SOLAR just about to loose my virginity

[Dean Anderson]

Just purchased 2x120Watt MaxRay solar panels off Ebay. Quality is as expected. I've trashed the supplied controllers and cable and have connected each pair of panels to Anderson plugs (50A) on the legs.

I have a 10m 6B&S cable with a "Y" at the end (2x1m of 8B&S) to connect both folding panel pairs to this cable so I can place the panels in the sun and the van in the shade with minimal voltage drop and loss of Amps.

The van has 6B&S via an Anderson plug going into the battery area under the seat and this goes to a Redarc 20 Amp (PVM) controller and is distributed to two 100 A/Hr batteries via 8B&S.

I have a battery isolator (1,2,both,off) to choose which battery I run off and can therefore keep one battery as a backup.

EXPERIENCES WANTED:
a) Is the Redarc PVM controller as good as a Chinese MPPT controller of the same price in a real worls situation?
b) What change have people seen when they have changed cable diameter (mm2), am I going overboard?

 

[DRW]

6 B&S will be fine, I only run 8B&S with 1 x 120W panel and it works fine, remember you will hardly ever manage full charge for one reason or another. As far as Redarc controllers go, I have never used their's but they usually make a pretty good product (I can say than now I'm not in opposition with them lol)

 

[Tricky]

Hi Dean,

If you search Solar Panels you will get a large amount of information that will help.

 

[Dean Anderson]

All turned out great.....................Getting 8.3Amp at 16.1volt out of each panel ie 16.6 Amp on a great day and I couldn't get the regulator to max out I was only using 12 amps with all lights 2 bed fans, toilet fan, a 3 amp fan, the Waeco, and the Makita charger on. The regulator actually charged the second battery better than the original 240 system installed by Jayco. It charged to 13.3 Volt this charged to 14.4 Volt.