same, then it would indeed be difficult to operate off-grid.
If you feel that a single PV120 doesn’t generate enough solar power to sustain the AC180 off-grid, we suggest purchasing another PV120 and connecting them in series. This should result in better charging performance.
Hi!
This is a bit tricky question. There no any controls to change UPS mode. All sources mentioned “After you plug your AC180 to grid and torn on AC load - you are in default UPS mode”. I didn’t change any default settings. Just set Silent charging option.
It hard to measure. App shows voltage above 21V with 0A. In some period when I was off grid - i saw near 20W. Just now i catch 30W(19V*1,7A) then unplug station from grid and battery level fall to 99%.
My conditions are far from ideal. And I hope to get 50W in clear solar day which I beleave will be today.
Load is a fridge with 0/90/180 load(100 avg). so solar power for me - it’s a chance to collect some power when I can. Not to replace a grid at all. And electricity cutoff’s unpredictible - so I need to use solar power even being ongrid.
Hi @Dmytr0, Solar charging belongs to DC charging, which must first be stored in the power station before the inverter in the station converts the DC to AC.
Once the AC180 is fully charged, it can no longer charge via DC input. Therefore, it is not possible to continue powering the refrigerator through solar bypass after the unit is fully charged.
To address your issue, we recommend disconnecting the AC charging cable after the AC180 is fully charged. This way, you can make full use of the solar power.
I think the Q asked is confusing UPS. To explain UPS mode is where the power station is connected to the grid and then provides power to the fridge. If the AC180 battery is not 100%, the grid runs the fridge and also charges the AC180 battery. When the AC180 battery is full the grid passes through to the fridge only. When the grid goes down or fails UPS quickly provides AC to the fridge. The fridge will continue to operate from the AC180 battery until it is either flat or the grid is reconnected.
UPS has nothing to do with off grid use or DC input. More…
When off grid, the AC180 inverter runs your fridge from the inverter and battery. It has nothing to do with UPS. To keep this power provided constantly, you need to replace what the fridge uses, the AC180 inverter’s self load (efficiency) and other parasitic electronics loads used. In other words you need more solar going in than power going out. As solar is only on during some daylight hours and not at night the amount of solar needed is several times that of the fridge load.
In my RV, I work on a factor of 4. I also have an AC200P, it will run my 540lt house fridge for 25 hours. The AC200P has a 2,000Wh battery, so I need to replace that in roughly 5 hours (summer time) of solar, 2,000Wh divided by 5hrs = 400W. In winter that can halve or less which = 800W of solar. To play safe I would probably chose 1,000W. Then there is the limit of Voc, Amps and Volts of the input limit of the power station.
Like the Moderator states 120W is not enough solar for your needs.
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Thanks for the answers. PV120 was a “starter kit” to understand if it possible to get some energy in my conditions (without wall mounted panels). And I didn’t plan to build an autonomous system based on AC180 - it has limitation on DC input.
At the next step I will buy some smart socket and will manually control battery level