Solar charge controller upgrade?
Hello! We're getting ready to hit the road with our new-to-us '95 Winnebago this spring. The 30' 1995 Winnebago Adventurer came with solar power setup, consisting of 4 100W solar panels and a PWM cont...
Forum Discussion
If the solar was installed within the last ten years you should be ok as is. MPPT won't do any better than the PWM with four 100s lying flat on the roof.
If you do add panels later, then you can change controllers, which you might have to anyway with more amps to the battery
If the solar is from the 90s then beware. Count the number of cells in each "100w" panel and make sure there are 36. Some panels from back then had only 33 and are limited in what voltage they can get a battery to.
If that old, also look for how they installed the controller and what model it is (post that here for more info) Back then they would wire the controller output to the back of the fridge instead of to the batteries more directly, and so have very long thin wire for the wire run to the batteries with the amps you did get being further restricted.
(Our MH came with a 1996 set up like that--33 cell panel etc)
If you do add panels later, then you can change controllers, which you might have to anyway with more amps to the battery
If the solar is from the 90s then beware. Count the number of cells in each "100w" panel and make sure there are 36. Some panels from back then had only 33 and are limited in what voltage they can get a battery to.
If that old, also look for how they installed the controller and what model it is (post that here for more info) Back then they would wire the controller output to the back of the fridge instead of to the batteries more directly, and so have very long thin wire for the wire run to the batteries with the amps you did get being further restricted.
(Our MH came with a 1996 set up like that--33 cell panel etc)
