Which is better, Series or Parallel panels

I get up to aim my panels daily, setting voltage is no big deal. There is no set it and forget it smart charge controllers, mexicowanderer has confirmed this time and time again.

You don't need to keep changing down to Float every day when you only get the batts to Vabs late in the day. If you balance your battery bank size with your array size that is how it happens, and you can let night time be your "float" time.

So you can stay in your hammock without having to go over and push a button on that cursed controller that makes you do all that work.

(This assumes you have someone to bring you beer while you are in your hammock. Otherwise, you could mount the controller by the fridge and push its button when you get another beer.)

Jrnymn7 - besides inability to add a remote display (so that controller could be tucked away where you don't see it or where it's closer to batts), Solar 30 is a "semi-manual" kind of a controller. Like a regulated DC-DC converter. You have to change the voltage manually every time to go from Absorb to Float and back. Or set a voltage somewhere in between Abs and Float, so it would be lower than recommended Abs and higher than recommended Float.

It's hard to find a good PWM in 30A range. Probably because at this level people already start thinking of 24V panels, shading or not.

jrnymn7 wrote:
RJ,

What is it you don't like about the Solar30, exactly?

Its mounted by the door in brite daylite, and I can't see the display.
Besides that, its big and ugly, too deep for a surface mount.
I should have spent the xtra and got an LED flush mount like I wanted.

RJsfishin wrote:
Thanke for all the posts info.
I'll leave it in its parallel configuration.

I hate my new "Solar 30" controller, so thought when I make a change I mite go series, but I'll leave as is,.....it works fine.

What do you hate about it? Set it to 14.8V and forget about it. Or 14.4V. Whatever gets your batteries fully charged and doesn't boil off the water at an excessive rate.

You have to add water and do maintenance, period, if you are going to charge up to 100% SOC.

The best solution is to stay the heck out of the shade!

RJ,

What is it you don't like about the Solar30, exactly?

Panels are neither series or parallel.... Wiring is, as is the voltages used by high voltage suitable for series wiring panels or lower 12 Volt, suitable for parallel wiring. Then take into account the price of the controller, to determine price per amp at the battery bank.

Since I have a MS controller I ran their String Calculator which does all of the calculations including temperature variations to determine panel and controller compatibility.

Ignoring Vmp vs. Voc, etc. (use whatever numbers you like, the results will be similar):

97w is about 3X 32w, however, it is amps into the bank that really matter.

Using mppt/series, set at say 14.6Vabs... 32w/14.6v = ~2.2a going into bank

Using pwm/parallel, set at 14.6Vabs... 4.47 x 20% = ~0.9a + 4.47a = ~ 5.4a, so about 2 1/2 X as much.

Using mppt/parallel, set at 14.6Vabs... 97w/14.6v = ~6.6a, about 3X as much.

Of course, the diode issue could change all that, but parallel appears to have it, hands down.