SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

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kyidletime
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Joined: September 8th, 2015, 4:02 pm

SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by kyidletime »

Hi, I've got some questions about the solar charging system on my 1995 Concourse. I have had it for about a year and have never figured out if my SESI solar controller is working, or in fact whether the problem is with my original Siemens solar panel not putting anything out. The only LED light that I have ever seen lit on the controller is the green light, which is indicating that the house battery is fully charged. It does go out when I draw down the battery, and comes back on when the battery is charged back up. I have never seen the neither the yellow or red lights lit at any time. My question is, how can I tell if the problem is with my solar panel or with my controller?

I'm not sure if the controller is properly connected, because the fused wire on the controller has never been connected to anything. The three wires on the controller, a red, a yellow, and a black are connected as follows; the red wire is connected
to the house battery positive (+), the yellow wire is connected to the solar panel positive (+), the black wire splits and is connected to both the battery and solar panel negatives (-). As I stated previously the wire coming from the fuse on the controller is not connected to anything.

I don't really intend to be too concerned about the solar charging system at this point, but it bugs me when something isn't working like it's supposed to. Any help from anyone would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks, Alan from Ohio
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Solar Energy System Indicator.JPG
Alan Croy
Hamilton, Ohio
1995 Chinook Concourse
Upgraded Converter/Charger System.
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Blue~Go
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Location: 1999 Concourse

Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by Blue~Go »

That looks very similar to - albeit not exactly the same - the solar controller that was in my Concourse. I would get both the yellow light and the green light as you would expect.

I know what you mean about being curious. Even though it's at best a battery maintainer for when you are parked, that's not a bad feature to have (if, say, you park the rig and don't have a place to plug it in). Other than that, not only is the solar panel rather small, its pretty low voltage (15.x). Combine that with the voltage drop in the long, long, skinny wires, and .... it will maintain against any little draws (detectors, etc.) but won't act as people nowadays expect a solar panel to act. But back then it was big stuff! We had a 75 watt solar panel on a boat in 1999 and felt like astronuats! :mrgreen:

I remember being a bit mystified by the wiring when I removed that controller (i.e. "wait, *that's* how it's wired, but...????). I think I may have taken a photo of the back before I cut the wires -- let me look. (I do have the manual for it, but not with me.)
Last edited by Blue~Go on August 13th, 2016, 9:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
1999 Concourse
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Blue~Go
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Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by Blue~Go »

Okay, so I looked back and found the photos where I was removing it from the "entertainment" panel at the front of the living room. They aren't perfect (the photo of the actual back of the controller is partially cut off), but I can get some information from it (this is sort of ironic as less than a week ago I was looking through some items in storage and picked up and looked at the controller and then put it back in the box).

First, here is a (horrible!) photo of the controller. The "things" to the sides are because I was taping up various possibilities for new fabric on the forward fiberglass panels. But it does show the lights on. Note that I don't think both of these lights were simultaneously lit up like this "in real life." Typically either the yellow would be on (charging), or it would flicker back and forth between yellow and green (getting close), and then eventually (theoretically) go green. At any rate, both the yellow and green lights did work as you might expect. IIRC, the only reason they are both on in the photo is that at this point in time I was in the process of removing the Chinook house battery and brown box and moving the stock DC load wires over to my new system. So while the solar panel was still on the roof and hooked up, it didn't "go anywhere" anymore (until it went into my storage box :D). You can see the remnants of a piece of tape from where I had a milk jug cap taped over the green because it was too bright at night.
IMG_1339_2.jpg
Anyway, starting at the back of the controller, there are three wires that are built into the circuit board of the controller (i.e. stock leads that come out of the back of the controller and then Chinook hooked up to them). I know, seems like there would be four, but I guess they doubled up on the ground.

Black
Red
Yellow

The red does go to the back of the fuse on its way "out," as you can (just, barely) see in this photo. This was taken way back, when I was just stuffing a camera in there and blindly photographing, hence why it's barely in the photo. I may have a better one, and if so I'll come back and add it (would have to find it though!).
IMG_1406.jpg
Okay, so we've (sort of) seen that part of it. Now as to which Chinook wires connect to those three wires:

Well first of all, the wires coming through the roof sandwich from the panel SAE connector are one red and one black. Then the wires leading from the controller to the Chinook battery are one red, one black also (rare case where they used black for ground not white).

So, incoming wires from solar controller: The red wire from the roof (i.e. from the back of the solar panel) goes to the yellow wire on the controller. The black wire from the roof goes to the black wire on the controller.

Outgoing wires from the controller to the house bank: The red wire from the controller goes through the fuse, and then to the red (Chinook) wire that leads to the batteries. The black wire from the controller (that also connects to the black wire from the solar panel/roof) connects to the black wire going to the house bank. And look, we have another terrible photo to show it! :D
IMG_1409.jpg
(Actually, from the photo I could only be like 95% sure which red Chinook wire was coming from panel and which was going to house bank. That 95% said yellow/roof, red/battery; but what ups that to 99.9% for me is that the outgoing wire would be the fused one. And that's the red wire. So hence red wire to battery (of course check all this on your own, blah blah).
1999 Concourse
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Blue~Go
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Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by Blue~Go »

One last award-winning photo that I couldn't add to the last post due to the three photo limit:
IMG_8799.jpg
1999 Concourse
kyidletime
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Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by kyidletime »

Hi Blue, I knew that I could count on you to help me out. I haven't been posting anything for awhile, but have been keeping up with others' posts. I got a little ambitious today and got my ladder out and went topside to do a little investigating. I decided to take the solar panel off to , if nothing else, clean under it, and boy did it need it. Anyhow, I found the connector to the solar panel to be hardly plugged in, and pretty corroded. I'm going to do a little continuity testing, and also output testing of the panel before I put it back on the roof. I'm going to see if I can clean up the connector good enough that I can keep it, but am also going to see if I can find a new one. I'm still not sure how the red wire on the controller runs through the fuse, and on to the house battery positive terminal. By the way, the red and black wires to and from the controller are all 10 awg. Also i rerouted the wires from the controller to the house battery at it new location in the driver's side storage compartment.

Another thing that I've found is that the roof has quite a low place in it, from the weight of the heat pump, I would guess. Anyhow it cause water to pond there, and although the water isn't leaking into the interior, it's still not a desirable situation. Any ideas as to anything that could be done to improve the low place?

Thanks again for responding.
Alan
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Chinook House Battery #2.JPG
Alan Croy
Hamilton, Ohio
1995 Chinook Concourse
Upgraded Converter/Charger System.
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Blue~Go
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Joined: July 31st, 2014, 1:01 am
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Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by Blue~Go »

Look at that tidy battery compartment and its wiring. Nice!

Nice to have you posting again, and also to hear you've been reading along.

The connector they used on the roof is called an "SAE connector." They seem to most commonly be just two "hand-held" connectors, but I have seen a few that have the one side flanged and mountable (they seem to be used for motorcycle connections).

I don't know if you could see it very well (with those amazing photos :lol: ), but the red wire comes out of the circuit board on the controller and is then is soldered to a tang on the top (i.e. the most sticky-outy part) of the fuse holder. Then another red wire is soldered to a tang at the base of the fuse holder (then wraps around the back of the fuse holder where you can't see it in the photo), and that's the one that goes on to connect with the Chinook red wire to the battery bank. Here are a few more photos.
IMG_1408.jpg
Highlight - 2.jpg
Highlight -1.jpg
1999 Concourse
kyidletime
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Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by kyidletime »

I'm attaching a couple of other things, including the operation sheets for the controller, which also includes my very rough drawing of the wiring as it is, and also a picture of the back of the controller showing the fuse and the red, yellow, and black wires. It would be my guess that someone had changed the wiring at some point in time, leaving the fuse out of the wiring loop. This is not the first case of someone screwing up the wiring on my rig!
Attachments
Back of Controller.JPG
SESI Solar Controller0001.pdf
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Alan Croy
Hamilton, Ohio
1995 Chinook Concourse
Upgraded Converter/Charger System.
kyidletime
Posts: 154
Joined: September 8th, 2015, 4:02 pm

Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by kyidletime »

After studying your pictures, it makes me think that someone had added an additional inline fuse and wire for some reason. I think that maybe I can figure out the wire connections from your pictures. I'll let you know how it all comes out after I get the solar panel and controller reinstalled.

Thanks again.
Alan Croy
Hamilton, Ohio
1995 Chinook Concourse
Upgraded Converter/Charger System.
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Blue~Go
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Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by Blue~Go »

BTW, here is one page with the SAE connectors, just for the record. I can't remember what size the wires on mine were (and don't have that box with me), but the ones I find now are 12 gauge wire.

Down a ways on this page is the flanged one:

http://www.solarseller.com/low_voltage_ ... nsions.htm
SAE connector, 12 ga..png
Not that I'm suggesting anyone use these for any modern solar installation (of a panel more than 25 watts or something) but just to show it.

I'll have a closer look at your photo in a bit (running out now).

BG
1999 Concourse
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Blue~Go
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Re: SESI SOLAR CONTROLLER

Post by Blue~Go »

I see what you mean. It looks like maybe someone added the bullet connectors, and along the way a third red wire was introduced, and the fuse was bypassed. Kinda makes you wonder why, and never gives the feeling that it was for a "correct" reason, doesn't it?

Basically the path is the same on most/all solar controllers.

A positive and negative come in from the panel(s) and attach to the controller.
A positive and negative leave the controller and go to the battery(s).

The positive line out to the batteries should be fused. It's good to use the largest fuse the wire can support (less voltage drop across the fuse), but in this case the wires are pretty small.

That's it.

It looks like SES combined the two negatives, but okay, I can see that. Otherwise.... it's basically the same as any controller (or charger).
1999 Concourse
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