Over the last few days it was fairly windy and the wind turbine was working overtime. I noticed my meter, with all the incomming electrons telling me it was dumping 20-30 amps and dropping voltage. I figured it was simply doing its job until it was down in the 12.5 range which was quite abnormal, normally it would keep it to 13.7 when fully charged.
I placed it in equalize mode several days before but we didn't have enough sun or wind to do the job. Also, I needed to bring the batteries back using the inverter in charge mode. When I do that the diversion controller needs to be in equalize mode other wise it would dump grid power when it was close to being charged.
Needless to say, it was - is stuck in equalize mode according to the blinking red light but it's simply stuck in dump. I disconnected it and let it sit for a while assuming it would clear itself and start fresh. Several hours later I reconnected it getting the normal green light blinks and all was well. Several minutes later I saw the trimetric meter telling me it was dumping 20+ amps again. Again the red equalize light was blinking again and dumping power. It doesn't respond to the normal manual switch over charge/equalize mode so I presume its toast.
I have a hammer, does anyone know the special "spot" that needs to be tapped. Any one experienced this problem before?...
During the windy days, with no load diversion, I found myself turning on lights all over the house, even screwing in some old resistance bulbs because the CF's just wouldn't draw enough power. An old electric heater helped considerably but it was a very bright night!
I know... I need an off switch to shut down the turbine in special cases as this. I tend to overlook simple devices when all is working well...
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