SJ-Chris wrote:
That is a good question. Strangely, I didn't even think about connecting them in series. I connected them in parallel. I can appreciate how in series they would collectively get to say 14v+ earlier in the day and stay at 14v+ later in the evening. That would generate a little extra charging. Does anyone have any real life data on how much/little gain this ends up being in the real world? Would be interesting to know. Since all the panels are connected on the roof it wouldn't be terribly hard to re-wire them in series.
I guess the gain comes from the time between when the individual panels are producing ~5v to the time they are producing ~14v (and the reverse as the sun goes down). I'm curious....is this ~10 minutes in the morning and ~10 minutes in the evening? 20 minutes on each end?? Anyone know?
I suppose when I go boondocking next if I'm up before the sun I can keep an eye on my solar charge controller and measure the time...
PS: Solar is addictive.
Happy camping!
Chris
don't have any real numbers only observation. my 5th wheel has 480 watts of 12v panels on a PWM controler and my camper has a 325 watt 24V split cell panel on a MPPT controler. the overall output total per day is more from the 325 watt set up. for morning my camper will start charging at 7 am with about 0.5 amps where the 5th wheel wont put that out till about 8 to 8:30 up here. so at least 1 to 2 AH more just from reaching that higher voltage sooner
