Tripping solar panel breaker

EMD360 wrote:
Last fall I installed two Solarland 180w PERC panels. I had ordered three 100 watt but changed my mind and bought the two 180’s. Unfortunately I didn’t resize my order for the panel breaker which is 15 amps. The 100 watt panels were rated for five amps each but these are at 9.42 each. So now that we are getting really sunny days my panel breaker is tripping. I thought ok I’ll have to replace it with a 20. But I was watching the power when I was trouble shooting and thought I might have briefly seen more than 20 amps. Would a 30 amp fuse of these two panels be too high? The MPPT controlller is Victron. The system side breaker is 40 amps.

can you change the wiring to a series setup instead? this will keep your incoming amprage low but raise the voltage, so you'll be able to get a bit better efficency out of that MPPT controler. I have a old PWM controler on my three 180 watt panels on my 5th wheel and I see 22amps quite often, I am looking at changing the controler to a MPPT so I can put them in series. in parralel with a 8 ga wire you are looking at losing up to 0.38V over 10 feet, in series that would be a voltage drop of 0.19. doesnt sound like much but it adds up..

Steve