So I bought a retired 175W solar panel 36.8V rated voltage, 4.9A rated amps. I hooked it up to a solar charge controller and a 12V battery. Normally the controller doesn't work cos the PV voltage is too high, but if it's connected in the morning before any sunlight, then the voltage is low enough for everything to function, then later in the day, the battery drags down the voltage into acceptable range.
I guess I'm starting to answer my own question, if the PV is only 5 amps, then it's 5 amps at 12V or 60W, or 5 amps at 36V 180W. But anyway the question is,
How and why is it possible that after leaving the system as is for 24 hour intervals, I'm only getting 11 watts of work on the output of the whole thing. On the load section I have a 70 amp relay that connects the inverter to the battery to avoid parasitic drain.
Even if it was changing at 60W, it would be 60W for hours, so I end up having one-twentieth of the power than I should even under the worst conditions, where does it go?
I'd the PV makes no amps, and it's connected, does the battery push current the other direction and discharge itself? Do I need to put a diode or something?
Yeah I'll put more 12V batteries in series, I'm just testing things for fun.