Solar voltage help...

BFL13 wrote:

NinerBikes wrote:
..........

10 amps is plenty with that 160 watt set of panels. It starts out at 22V and gets down to 18V in the specs, and is capable of putting out 8.88 amps,max, if the battery will even allow that kind of charge take......
.

Niner the Isc on that is 9.46a which he should get with the panels pointed at a high sun. You are using the Imp figure which is meaningless with PWM.

10 amps on two 6s is 5 amps per battery, which is the acceptance rate for about 90% SOC at 14.5v. So there should be no trouble finding time from 50-90 SOC for the battery bank to accept the 9.46a

Also after 90% and amps taper, you can run things that take from the solar--any amps over what the battery is taking up to what the panel can do at the time.

Eg, good time to recharge/use the laptop late afternoon while the panel can still do 9a when pointed, batts taking 3 amps, inverter with laptop load taking 6 amps

http://www.solarblvd.com/Solar-Panels-&-Systems-12-Volt-Solar-Panels/c1_269/p2754/W-Solar-160-Watt-Foldable-12-Volt-Solar-Panel/product_info.html

Controller says 10 Max amps on the Load side, or the charge side. Controller cuts about 5% of the amps from the input side from the panels as losses. Output from the controller is 8.8 amps Max, for 160 watts. ON the load or charge side.., My unit at 120 watts is 3/4 the output that his is. I have seen, at most, 6.62 amps out of mine,on the charge/load side, measured by one of those RC battery charge meters with 4 readings on the screen.

So... 8.8 amps on the load or charge side is about all those panels will make, coming out of the charge controller. My guess is that they can make 9.2 to 9.3 amps coming in from the panel to the charge controllers, with the monocrystalline panels in this brand of solar panels/chargers.