I have a Victron based solar power system on my RV. It includes four 200 watt solar panels connected to a Victron SmartSolar 100/50 charge controller. There's also a SmartShunt, a MultiPlus-II 2x 120V, and a 300AH LiFePo4 battery. A Cerbo GX connects it all together for monitoring.
That said, I really like the MultiPlus-II 2x 120V's ability to offer power assistance to the AC input which can be tied to a small generator. The RV is setup with a Honda EU2200i generator and I'm able to run the RV's HVAC unit with most of the power coming from the generator with peek power assisted by the inverter run from the battery during AC compressor start or when another AC device kicks in and exceeds the 1800 watt continuous output of the generator. This power assist functionality is great for the AC side but I'm wondering if there's a way to do the same but on the DC side using power produced from the charge controller and feed it through to the inverter when the battery is full? Currently the charge controller monitors the voltage of the battery and once it senses the battery is full, (having finished it's absorption time and is above it's 13.6V float voltage), the controller shuts down any power output of the solar panels to prevent overcharging the battery even though there's plenty of power to produce and utilize. This functionality though is exactly what you want a charge controller to do and electronically I don't know how it could work any another way with the charge controller being a separate component and not knowing about any other device such as the inverter that could use the excess power. If the charge controller was integrated in with the inverter in an all-in-one type unit I can see how this might be made to work but I'm not sure if any all-in-one units have such functionality built in? Maybe the Sol-Ark will do it as it can power the inverter via solar with or without a battery.
I know that some charge controllers have a dump load function but there would still have to be some communication functionality built into both the the charge controller and inverter to utilize it and I assume the controller would need separate power cabling and the ability to switch power to the "dump" side or in this case to the inverter, to do so. Is there some other ingenious way of doing this?
That said, I really like the MultiPlus-II 2x 120V's ability to offer power assistance to the AC input which can be tied to a small generator. The RV is setup with a Honda EU2200i generator and I'm able to run the RV's HVAC unit with most of the power coming from the generator with peek power assisted by the inverter run from the battery during AC compressor start or when another AC device kicks in and exceeds the 1800 watt continuous output of the generator. This power assist functionality is great for the AC side but I'm wondering if there's a way to do the same but on the DC side using power produced from the charge controller and feed it through to the inverter when the battery is full? Currently the charge controller monitors the voltage of the battery and once it senses the battery is full, (having finished it's absorption time and is above it's 13.6V float voltage), the controller shuts down any power output of the solar panels to prevent overcharging the battery even though there's plenty of power to produce and utilize. This functionality though is exactly what you want a charge controller to do and electronically I don't know how it could work any another way with the charge controller being a separate component and not knowing about any other device such as the inverter that could use the excess power. If the charge controller was integrated in with the inverter in an all-in-one type unit I can see how this might be made to work but I'm not sure if any all-in-one units have such functionality built in? Maybe the Sol-Ark will do it as it can power the inverter via solar with or without a battery.
I know that some charge controllers have a dump load function but there would still have to be some communication functionality built into both the the charge controller and inverter to utilize it and I assume the controller would need separate power cabling and the ability to switch power to the "dump" side or in this case to the inverter, to do so. Is there some other ingenious way of doing this?
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