EPEver Tracer MPPT Solar Charge Controller: Key information
Product: EPEver Tracer MPPT 3210A including MT-50 remote display
Time installed: Around 3 years
Epever Tracer MPPT: Product Description:
The EPEver Tracer 3210A MPPT solar charge controller is a compact yet sophisticated device for charging lead acid batteries. The unit includes an LCD display which gives basic information such as charge current and voltage. However the optional MT-50 is well worth the money as it enables many more adjustments to be made.
There are four versions to choose from depending on the size of solar array to be used. These are:
10Amp – 1210A20Amp – 2210A30Amp – 3210A40Amp – 4210A
The 3210A model that I have installed in my boat is shown below along with the MT50 remote display.
Epever Tracer MPPT: Why did I choose this model?
My boat has two leisure batteries installed giving a total of 200Ah capacity. Under motor, a split charge relay ensures that the leisure batteries are charged by the alternator. Luckily, it is an old diesel engine without a modern Smart alternator which would require a DC-DC Charger. Read my article about DC-DC chargers and Smart alternators for more information.
I wanted to install some solar panels onto the deck to keep the batteries topped up when the engine is not running. After some research, I purchased two small panels giving a combined output of around 75 watts. Consequently, I needed a quality charge controller to enable me to connect them to the leisure batteries.
When funds allow, I would like to upgrade the panels to give a much higher output. As a result, I decided to purchase a controller capable of supporting around 350 watts of solar.
System efficiency is very important, I had determined through my prior research that I would need an MPPT chargers to ensure greatest efficiency. For more information, please read my article on MPPT chargers!
I chose the EPEver Tracer 3210A due to its compact size, MPPT technology and the fact that it had an LCD screen to monitor solar panel performance. Furthermore, the EPEver tracers are considerably less expensive than its rivals. Importantly, it also supported up to 30 amps of solar input.
Epever Tracer MPPT: Review
I installed the EPEver Tracer 3210A around two years ago and am very happy with its performance. The build quality is excellent, incorporating a large aluminium heat sink at the rear and clear LCD display on the front.
Installation is simple, the unit has 3 sets of screw terminals which are pretty self explanatory.
- Solar PV input Positive and Negative
- Battery connection Positive and Negative
- Load Positive and negative.
I purchased the MT-50 remote display as it gives much more information and access to various settings and this simply plugs into the RJ-45 plug on the bottom of the unit.
As the old saying goes, a picture paints a thousand words and so I decided to create a video review!
Learn how I used this product during refurbishment of my 1970 sailing boat. I also design and manufacture complete off grid solar kits for a wide variety of applications. Please contact me for further information.
If you enjoyed reading this article, please subscribe to my YouTube channel!
Copyright. © 2022 Van and boat. All rights reserved.
How to use the EPEver PC software for charge controllers
There are many popular solar charge controllers from EPEver/EPSolar in the market, but the configuration and monitoring options are limited and complicated out-of-the-box. However, by connecting the charge controller to a PC, you get a lot of options.
EPEver / EPSolar charge controllers are usually just plug-and-play, and some, like the Tracer-BN series, comes without a display altogether. Although you can buy the MT50, a display with buttons that gives status and configuration options, it is quite cumbersome to work with.
Luckily, you can connect most EPEver / EPSolar charge controllers to your PC (Windows only), and use EPEver’s downloadable software to both do the configuration and monitoring. You don’t have to keep the PC connected after configuration is done unless you want to monitor your solar charger(s) continuously. All you need to connect the charge controller to your PC is an RS485 to USB cable. This can usually be purchased from the same stores that sell the controller.
Getting the EPEver solar station software
The software you need can be downloaded from the EPEVER website.
If the link does not work, try to search for EPEVER charge controller download.
Download and install the program called Charge Controller V1.xx. Windows.zip. The software is compatible with the Tracer-A, Tracer-AN, Tracer-BN, Tracer-BP, Tracer-BPL, Tracer-CN, iTracer, eTracer, LandStar-B, LandStar-BPL, ViewStar-BN, TRIRON, XTRA, and GoMate charge controller series.
Installing the solar station monitor software from EPEver
PS! Do NOT delete the installation folder yet, you will need to install the cable driver later on.
Double click Solar Station MonitorV1.xx to open it. On startup, a window called Station Information appears. Close this window.
In the left column, delete the station that is already added, by right-clicking on COMxxx record, select Remove Port, and confirm by clicking Yes.
Close the solar station monitor software for now, as you will have to install the USB driver for the cable first.
Install the EPEver RS485 to USB driver
Connect the RS485 to USB cable to your PC (the USB connector) and the charge controller (RS485), and install the driver for it:
- Open Charge Controller V1.xx-Windows USBDriver, and double-click on the Setup file. Follow the steps until the driver has been installed.
- Open the Device Manager in Windows (Right-click the Start button or press the Windows logo X key combination on the keyboard and, from the list, click to select Device Manager)
- In the left menu, click Ports, then double-click on xxxxxxx USB UART (COM3). Select the Port Settings tab, and make sure that the RS-485 checkbox is checked. If not, check the box and press OK to close the device window.
- Close Device Manager.
Configuring the solar station monitor software
Double-click Solar Station MonitorV1.xx on your desktop to start the charge controller software. Once again, the configuration window appears. There are a few steps you need to go through before the software can communicate with the charge controller:
- When the Controller tab is selected, make sure Port is set to COM3.
- Click the Station Information tab. Change the Station name to something meaningful (default is Num1)
- Uncheck the box at the bottom of the window that says Open Station Information dialogue box. to avoid the config box to appear every time you open the software.
- Click Add.
You’re almost ready to begin using the software, however, there is one last step:
- In the top menu, select Port Config(C) Port Configuration
- Make sure COM3 is selected as Port, and click Add
- Close the window
Now, click Start Monitoring, and within a few seconds, you should see some live data from your charge controller.
updated every 30 seconds, but can be modified.
What does the charge controller monitoring data say?
First, congratulations, you have managed to connect your EPEver / EPSolar charge controller to your PC and is now able to both configure and monitor your solar power system easily.
To get some more space for the monitoring data, you may hide some not so useful sections.
Select View(V) from the top menu, and uncheck both Tool Bar(T), Station Explorer and Message Window.
The Solar Station Monitor live data
In the upper section, you have all the live data from the charge controller. Well, it’s actually not completely live but is downloaded every few seconds from the charge controller. You can actually change how often the information should be refreshed, by changing the interval(s) value. The default value is every 30 seconds, which is just fine for most people.
The information is divided into four sub-sections:
-
Solar Information
-
Solar Current (A): This shows how many Amps are currently coming from your solar panel or solar array (solar panels that are connected together). If you compare with the short circuit current or rated current on the back of your solar panel, you can get an impression on how much of the total capasity you’re getting out of it at any given time.
- Battery Voltage (V): The voltage of the battery. Normally a little above 12V when idle, up to 13.x when charging, but it should not drop below 10.8. However, the charge controller will turn off the load if the battery voltage drops too low, in order to protect the battery.
- Battery Current (A)
- Max Voltage (V): The highest voltage since the monitoring started.
- Min Voltage (V): The lowest voltage since the monitoring started.
- Battery Temp.: If you have connected a temperature sensor to your charge controller and placed in on the battery, this will show the current temperature of your battery. Should normally be around the same temperature as the surrounding air. A very hot battery can be a sign of a short circuit.
- Battery SOC(%): State of charge. This percentage value has to be taken with a grain of salt. It’s better to look at the battery voltage and the load wattage; It the load is low and the battery voltage is low, then the SOC is actually low. However, you might have a heavy low (also directly on the battery). If so, the battery voltage might drop as well.
- Charging Status: Float charge, boost charge, or equalizing charge.
- Battery Status: Notifies if something is wrong with the battery, but you might take it with a grain of salt. If you get an error, you may try disconnecting the battery from the solar charge controller, and put it on an intelligent 12V battery charger for a while to see if it takes charge.
- Load Current (A): The amount of current that is drawn through the load output of the solar charging controller.
- Load Voltage (V): The voltage on the load output.
- Load Power (W): Load Amp times load Voltage; (A)(V) = (W)
- Load Status
- Device Temp.: The temperature of the charger. Under high charge and/or load, the solar charge controller will heat up, so make sure it has some airflow around it.
- Device Status: Notifies you if the charge controller is okay, or if there is an error. In case of an error, try disconnecting both the solar panel and the battery connections, then reconnect to see if the error is gone.
In addition, you have the Load Control, where you can manually turn the power output from the charge controller on and off.
The solar station monitor graphs and statistics
In the lower section, you have some statistics and charts available. The charts are incremented as long as the monitoring is active, and you might want to clear the charts once in a while. You can do so by right-clicking on the chart, then select Clear.
In the left column, you have some key numbers of how much power your solar setup has generated; daily, monthly, annual, and in total. You also have the same numbers for power consumption through the controller load.
In the Real Time Curve sub-section, you have access to 3 different charts; Voltage, Current, and Power.
The voltage chart shows the voltage development over time for both the solar panel, the battery, and the load. For some unknown reason, the battery curve does not show up in our setup.
The current chart shows the Amperage curves for the solar panel, the battery (the current going from the controller and into the battery), and the load.
The power chart is the most useful, in our opinion. It shows the wattage development for the solar panel and the load. Here, you get an impression of how well your solar panel setup is performing. In our setup, we use a 200W panel, but it’s rear to have the wattage above 180W.
Changing the settings for the EPEver solar charge controller with the software
It’s possible to do some tweaking of the settings on the charge controller with the solar station monitor as well.
To enter the settings panel, select Parameters (P) Control Parameter Control Parameter from the top menu.
Before you can change anything, you have to fetch the current settings from your charge controller. Click the Read button in the bottom left corner to download the current settings.
From here, you can change most of the parameters. However, be careful and know what you’re doing; altering the settings can potentially damage the battery and equipment connected to the charge controller.
We have found that most of the default settings are just fine. But you might want to alter the battery type and battery capacity according to what you have connected to your solar setup.
If you change any settings, remember to click the Update button in order to write or upload the changes to the charge controller.
The new Tracer 4215BN is EPsolar’s second generation of MPPT controller. When compared to the classic.Tracer series, it has extensive communication ability and the die-cast aluminum design ensures excellent heat dispersion. Compared to conventional PWM controllers, MPPT technology increases the charge efficiency up to 30% and potentially decreases the power of solar array needed.It can monitor real-time data and status, remotely control load on/off, browse and modify the control parameter, charge mode, load work mode, and inquiry failure information etc.
- Innovative MPPT technology
- Peak conversion efficiency of 98%
- High tracking efficiency up to 99%
- Several seconds tracking speed
- Die-cast aluminum design and nature cooling
- Temperature compensation
- Diversified load control to meet different requirements
- Four battery type options: Sealed, Gel, Flooded, and USER
- Intelligent lighting and timer control for solar lighting system
- Energy statistics function
- RS485 ports with MODBUS communication protocol
- Optional PC monitoring software and remote meter for real-time monitoring and battery management parameter
- Nominal system voltage: 12VDC / 24VDC Auto work
- Rated charge current: 40A
- Rated discharge current: 20A
- Maximum battery voltage: 32V
- Max. solar input voltage: 150VDC
- Max. PV input power: 520W(12V) 1040W(24V)
- Self-consumption: �0mA(12V) �7mA(24V)
- Charge circuit voltage drop: �26V
- Discharge circuit voltage drop: �15V
- Temperature compensate coefficient:.3mV/ºC/2V(default)
- Communication: RS485(RJ45 interface)
Note: If you need to monitoring the solar system or setting the controller, you may have to buy a MT-50
remote meter separately,MT-50 is not included.
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Introduction: Use Arduino to Communicate With Tracer MT5 Charge Controller
I bought an MPPT TRACER 3215RN Solar Charge Controller, made by EP Solar (I’ve also seen SainSonic mentioned as the manufacturer, but it’s the same product). I wanted to use my computer to monitor the PV panel and battery instead of buying the manufacturer’s MT-5 Remote Meter, (a) because I wanted to log the data on my computer, and (b) why spend 36 when you don’t need to.
I hunted around on the Internet and found a straightforward way of doing this with an Arduino Uno. I hope it works for you.
Step 1: Prepare Ethernet Cable
Get an Ethernet cable. It makes your head spin when you start looking into connector standards (technically the Tracer uses 8P8C), but so long as it has 8 wires it should be ok.
Cut the connector off one end.
Plug the end with the connector still on it into the Tracer.
On the end you just cut, use a multimeter to determine which wires are which:
Trim off three of the ground wires and the two 12V wires, so you’re left with one ground wire and the two 3.3V wires.
I then soldered breadboard wires to the three used wires to make it easy to hook up to the Arduino.
Step 2: Install This Arduino Sketch
This Arduino sketch (and most of the info in this posting) is from https://github.com/xxv/tracer However they used a serial baud rate of 57600, I had to drop it to 9600 to work on my Arduino/computer combination.
I had some trouble copying and pasting the sketch below because of unsupported characters, so if you get any errors with the sketch get the original from the github site.
/ An interface to the Tracer solar regulator. Communicating in a way similar to the MT-5 display /
SoftwareSerial myserial(10, 11); // RX, TX
myserial.write(start, sizeof(start)); myserial.write(ID); myserial.write(cmd, sizeof(cmd));
Serial.print(Read ); Serial.print(read); Serial.println( bytes);
float battery = to_float(buff, 9); float pv = to_float(buff, 11); //13-14 reserved float load_current = to_float(buff, 15); float over_discharge = to_float(buff, 17); float battery_max = to_float(buff, 19); // 21 load on/off // 22 overload yes/no // 23 load short yes/no // 24 reserved // 25 battery overload // 26 over discharge yes/no uint8_t full = buff[27]; uint8_t charging = buff[28]; int8_t battery_temp = buff[29]. 30; float charge_current = to_float(buff, 30);
Serial.print(Load is ); Serial.println(buff[21] ? on : off);
Serial.print(Load current: ); Serial.println(load_current);
Serial.print(Battery level: ); Serial.print(battery); Serial.print(/); Serial.println(battery_max);
Serial.print(Battery full: ); Serial.println(full ? yes : no );
Serial.print(Battery temperature: ); Serial.println(battery_temp);
Serial.print(PV voltage: ); Serial.println(pv);
Serial.print(Charging: ); Serial.println(charging ? yes : no );
Serial.print(Charge current: ); Serial.println(charge_current);
Step 3: Connect Wires to Arduino
Connect the ground wire to Arduino ground.
One of the 3.3V wires connects to Arduino pin 10, and the other 3.3V wire connects to Arduino pin 11. There’s probably a way of telling which goes which from the colors (Комментарии и мнения владельцев welcome!), but there’s only 2 wires so just swap them if it doesn’t work first time.
Watch the results in the serial window (terminal emulator) on your computer.
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Комментарии и мнения владельцев
is it posibly to use arduino nano for this project? im realy new to arduino, but what i understand uno and nano have same atmega, so could i still use pin 10 and 11 for tx and rx?
I am trying to get the data on following mppt charger and i have no idea about communication with it via Arduino. I have asked the comm. protocol to the manufacturer however no answers at all. I am open to any suggestion.
It has Windows based software which you can follow the info, but it only shows up the last status. We would like to save and upload to PV data to the thingspeak.
I made it, but it doesn’t work. 🙁
I use controller Tracer 2210. works fineI use Arduino Mega, serial 2 (17=RX, 16=TX)I use the exact same sketch from here above.
After I sent the initialisation strings, I do get a response from the controller that I can see on my osciloscope. I’ve put a schmitt trigger in front of the RX pin so that I get nice 5V pulses on pin 17.On my serial, I see nothing but ZERO’s (except the temperature which is.30)
Baud rates are both set to 9600I tried 15 and 14 as RX and TX, but the same result.When I try another baud rate. I don’t get nothing back from the charger.I tried without the schmitt trigger : same result (pulses are only 3V)
Use this code for Arduino MEGA :
/ An interface to the Tracer solar regulator. Communicating in a way similar to the MT-5 display for ARDUINO MEGA/// DO NOT include !!// connect RX from MT5 to pin 14 of Arduino MEGA// connect TX from MT5 to pin 15 of Arduino MEGA// Arduino MEGA has 3 Serials. Serial3 is standard 14/15 !!
void setup Serial.begin(9600); Serial3.begin(9600); // Notice the 3 !
float to_float(uint8_t buffer, int offset) unsigned short full = buffer[offset 1] return full / 500.0;
Serial3.write(start, sizeof(start)); Serial3.write(ID); Serial3.write(cmd, sizeof(cmd));
for (int i = 0; i 255; i) if (Serial3.available) buff[read] = Serial3.read; read;
Serial.print(Read ); Serial.print(read); Serial.println( bytes);
for (int i = 0; i read; i) Serial.print(buff[i], HEX); Serial.print( );
float battery = to_float(buff, 9); float pv = to_float(buff, 11); //13-14 reserved float load_current = to_float(buff, 15); float over_discharge = to_float(buff, 17); float battery_max = to_float(buff, 19); // 21 load on/off // 22 overload yes/no // 23 load short yes/no // 24 reserved // 25 battery overload // 26 over discharge yes/no uint8_t full = buff[27]; uint8_t charging = buff[28]; int8_t battery_temp = buff[29]. 30; float charge_current = to_float(buff, 30);
Serial.print(Load is ); Serial.println(buff[21] ? on : off);
Serial.print(Load current: ); Serial.println(load_current);
Serial.print(Battery level: ); Serial.print(battery); Serial.print(/); Serial.println(battery_max);
Serial.print(Battery full: ); Serial.println(full ? yes : no );
Serial.print(Battery temperature: ); Serial.println(battery_temp);
Serial.print(PV voltage: ); Serial.println(pv);
Serial.print(Charging: ); Serial.println(charging ? yes : no );
Serial.print(Charge current: ); Serial.println(charge_current); Serial.println;