100w portable solar report
Yesterday March 8 we had full sun here at Roosevelt Lake, AZ. My two Group 27 batteries read 12.52v at the start of the day, measured at the batteries with the Turnigy WattMeter. I used it to collec...
Forum Discussion
JiminDenver wrote:
Having MPPT and the ability to track helps you hit float early on but really it's how many amps can you produce vs what is needed. Put my 230w poly on the grp 27 with our usual over night drop to 12,5v and it'll be in float in a few hours.
Someone like Roy that uses a lot of power daily and has a limited window of sunlight is going to need a lot of wattage to cover their needs. I took the 8-D down to 12.1v resting, roughly 120 ah and hooked up the 220w mono for 5 hours at 12a. I think it giggled. The battery voltage made it just above 13v and had a long ways to go. It was going to take a lot longer or a lot more watts to get it done in 5 hours.
220 watts solar gets you what, 13 amps per hour, at peak? If you can get that charge rate for 6 or 7 hours... great, still not there. Hit the generator for an hour or so in the morning, at 55 or 80 amps through your charge controller in bulk mode, and your solar panel will get you topped off. Unless you get a lot of sunshine, and no trees to camp under to get solar to do the job every day, you're still going to need a generator on those cloudy days.
