I've installed a few FM 100s. Seem to work fine, and nice to wire
arrays 6 in series, but we do have to use the higher voltage rated
breakers on the PV side. We have had them mixed with other controllers
and haven't had problems, but we do Not use the HUB or ever interconnect
them. We've found by not interconnecting the controllers that we have
redundancy, and any single controller (or Comm) failure is not going to
take the entire charging system down.
It has no onboard screen, so you need the Mate 3 to program them. We
pull the Mate 3 after programming and just keep it on the truck to save
customers the $600.00. They can buy one later, if they decide they want
to tweak settings all the time. (not happened yet.)
We always use 100 amp DC breakers that are 100% duty cycle rated. ON
the battery side, the regular Midnite or Outback type 150 vdc work fine.
On AFCI, I believe it can be set to "off" in the programming, but I'm
not in front of one right now, so that's just based on my failing memory
bank. However, I too do not like GFCI and AFCI for ground mounts unless
mandated. I've seen all sorts of weird issues even on the AC side of
the system end up tripping the charge controller off. In the case of
the FM100, the GFCI is accomplished with a fuse, which are hard to come
by locally.
Ray Walters
Remote Solar
303 505-8760
On 5/15/20 1:48 AM, William Miller wrote:
Friends:
I have occasion to try the FM100 charge controller. I am wondering of
anyone had found any quirks with implementing this device. I have a
few specific questions:
1.I want to avoid AFCI unless mandated. Will this be defeated if I
don’t run the leads through the sense coil? (There is an AFCI and
non-AFCI version but I can’t seem to find the non-AFCI version anywhere.)
2.I noticed the manual indicates you are not supposed to mix the FM100
with the FM80 or 60 in the same battery system. This negates it for
one project I had in mind. I am curious as to why this is. Anyone know?
3.Will the FM100 work with a standard hub?
4.I suppose this unit requires a 125 amp breaker. If the PV array
cannot support that full 100 amps I might down-size the OCPD
accordingly. Anyone contemplate this question?
Thanks in advance.
William
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