Hi, this is Josh with another episode of Solar
Tech TV.
And today, we're gonna be looking at our MS4448
Magnum PAE Power Center with a Midnite Classic
150 charge controller installed.
By the end of this video, you should have
your power center breakers turned on and have
all the programming dialed in for charge time
and voltage.
Let's take a look!
Before we jump into the programming, there's
a couple of things I want to go over as far
as expectations.
I'm assuming here that you've got all your
wiring correct and that you've double checked
all of your terminations.
Be thinkin' polarity here.
If you've got all your wiring in place, then
come on and let's take a look over here.
We're gonna get our Midnite Classic charge
controller turned on first by turning on this
right-hand CC number one MPPT output breaker.
That's gonna turn on our Midnite Classic.
You should hear the fan blow, it will run
through its boot up screen, and then ultimately,
it's gonna require a little bit of programming.
For our purposes here, we're gonna assume
a Crown CR430 flooded battery bank of 8 L16s
for 48 volts.
And we're gonna assume a generator of 7 kilowatts
at 240 volts.
Okay.
The first thing we're gonna do is we're gonna
get into the main menu of the Midnite Classic
by pressing Main Menu.
And the first menu item that comes up here
is the Charge menu.
We'll just press the Enter button between
the four arrows to get into the Charge Menu.
And then the first thing that comes up in
the menu there is Volts, and that's where
we wanna be.
So we'll hit Enter again.
Once we get in here, we'll see the default
values in here for Equalize, Absorb, and Float
voltage set points.
This is solar we're talkin' about here.
And we're gonna need to adjust these numbers
up.
The manufacturers default these numbers to
be very low and in most cases they're going
to need to be turned up, the charging voltage
and the charging time.
So I happen to know that the Crown CR430s
want to absorb charge at 58.0, they wanna
equalize at 62.0, and they want to float at
54.0.
Which are kind of easy, convenient numbers
to work with.
So we'll get in here and adjust these values
up and down here.
We'll turn our EQ up from the default to 62.
And then we'll use the right arrow to toggle
over to Absorb, and turn it up to 58.0.
And we're gonna turn our Float to 54.0.
Now, on the Midnite Classic, the thing to
keep in mind is that after you've entered
these values in, you've gotta get in and press
this Enter button and your controller will
flash Data Sent and Save to Controller.
That's how we know our values are saved in
there.
Now we've got our voltages in here, once you
verify they're correct with your battery manufacturer,
don't use the ones I used if you're not usin'
CR430s, once you're comfortable with these
numbers we're gonna press the Main Menu button
one time to back out of Volts, and we're gonna
use the right arrow to go over one click to
Charge Time.
This is where our absorb and equalization
times are.
We'll press Enter to get into this menu.
And here we have an absorb time of two hours.
We're assuming an array size of 12 panels
that are 60 cells and 260 watts a piece.
So with 8 batteries, our absorb time is gonna
shake out to be about three and a half hours.
That's what's gonna be required to get us
to 100%.
This default time of two hours isn't gonna
get us there.
So we have to get in and adjust our absorb
time up to three hours, thirty minutes.
Now, be sure you visit the manual on this.
I'm usin' this based on 8 L16 flooded batteries
and 12 260 watt panels in four strings of
three.
You gotta get in and look at the Charge Time
section of the manual for the controller to
be sure you're doin' it right.
Okay, I've got three hours and thirty minutes.
Here's a protip for you: you gotta make sure
that your equalization is about one half to
two thirds of what your absorb time is.
And you kinda have to tweak it to figure out
where it's gonna be perfect, but if we're
gonna absorb for three hours and thirty minutes,
we're gonna start with an equalization time
of two hours.
So we'll get two hours programmed in here.
And we will hit Enter.
It will flash Data Set and Save to Controller.
And that's all we need to do for the Midnite
Classic 150 charge controller.
It can do a lot, you guys.
But the main thing we need to focus on here
is charging your batteries at the right voltage
for the right amount of time, and that's what
we're accomplishing here.
Once you've got it saved and you're comfortable
with the values that you've got, go ahead
and press this Status button on the lower
left to get you back to the main screen.
Okay, now that we have the charge controller
programmed to charge at the right voltage
and for the right amount of time, we can turn
on the input breaker and let power in from
the solar array.
If you've got sun, your charge controller
should start charging batteries.
Next we're gonna work on gettin' the inverter
to come on and invert power to AC loads and
get some programming taken care of in this
guy.
So the first thing we're gonna wanna do with
the Magnum inverter is turn on our main DC
disconnect here, it's a 175 labelled "Inverter
DC Disconnect."
We're gonna kick this guy on, at this point
it should light up our Magnum remote, and
it should go through its boot procedure and
tell you the revision of the firmware you're
working with et cetera, and eventually it's
gonna get to a place where it asks you what
time it is.
Fair enough, that's my first question when
I wake up.
We're gonna skip through what time it is,
to get to a point where we can get in and
start inverting power because realistically,
we wanna make sure we can run loads with this
guy.
Now you'll notice we turn on the breaker,
and it still says "Off," we're not off and
running yet!
We need to get in and press our Inverter On/Off
button, actually get the inverter to start
inverting.
At this point, it'll start inverting, but
it's in stand-by mode because we don't have
any of our output breakers on to get AC to
our loads.
As a result, you'll find this AC output surge
suppressor is gonna be blinking in time with
this inverter.
Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.
That sound is what it does when it's searching.
It's a totally normal feature of the Magnum
inverter lineup that allows it to save power.
When this guy's searching, it only uses about
five watts an hour.
If you disable this feature, it uses about
35 watts an hour.
So I suggest you let it tick when you're not
runnin' any loads.
So, at this point what you're gonna wanna
do is get in and turn on your AC output breaker
to let AC power leave your power center and
go to your AC loads so we can make sure it's
gonna come on and run loads.
This breaker's labelled "Inverter AC Output,"
not to be confused with "Inverter Bypass."
You'll probably never turn this breaker on.
When we turn on Inverter AC Output, we're
gonna send AC power out to our loads and we
should be able to get in and see the inverter
switched out of searching and into inverting.
This blinking blue surge suppressor light
on the AC output side is also going to go
steady when that happens.
And at this point, we've got our charge controller
charging batteries, and we've got our inverter
inverting AC power to loads.
Now that we've got our inverter up and running
loads, what we're gonna wanna do is program
the couple of things that need to be programmed.
Again, there's a lot of things that can be
programmed and I encourage you to read the
manual to find out what it's capable of doing.
I'm gonna walk you through programming your
battery monitor kit, which is installed in
all of our power centers, and that tells you
your amp hours gained and removed, and gives
you a state of charge percentage.
It's gotta be accurate or it's not going to
give you the correct answer.
If you lie to it, it will lie to you.
So we're gonna program our battery monitor
kit first.
And what we'll do is we'll get in here and
press "Setup," we're gonna use the Select
knob and rotate over to BMK Setup, and press
in on the Select knob here.
The charge efficiency is set for Auto, and
I recommend you leave it there, but if you
go one click clockwise with this Select knob,
you'll find the default amp hour capacity
here is 400 amp hours.
Now, if we actually have 430 amp hours, and
this thing thinks we have 400 amp hours, it's
gonna read 100% when we're really only at
93%.
And that's not going to work.
To adjust it, we're gonna press in on the
Select knob and rotate up to 430 amp hours
in our case where we're using Crown CR430s
as our example.
Now that we have it set for 430 amp hours,
and the efficiency is set for auto, we're
done programming the BMK.
The Magnum doesn't require you to save the
settings, all we need to do is now exit out
of this menu by pressing the Meter button
to take us back to the main screen.
With our BMK programmed properly and reading
correctly, we can then move onto charging
our battery bank with an AC input source like
grid or generator.
As I mentioned for our example, we're gonna
use a 7,000 watt 120/240 AC generator for
the AC input to our power center.
We need to tell the Magnum remote how big
our AC input source is in amps so it knows
how much it can pull, and we also need to
get in and tell it the battery voltage we
wanna charge at and also the amount of time,
just like for solar, but gettin' in there
with those same kind of values for charging
up from our AC source.
When we get in and we're looking at how to
program the AC input amps on this thing, we
need to consider the max continuous wattage
output on our source.
If we're sayin' it's a 7,000 watt 120/240
generator, if 7,000 watts is your continuous
wattage output, divided by 240 volts is 29
and change amps.
So, we know the default in here's 30 amps.
If you leave it there, it's gonna pull a little
too hard, you'll hear it in the generator
when it's running.
So what we'll do is we'll get in with that
information, again, if you have a different
sized generator, we'll divide the continuous
wattage by the AC voltage and that'll give
us an idea on where we need to set our AC
input amps.
We're gonna press Setup.
And we're gonna rotate this Select knob to
Charger Setup, and the first thing that comes
up here is AC Input Amps and we see it set
for 30.
What we're gonna do in this case per our example,
is take and drop our AC Input amps down to
28 amps.
Now we're gonna be able to pull the right
amount of AC power from the generator and
not overload it.
Couple other things we need to verify now:
we need to be charging at the right voltage,
and we need to be charging for the right amount
of time.
This is also gonna be on the charger setup
menu, so we will continue over to Battery
Type.
This is the next thing we're going to adjust
here.
In our case, the CR430s are a flooded battery
and they match the flooded profile, which
is the default battery type in the Magnum
remote.
Get into the manual there because there are
several types: AGM 1, AGM 2, flooded, and
custom, if this isn't gonna work for you.
For our example, flooded is going to work.
After battery type, we get into our absorb
done time.
Here we're gonna need to adjust some things
as well.
We're gonna make the same calculation with
our AC generator as we did from solar to get
in and say, "Well, if we have a 7,000 watt
generator, and our charger can put 3,850 watts
into the battery bank, and we have 430 amp
hours, our absorb time is gonna be right around
three hours."
Again, pick through your manual, the Magnum
manual's got a lot of information on absorb
time, be sure you visit that.
We're gonna get in and adjust our absorb time
up from two hours to three hours based on
our available charging capacity.
And that should be about it.
At this point, we know that our AC generator
is gonna be charging the battery bank at the
right voltage and for the right amount of
time as well.
Okay, now that we've got our Magnum AC input
parameters programmed, the next thing we want
to do is get in and turn the generator on.
So for the sake of time, I'm just gonna walk
you through what will happen here.
You're gonna turn your generator on, AC power's
gonna come in here, it's not gonna be inside
the inverter yet, we have to turn on our AC
input breaker.
So we turn on our AC input breaker, if the
unit sees the voltage coming in your charge
light's gonna start blinking green.
And it's gonna do that for about 10 or 15
seconds.
And then it should go solid.
What it's doin' there is qualifying the power.
"Hey, I see AC power here, should I let it
in?
Well, what's the voltage?
Well, what's the frequency?"
Once it's qualified and this charge light
goes solid, your display should move from
saying Inverting to Charging and tell you
how many amps it's putting into the battery
bank.
You'll also notice that your AC input surge
suppressor should be lit up from the AC input
being live.
Okay, great work everyone.
At this point, our charge controller should
be turned on, our inverter should be turned
on and inverting, and we will have all the
programming in for charging voltages and times
as well ask BMK programming and our AC input
amperage for the Magnum.
If you've got any questions or concerns, feel
free to give us a call.
This is Josh the Tech Guy, have a great day!
