Solar panels wire to controller: Length of wire?

The OP has two 160w panels and a PWM controller. His array is 320w.

320/180 x 8.2 = 20 amps pointed at high sun. Why should he care if it "only" did 19 amps? Also

He has that on just two batts. Say he is at 50% in the morning, he needs 110AH to be full again. His daily AH haul with the panels tilted south all day will be approx. (based on 49N in May results)

320/130 x 70AH = 172AH which is more than 110. If it is cloudy part of the day he can aim the panels at the sun and do some tracking. If sunny all day and doing tracking, moving the panels only three times a day, he could get 320/130 x 90AH = 221AH

So that's not bad for a slapped together set up using jumper cables instead of "proper " wire and a cheapo Chinese controller instead of a "proper" one that costs $300 or whatever.

IMO losing an amp out of 20a all day for a loss of 12AH remains trivial out of the 172AH. 160AH is still more than 110. YMMV :)

Here is my classy award-winning 330w tracking set-up (it twirls handraulicly) doing its 20 amps last year (Will have an even better set-up this year!)

BFL13 wrote:
Even if you lose a whole amp that is 12AH a day? Trivial.

Tracking my moving it once or twice a day ought to make up for that!!
Not being flat ought to make up even more most of the year ;)

OP - How about supplying a make and model on the controller you currently have

How do you have the panels wired?
Series or parallel

Use low voltage wiring from the landscape department where lights are sold. Very rugged and heavy duty.

Yep that's right just slap it together any ol' way then start a new thread complaining how it does not work as expected or just simply trounce solar all together as a bad idea.

Yeah, we not building pianos ! :)

Perfection is not required. Just do it.

Some folks here do that out to 100 ft and manage ok. I go to approx. 40 ft south of the trailer using sets of jumper cables clamped end to end as the wire. That gets me out of the trailer's shadow all day. No problem.

So what if you lose half an amp compared with an ideal set-up? Even if you lose a whole amp that is 12AH a day? Trivial.

Wire the panels in series and use an MPPT controller.

Series
08 amps at 34 volts through 30 feet of 10 gauge wire 1.4% voltage drop.
Parallel
16 amps at 17 volts through 30 feet of 10 gauge wire 5.6% voltage drop.

-Jeff

This is a, it depends. You must have voltage that exceeds the voltage of the battery or nothing goes into it and rule of thumb is that you do not want more than a 2 or 3% voltage drop. Voltage drop
Bigger wires less drop, or higher panel voltage does not matter much, but you might need an MPPT controller if you put your panels in series.