solar pre-wired questions
Our new rv has an outdoor two pin plug-in for solar. What do I need to take advantage of it? What are it's benefits and limitations? We don't currently have any panels.
Forum Discussion
pianotuna wrote:Not correct or out of context. Virtually all panels today have bypass diodes and their shade tolerance is much better than parallel panels because shaded sections of the panel are bypassed for serial versus the entire parallel shade.
StirCrazy,
Systems with series wired panels are badly affected by shade.
For example: 3 panels with 3 bypass diodes each are effectively 9 panels sections. With shade on one section the bypass diode shorts out that section and the remaining 2 sections are still producing power for that panel. So for shade on one section you still have voltage (and power) for the other 8 sections. For 30V panels you have 90V* 8/9 = 80V. And so on down to 2 sections of non shade at 20V with amps for given light conditions.
This has not been very well understood on this forum. I've posted graphs of this using collected controller data starting in the morning with leafy shade charging at 20V and increasing with 10V jumps and increasing power with the rising sun.
