After ignoring the whole damn thing for the last 5 days I took a look at my system again today, and did a few things:
1) hooked up the controller again to my 12V truck battery, just to make sure it performed well like it did the other day - it did.
2) went to auto store and borrowed 2 6V batteries identical to mine, but a couple years old, and hooked them up in series to see if they did the same thing as my brand new 6Vs....they worked well with the controller, just like my 12V truck battery.
Hooked my 6Vs back up to the controller and did some adjusting of the controller. Noticed a couple things today:
1) Verified w/the battery manufacturer that my set points for absorption and float were correct - they were, 14.5V and 13.5V, respectively. Checked settings in controller. Batteries did their usual thing, got to absorption set point and went to float, no amps out once it went to float. That part doesn't necessarily bother me, as there's no load on in the camper, and the controller wants to let the battery voltage drop to 13.5, which it does over a period of a minute or two. The difference between my camper batteries and my truck battery, for instance, is that when 13.5V is reached, the controller will float my truck battery, but won't float my camper batteries. Voltage will eventually drop to 13.4 bec. no amps in, and then the controller switches back to absorption. However......if, say, I set the float setpoint in the controller to a lower number, say 13.3V or 13.2V, the battery takes longer to drop to that voltage. That increase in time seems to make a difference to the controller, bec. more often than not the controller will float at the lower setpoint. So, I'm thinking there's some time period required to make this adjustment - but, that flies in the face of what I get when I connect to the truck battery (float is set at 13.5V when connected to my truck battery), so it probably doesn't mean anything.
2) After the controller reaches its absorption setpoint of 14.5V, it switches to float and the voltage starts dropping to 13.5V. When the voltage is dropping slowly and it's, say, around 13.7V for example w/no amps out, I apply a load ..... turn on the frig, which takes at least 5A, the controller will STAY IN FLOAT, as long as there's enough sun coming into the panels. It never goes out of float to absorption, and shows 5.2A out, which would be 5A for the frig and 0.2A for the LEDs on the controller, and to float the batteries at 13.5V. If I then turn off the frig, the amps out will drop, but more often than not it WILL STAY IN FLOAT....?!?! Why would it float in that scenario, when a load was previously applied, but not float when there's virtually no load?
Only thing I can conclude is that the programming of the sensors on the controller don't account for floating new, highly charged batteries. Maybe with time things will improve, after the batteries break in...but I'm not hopeful.
Don't know if any of this info is helpful to anyone out there - I'm venting more than anything. But, if it's useful, I'm glad.
Edited by radarcontact, 25 October 2018 - 02:25 AM.