Xantrex C60, Questions

[scallywagard]

I have just hooked up my Xantrex C60 DC controller. I am using it for a dump load to a water heater. Before I hook up my turbine to the whole system I want to make sure that I have a place for the juice to go to. The whole thing is wired, the pos. comming into the controler is disconected. The pos. and neg. for dump load are going into the water heater. When I hook up the pos. form the battery to the controler. A 4AWG wire about 4 foot long from a 24 volt, small 2 battery bank, The 4 AWG wire starts to get warm just below the controler. The controler showes a solid red light. Is this OK?? Will it get hotter when the turbine is hooked up to it? and what other things on and around the controler should I expect to get hot. I have put months into this system and I dont want to see it get fried in a instant. Thanks for any advice.

                                Greg

[SparWeb]

Solid red LED?  You have it in Load control mode, not Diversion control mode.

I don't have the manual handy, but you should take a look thru it again.

[tmcmurran]

Be interesting to see a few photo's and a little more detail of how you have this all connected.

[luckeydog]

I use the Xantrex C60 and i have never had anything get hot. Here is the user manual.

nor do I ever have a red led. green flashing is charging .... solid green led is charged.

http://www.affordable-solar.com/admin/product_doc/Doc_C%20Series%20User%20Manual_20060515132018.pdf

Luckeydog

[richhagen]

When dumping, on my C-40, a solid red light is an indicator that the controller is dumping and that the voltage is at the disconnect voltage.  There is not significant heat where the wire goes into the controller.  I would ensure that the connection to the 4 guage wire is solid and that there is no corrosion or resistance in that junction as that would generate unnecessary heat.  The top fins of the unit get hot and the unit itself gets warm when it is dumping a larger current.  

Additionally, I would be cautious about using this type of setup with a "small" 24 volt battery based upon my observations.  My C-40 controller does not cut off the dump controller until the battery is much lower than I would like with a tiny battery, even with the most conservative of setings on the potentiometers.  It is not a simple voltage switch in its operation, I would guess it uses a processor and some type of alogrythm.  While this may be beneficial for a large battery bank, my observations are that it does not perform well with tiny battery setups as it does not react quickly enough if the dumping current is large relative to the battery capacity.  I haven't checked the manual for information relative to this issue, but would recommend that you do so.  These are only my observations with my units, and your results may vary.  Rich

[Flux]

Your heater must be rated at less than 60A for this to work.

If you have nothing charging the battery I don't see why it will be dumping anyway if the thing is linked to the correct voltage.

"The whole thing is wired, the pos. comming into the controler is disconected. The pos. and neg. for dump load are going into the water heater."

Don't follow that, maybe I have misunderstood you but that doesn't seem right.

You should have battery  pos and neg connected and 2 leads to the dump load, which I seem to remember use the same leads as for the charge control when in diversion or load control mode. What you describe doesn't sound right.

Flux

[tmcmurran]

Not too sound too stupid here, but could someone post some sort od diagram on the correct way to hook this type of situation up.  Kinda going through the same problems myself with a C60 and 2 600watt heaters.

My problem might be due to the fact that I have this connected to a Whisper 100 controller.  The controller is set to 14.? before sending to dump, but not sure of the proper values to set both the Whisper and the C60 to so that the batteries will remain charged while at the sametime sending the over charge via the C60 to the heater system.

AcK!!!!

[luckeydog]

Page 47 shows a diagram for wind hookup.

http://www.affordable-solar.com/admin/product_doc/Doc_C%20Series%20User%20Manual_20060515132018.pdf

Luckeydog

[tmcmurran]

Ok, this part I have gone over in my documentation as well, but where I go blank is with the following.

Bulk is set on the diagram at 16.8 (bulk is?)max charge?

Float is set on the diagram at 15.5 (float is?)normal charge?

Now onto the wind genny controller

Max cut out should be set to (?) with the above settings

Min cut in should be set to (?) with the above settings

It just seems that when I use these settings I tend to boil the batteries a little more then I like.  This is on a 12v system by the way.

What I would like it to do, and what seems to be happening is this.

I would like to see the wind genny controller sending charge to the battery bank as per normal.  Once the charge level reached (X)on the batteries then the C60 would begin to dump to the water heaters from the battery bank while at the sametime the wind genny controller continued to feed into the bank to sustain the current levels.

So I guess the question of the day really is, where should the settings be from the charge controller from the wind genny (upper and lower) to the battery bank, then from the C60 to the heater system?

I hope that I was able to explain what I am trying to do without going in a complete devation from what this should be able to do.

Thanks

[tmcmurran]

Anyone?

[richhagen]

Bulk and Float apply to when you are using the C60 as a charge controller the same potentiometers are used for different purposes in different modes.  When using it as a load controller, refer to you manual, but you will use one of those as low voltage disconnect which turns the load off and one as the voltage at which it will turn the load on if I recall correctly. Rich

[scallywagard]

Thanks for all the comments, I have it now wired to Charge control, That was the main problem. Now when the wind blows all the powers trickels or flowes "depending on how hard the wind blows" into the water heaters. Xantrex technology tel. 800-670-0707 were a great help. they told me to put the bulk control at 28.8 or 28.5 and put the float at 27. I have them set a little lower than that.My battery bank is a little old. I will post a few photos of how I wired it all later today. I just uploaded 3 Photos of my turbines in my back yard.

                        Greg