Setting up my solar system
I'm in the planning stages of adding solar to my travel trailer. I currently have a battery bank of two 6V flooded lead acid GC batteries in series that is 215 Ah 12 volts. I am planning on adding ...
Forum Discussion
bpounds wrote:
I wouldn't worry too much about whether P-P-P-P, or S-S x P-P is better in shade. The truth is that shade patterns on panels is too variable and too unpredictable to mean anything. Shade is bad, avoid it. Instead, think more about low angles of sunlight during morning and evening hours. An MPPT controller is ideal for harvesting those extra fringe hours. With some portion of your array in series, the voltage hitting your controller will be higher than battery voltage for more of the day, than it would be with all in parallel. That's with 12v panels. 24v panels are better for the same reason. I don't recall if you said which panel voltage you were going to use. I kinda figured they would be 12v since you were getting 4 of them up there, but might be a bad assumption on my part.
Hmmm, I hadn't considered the advantage of being able to harvest some low angle sun at lower voltage. Maybe my best bet is to buy eight 100 watt panels and wire the them in series in pairs and then wire those four series pair in parallel, thus getting the benefit of both.
Maybe I'll also run three 270 watt 24 volt panels in parallel, assuming they'll fit on my roof. I would need to do some measuring. These ones: https://www.amazon.com/Renogy-2Pcs-Residential-Commercial-Multi-Panel/dp/B07K3STL2C/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=24%2Bvolt%2Bsolar%2Bpanel&qid=1596887768&sr=8-3&th=1
I guess I've got more to think about.
