Adding solar with existing inverter/charger

christopherglenn wrote:
They are 30+ volt panels, 310 watts each. The charge controller will down convert the voltage and increase the amps. Combined into discharged batteries it should bulk between 40 and 50 amps, absorb is whatever the batteries can take (plus other loads).
I plan on (5 year plan) having 2 mid ship, 2 over the garage (Toy Hauler). I am planning on sliding racks so I can stack one on top of another, normally having 4 exposed, once set up deploy the second set and have 8 on the roof. Sliding out from under the static panels with linear actuators it is a push of a button to deploy or retract. Tied into the slide control so when the slides retract the panels retract (manual deploy) should keep me out of trouble.
2400 watts of solar on the roof should run 1 ac easily as well as charge the batteries at the same time, and reduce need for the genset to when multiple ac's are required.

We will see in 5 years what actually happens....

Thanks for sharing you plan. I should have googled the reduction of panel voltage to 12v before asking the question. I did find some excellent youtube videos showing in detail how to use these higher rated panels in lower voltage batt storage. Picking the right controller is key! With my current set of batts, I have @ 474AH capacity so I want to build a solution that can handle at least 500AH in case I upgrade my batts to slightly higher capacity batts like Trojan.

My MH also has the solar prep to the roof. Once of the biggest complaints with these solar prep options is that the wire gauge is too small. However, it seems that with the higher voltage panels, your pushing less amps (depending on how you wire) so you could use the lower gauge wire. Of course it takes a higher cost controller to do this.

I like your plan. I haven't studied the details of the controller you mentioned, but you may want to verify the limits of the controller in reducing the panel voltage to 12v.