So the battery is not getting charged during the day, again. As the battery is new, I decided that it must be either the charge controller, or the panel is at the wrong angle.

So a week or so ago, someone invited Irma to Orlando. She huffed and puffed and did not manage to blow the house down, nor did she blow SolarDock into submission.

Essentially all that happened was the post caps came off the tops of the posts (they are not permanently attached yet). The power cables acted very effectively as tethers so they didn't go into the lake or otherwise get lost.

You get a disco!

I did some measuring of currents in the various fuses, as well as some open circuit voltages...

At the time it was sunny, and the panel was producing an open circuit voltage of 19.5v.

By removing the load fuse and putting the meter in its place, I could measure the current of the load in various configurations... Bearing in mind we are referring to the gazebo and 5 post caps, here are the numbers...

Full on (255,255,255) = 5.8A, so I replaced the 10A load fuse with a 7.5A one. On the bench, one postcap at full bore was measuring between 400mA and 450mA.

I am seeing a problem in the monitoring charts, at 10.5v on the battery, the charge controller switches the load off. Which seems to happen at about 2200-2230. I need to get a good indication of how long it's been sunny the last few days, so I can see if this is a big problem with the positioning of the panel or simply that we haven't had much direct sunlight, or if I need to get the daytime consumption lower (actually I will probably do this anyway)

The meter monitor software I am writing is going to be essential here, I must be able to measure the current into the battery