I’m going to wait a month or two before I decide to buy anything I’m learning too much as it is to make a decision yet
That’s smart
With 4 120watt panels I could be at like 400 watts so I guess that means I could possibly get up to 16-24more 120 watt panels
the inverter has to do with your usage- the output of 120V from the inverter.
How many panels you need is a factor of your consumption in kWh- you have to make enough kilowatt hours to handle daytime consumption PLUS enough to recharge batteries in 5-7 hours.
The limiting factor or the deciding factor on panels has nothing to do with the inverter- the charge controller is the deciding factor.
So you buy a solar charge controller- SCC - that is sufficient to provide the charging parameters required to handle the panels’ wattage, VOC, and array amperage.
You are approaching this a bit uninformed which is why waiting before punching the order button is smart.
figure out what the string voltage thing the first dude told me…meant
Yup
does adding panels in series double the charging voltage
No, it
sums the VOC voltage (well Imp but ignore that for now) in the string. If you have one panel and series a second it doubles, but if you series four panels it will be
four times the voltage. Five in series would be five times the voltage.
So if it charges at 18 volts and you add two panels together you are at 36 volts and you can go all the way up to the max of like 150 volts for your controller but then there’s some crazy voodoo with the cold weather upping your voltage so you have to factor that shit in… so I’m guessing I’m missing something…
Ya, that’s the stuff to read up on. There’s easy calculators online for temperature factoring.
might be wrong in thinking 16 panels are possible if they are limited to some kind of series voltage..
There’s ways of arranging the panels with series strings in parallel that will work, as well as higher voltage SCCs
You’re discovering the unknown which raises questions. With questions there’s answers, with answers knowledge and knowledge begets understanding.