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Solar upgrade

Adames

Adames

Member
Hello !
Last adventure was an amazing experience... also a learning experience. It made it obvious that my solar set up needed improvement. I had been using a set up that had previously at my camper , it was ok back then but now I'm a different ball game . Change to a smaller 2kw inverter and installed 3 new 50amp charge controllers , port/strb/deck ... for future upgrades. I'm still using the same panel array ..
( 2x 195w Port/Strb, 1x 50w Deck) , but the battery bank is happier. Separate chargers is the way to go . I'm glad I did.
 

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Helllo Warren , the batt bank is only 2 x 200ah at 12v. I dont know how is on amp hours per day ,.. so far is keeping the bank happy and me too. On a couple weeks ill be adding some extra pannels left over by a friends friend who upgraded his array. Now i should figure out how to get them onboard . Not easy on a dinghy , but i bet is been done before.

Fair Winds !
 
I had problems mismatching solar panels. The power output was never the sum of the panels. Optimally they should all be equal output and the same age.
 
Adames said:
Hello !
Last adventure was an amazing experience... also a learning experience. It made it obvious that my solar set up needed improvement. I had been using a set up that had previously at my camper , it was ok back then but now I'm a different ball game . Change to a smaller 2kw inverter and installed 3 new 50amp charge controllers , port/strb/deck ... for future upgrades. I'm still using the same panel array ..
( 2x 195w Port/Strb, 1x 50w Deck) , but the battery bank is happier. Separate chargers is the way to go . I'm glad I did.
Click to expand...
 
john english said:
I had problems mismatching solar panels. The power output was never the sum of the panels. Optimally they should all be equal output and the same age.
Click to expand...
The separate chargers should help with the mismatch... I did it due to shade from my boom, that's basically a mismatch as well. I'm happy with the results, hope it also helps you too.
 
john english said:
I had problems mismatching solar panels. The power output was never the sum of the panels. Optimally they should all be equal output and the same age.
Click to expand...

I have solar on my house (and also on my new 382 'Rhum Line').
The house had 12x195 watt panels when we bought it and we added 2x435 watt panels to increase our collection capacity. When we added the panels, we added a second charge controller to keep the original panels from dropping thier output from ~125 volts to the ~90 volts of the new panels.

John is correct that mismatched panels (based on the open circuit voltage or Voc on the label) will lower the output - the lowest voltage rating will win every time. You will get (approximately) the sum of the amp rating x the lowest voltage rating.

If the panels are low cost (or free), it may not make a difference to someone, but for new purchases it makes sense to match them as a set.

As Adames mentioned, shading from the boom (depending on installation location) can also seriously impact output - by having separate chargers, it's possible to continue getting full output from one set while another is shaded (dramatically decreasing the output of just the shaded panels instead of the entire array).
 
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