Solar panels in series or parallel?
Hello All, It has been a while since I have been here. I need to come back more often. I have a 2016 fuzion 345. Love the tech but man does it eat power. I did put 6 6 volt batteries and that w...
Forum Discussion
y22man wrote:
I was thinking more amps would charge quicker. Much like more amps on small electronics. There just not much information to read about benifets to more volts vs amps.
Amps to the battery with MPPT is output from controller watts divided by battery voltage. Doesn't matter if parallel or series for input watts to the controller.
With 280w panels you must use an MPPT controller if you are putting it on a 12 volt battery bank. (A PWM controller can only do same voltage panel to battery 12-12 or 24-24)
Here is how it works with the two 280s in parallel and an MPPT controller.
560w array, in sun gets hot, which reduces watts 10%, so array now 504w. Array to controller wiring say loses 2% (could be more or less)
so call input watts now 490w.
controller efficiency doing 24-12 is maybe 95%. So output watts is about 466w. Say you have short fat wiring to battery, so no loss there.
First thing in morning say battery is 12.4v,
so amps will be 466/12.4= 37.5 amps
By lunch, battery at 13.5 so amps 466/13.5= 34.5
Later, battery at 14.5, so amps 466/ 14.5 = 32.1
