Zamp zs30a controller flashing red

[daveb]

The solar should be hooked to the common frame ground terminal bar and the house battery side of the separator or the main lug that some builds have where the heavy battery leads terminate and the inverter lugs bolt to.

I think I'd pull both the battery ground and hot lugs off inside the van and directly hook the solar to those leads (and nothing else) then see what happens. Maybe your house battery has a shorted cell.

[cpg7562]

I did replace the relay but that didn't help as expected. I did take the house battery and had it tested today and it tested 100% good. I hooked up another known good car 12v starting battery in place under the van and had the same results of no charge voltage. The best I can determine it is something in the wiring between the controller and the battery. At this point in March I'm going to drive it to Austin and have SMB look at it on our way out to California. I'm stumped

[daveb]

Is the controller a ZS-30A or ZS-30AP?


Can you disconnect the SMB solar lead from the controller and where it lands on the separator, then add a jumper from the controller + to the house battery side of the separator? I would also be looking closely at the controller's ground wire and make sure there is continuity between the solar controller ground and the house battery ground. SMB may just have made a poor splice somewhere. On mine the panel output is fused but I'm not sure if there is an in-line fuse between the controller and the separator. If that is the case it should be easy to tell if you simply bypass SMB's wiring. Perhaps a wire has been compromised.

[cpg7562]

Thanks again for all the help and ideas. It is a ZS-30A controller.

I did test it by running long jumper wires from the controller all the way to the heavy lead that comes through the floor as well as tried quite a few different spots on bare metal to try to ground. I thought for sure it was a ground at one point. My + side connection is fused under the sofa and I've traced that wire back to the house battery side of the separator.

There isn't much more to check at this point that I can tell.

[daveb]

Maybe just the controller settings or that it's not working to specs. I've gone round and round with customers who say their equipment bench tests good at the shop but fails in the field...until they come out into the field and a lot of times the word is "oh". Then again it might be something staring you in the face and you're missing it... been there done that It took me about 3 times before I realized that my Espar was working right and I was operating it wrong. They kept sending it back saying it works fine on the bench. I finally realized that when it coded out and stopped, if I'd had just sat back drank a beer and let it cycle the damn thing would restart itself and run correctly. It's amazing how a few beers can fix things For me it was one of those "oh" minutes

[cpg7562]

lets hope I have an "oh" moment hahah! Thanks again for the input I'm sure I will get it fixed eventually....or realize it has been fine all along

[cpg7562]

After months of staring at it trying different things etc it was just the zamp controller that was bad or has very tight tolerances for inputs and outputs. I took the van to SMB Austin they retired the system tested everything put another zamp controller on and it worked fine for about 2 hours then again the flashing red no charge light. I went to harbor freight got a cheap controller to test and it worked fine so I took the van back to SMB Austin and they tried another controller but it did nothing. So I ordered a blue sky sun charger 30 put it in and it's been going strong putting out good volts and amps ever since.
My rec to anyone is stay away from zamp controllers but their panels are a good strong product. If anyone is interested though I have 3 zamp zs-30a controllers for sale. 2 are almost brand new :-/

[cpg7562]

^Rewired^ not retired. Dam auto correct.