Go Power Solar Controller - Batteries not charging

[Wanda-R]

Hi. I purchased a Surveyor Legend 202RBLE in April and am planning to take my first real trip soon. It has a solar panel and Go Power Solar controller. It's in outside storage and the 2 batteries are not being charged. The controller flashes between "Battery One" and Battery Two" and there is a line across the top that is at 100%. The red and blue indicator lights are not lit which makes me think it's not installed properly despite what does show on the screen. Welcome any help you can give me. Thanks.

[PhilFromMaine]

I do have a Go Power portable, but different from ours, I believe. I am not sure of your knowledge level so pardon me if I am way off in my response.

My controllers, including the Go Power will not even show anything on the screen if they aren't hooked to the batteries properly. So I am guessing that is not a problem in your case.

A charge controller will not charge a fully charged battery so to a novice it might appear like the controller is not functioning properly when in fact it is.

One test you can do is to turn on some of your 12 V appliances and wear down the battery a little and then look at the output on the controller. You should see amps going into the battery. You may have to cycle through various screens to see amperage readings and of course you should do this on a sunny day.

[Wanda-R]

Thank you for your reply Phil. I should have mentioned that my experience level is low. I drove the trailer home from Ohio to CT with an overnight stay and the batteries were fine, especially I assume since they were hooked up to the truck. I have it outside at a storage place and when I went back to it a week or so later, none of the 12V items worked at all. I hooked it up to the truck and they worked so I assumed a) the batteries were drained and b) the solar charging wasn't working. The next time I'm there, I'll take pictures of what the panel looks like but based on others I've seen on line, the controller panel it self has power but but doesn't indicate the charge in either battery
and the red and blue indicator lights aren't lit. Since it is brand new, I'm thinking it's an installation issue but I'm not getting much help from the dealer that is 700 miles away. Also you mentioned scrolling through screens which is also something that I can't do. Thanks again.

[PhilFromMaine]

Originally Posted by Wanda-R

Thank you for your reply Phil. I should have mentioned that my experience level is low. I drove the trailer home from Ohio to CT with an overnight stay and the batteries were fine, especially I assume since they were hooked up to the truck. I have it outside at a storage place and when I went back to it a week or so later, none of the 12V items worked at all. I hooked it up to the truck and they worked so I assumed a) the batteries were drained and b) the solar charging wasn't working. The next time I'm there, I'll take pictures of what the panel looks like but based on others I've seen on line, the controller panel it self has power but but doesn't indicate the charge in either battery
and the red and blue indicator lights aren't lit. Since it is brand new, I'm thinking it's an installation issue but I'm not getting much help from the dealer that is 700 miles away. Also you mentioned scrolling through screens which is also something that I can't do. Thanks again.

It would be good to see a screen shot. The setup is so simple that it is hard to envision it not being setup correctly.

Is this the 30 amp PWM controller with inputs for 2 separate batteries? Are your batteries setup independently or they wired together in parallel? Is this
a roof mounted system with the controller mounted on a wall? How many watts is the panel(s) rated for?

The fact that your controller is lighting up at all indicates that it is getting power from at least 1 battery.

Other than that, it is just a matter of putting the correct wire in the correct terminal. With the two independent battery system there are 6 wires and in the traditional one or two batteries wired in parallel there are only 4 wires or possibilities. This should be pretty easy to troubleshoot.

Regarding your batteries, I would recommend charging them and then disconnecting them via the battery shutoff switch, or, if you don't have a switch, disconnecting the negative cable so that the batteries don't discharge and damage the battery cells.

[PhilFromMaine]

Hopefully you got your system going by now. While researching another subject, I found this on the GoPower commonly asked questions page::
"Why isn't the digital display working on my solar controller/regulator? Most issues with a display can be remedied by doing a hard reset on the controller. Unhook all sources of power from the controller (battery power and solar power), then re-connect the battery connections and solar connections.

Edit: always connect the battery connections first

[rsdata]

when dealing with electrical issues, it is impossible to tell anything about a battery's condition by looking at it... You must have a voltmeter of some sort to get valid information AT the battery's terminals.

Pickup a low cost $20 or less voltmeter at a hardware store or Walmart. You don't need anything expensive. Watch a youtube video to learn how to use it. It has many functions but 99% of the time you just need the Volts DC function.

Use the Volts DC functions and measure voltage at the battery terminal. Temporarily disconnect one battery lead before measuring. Use the pointed spike of the probes to push into the lead of the terminal to get a good connection.


A fully charged battery is 12.6-7 VDC.

A fully discharged battery is 12.0 VDC
a damaged battery is 10 VDC or less

Hook back up the battery lead then measure again to see if the battery is charging...
A charging battery is always above 13 VDC which is showing that the normally 12.6 VDC battery is clearly being charged from some source, solar or otherwise.