Solar newbie here. Received AC200p last week and testing it out. Brick shows charging at 365 watts. Solar charging with 2 100w portable rockpals in series producing 10 watts on very cloudy day. AC200p showing average input voltage @around 44volts. At this voltage the AC200 wont accept a charge sometimes . Shows 0 watts in. Apparently after talking to tech support, The minimum is more like 50 volts to work good not the 35 stated in the literature. My issue is I tried to use the car charger and the wall charger at the same. Had the setting switched to car. It wouldn’t charge. After about 2 hours of trouble shooting found a blown fuse in the car charger cable. I don’t know if I blew the fuse and if so why, or did the cable come pre blown ? Wondering if any one has had similar issue. As I will be charging my unit while overlanding on the road. Thanks for any comments.
Regarding the car charger blow fuse…did you have the AC200 selected to “CAR” before plugging in? Correct mode needs to be selected and you have to have a car charge port capable of outputting the necessary amperage requirements (12).
Regarding the voltage required to charge via solar…35 is the minimum required voltage to begin charging. In reality the charging will begin slightly lower than that. 44 volts is plenty. What you don’t have is sun and amperage. I am pretty sure if you have good strong clear sun with your panels pointed and angled directly at the sun and have 35 or more volts, you will see a charge. The panels will produce volts (electrical pressure) with almost no watts in low light situations. Give it another try when you have a sunny day (Solar = Sun)
Yikes, I have been evaluating new panels based on the 35v. I think accurate specs are imperative. Thank you forcsharing your experience. I’ve had my AC200P less than a week.
Thank you, I kind of knew that with my sun conditions and will try with better sunlight. The generator seems to be working well with the exception of car charger. I did have it in the car mode. Doesn’t seem like you should have to worry about shorting something just plugging things in. I actually think the cord came already blown. the fuses are f15a 250v. Hard to find locally, Could only find them on the internet. will have to wait for another test. Thanks for your response.
I did think of one other thing with the solar panels…when you have very cloudy conditions, the voltage reads fairly high from the panels under no charging load. As soon as the panel are put under a load (Charging is attempted by the AC200) , the voltage drops. The voltage drop under load may be enough to be at less than 35 volts minimum. This should not be an issue though with better sun conditions.
Car mode should not have anything to do with shorting anything out. What car mode does is allow the AC200 to begin charging at a lower voltage threshold than the Solar Panel (PV) mode.
Car charging mode allows input voltages from: 11.5V-14.4V or 23V-28.8V with a max amperage current of 8.2 amps
PV Mode allows charging only within the voltage range of 35 to150 volts and limits the incoming amperage to 12 amps.
The 8.2 amps of load during car charge mode should not have blown a 15 amp rated fuse. It is possible however that fuse was defective or a small spark occurred during the insertion of the plug into the socket etc. If you can find a 15 to 20 amp “Slow Blow” spec fuse I think your will be good to go. But…first just try replacing the fuse and see if that works.
I have a pair of 160 Watt foldable solar panels connected in series to my AC200. These panels have a digital readout that displays both the DC Voltage and the Solar Intensity in a percentage from 0 to 100. When I see a voltage reading of 42-47 volts and a solar intensity less than 20% the wattage coming from the panels is too low for the AC200 to display any amps or watts coming into it at all. Once the intensity % gets into the upper 20s then the wattage comes up above 0%. Interesting to note that when the solar intensity on both panels get to 50% or so the wattage coming into the AC200 is in the 150-160 watt range and the amps show 4 to 4.5 amps on the AC200. To me that shows that the solar intensity reading on the panels is fairly accurate in some respects if you look at all the numbers. One of these days I want to get the panels pointed directly at the sun on a clear day to see their maximum amp and wattage output.
Sounds like you have a pair of Aiper panels. I got a pair and they work well. I did make a pair of xt60 to mc4 cables for easier connection though
Yes a pair of the Aiper panels. I too made up my own cables to connect the panels together with xt60 & mc4 connectors and then an xt90 and mc4 connectors to connect to the AC200.
New fuse , working like it should. 114 watts while driving. Big whoopee. (not)
Yep. Probably a bad fuse. All solgen car charging is limited by the small amperage that a car socket can provide. If you are traveling, that 100 watts per hour adds up though.
Thanks for all your insight. I’m looking for opinions on causing damage to my trucks alternator by charging the AC200p. Apparently Regular GM truck alternators aren’t designed to charge these type of battery’s. I don’t know that to be true, Just looking for solid opinions. I don’t want to damage my alternator but was hoping to charge a majority this way and top off with solar. Thanks
You will have no problems at all charging at the 108 watt rate. Some people hard wire a larger inverter directly to their vehicle battery and use that to power the ac charging brick that comes with the AC200. This will charge at a rate of approx. 400 watts. The issue with this is your alternator in your vehicle has to have sufficient extra capacity of around 50 additional amps to power the inverter. I for one would not want to run anything at 100% capacity for long term so I would be more comfortable with much higher additional alternator capacity. Most vehicles to not have an extra 75 to 100 amps of alternator capacity (above what the vehicle already is using for operating the engine, lights, climate control etc) to allow this to work. Some do.
If you do a lot of driving, the 100 watt charge rate along with solar when stopped may work fine for your situation.
Thank you for your response
Scott…has anyone complained that car charging does not work…and before you ask…yes I’ve selected car charging and not PV. my 12v outlet is fine…
Yes there have been comments that car charging did not work but all the reasons I have seen center around. 1- AC200 too cold temp to allow charging. 2-AC200 not receiving voltage which would be indicated as no voltage on the display screen. Bad car socket or plug not solidly plugged in or blown cord or cord fuse. 3-I know you dont want to see this, but PV mode selected instead of the correct “CAR” mode selected is the number one reason no car charging would take place. With all that said, what voltage was being displayed on your AC200 screen while trying yo car charge?
Mine had a blown fuse from the factory, had to get some off the internet. Special amps, and volts
The fuse is in the tip of the car charger. Unscrew the tip and fuse should fall out , its a barrel fuse
there was no voltage shown coming in…and YES I had selected car charging not PV…The fuse might be it…I’ll on check that. 12v port in the car is hot.
Car charging mode allows input voltages from: 11.5V-14.4V or 23V-28.8V with a max amperage current of 8.2 amps
Does that current limit apply to both voltage ranges? I.e., does this mean that you can set the AC200P to car charging mode and connect a ~24V battery and it will charge the Bluetti at 8.2 amps (around 200 watts)?
Correct. 24v will get you around 200w.