Hello! I own a Bluetti power station AC200P and a PV350 solar panel.
When I connect the panel to the power station, it charges and everything works fine.
More than once, however, I happened to leave the power station in charge with the solar panel, without my control (because I went somewhere else), the day was sunny and the charging was fine at first. When I returned and checked the power station, I noticed that the charge percentage had dropped, even though it had been a few hours in the sun. After this happened several times, I noticed that when the power output of the solar panel is below a certain threshold (let’s say 40-30W), the power station discharges, instead of charging. This means that if the sky is cloudy for a while, for example, the power station starts to discharge. If I leave the panel connected when the sun is about to set (even more than an hour before sunset), the AC200P starts to discharge. I thought I would leave the panel connected all the time and when it does not supply power, the AC200P simply does not charge, instead it seems that when the panel remains connected and the power is low or nil, the AC200P starts to discharge. So I can’t leave the panel plugged in all night, so in the morning it is ready to charge when it starts to get light, but I have to set my alarm clock and plug it in manually. I thought the panel or the power station had a blocking diode against discharge, but it seems not. I tried putting one in myself, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect, because the AC200P still notice that there is a panel connected and it discharges anyway. Does anyone else experience the same issue? How can I remedy this problem? It is very annoying that when I charge the power station with a panel, I have to stand by there, checking if a cloud passes in front of the sun or as soon as the power drops below a certain threshold!
@juppa The SOC is reduced if the input power is lower than the self-consumption of AC200P.
Make sure AC and DC outputs turned off. It is OK that the powestation discharges, since the power station can only be charging when turned on, when turned on it will be loosing power, anywhere from 1%/h to 5%/h, to minimize the power loss, make sure the AC and DC outputs are turned off.
But even then the power station will be discharging which is normal. 30-40W of input is way too low from 350W solar panel.
It is recommended that you place solar panels for PV charging in ideal sunlight conditions.