After just purchased another couple of solar panels due to arrive in a few days I am busy trying to come up with how I am going to integrate them into my PV setup. Like Victor Frankenstein I have all kinds of parts of a body to assemble into something that approaches a whole. Like the good Doctor much of what I have is from different sources. From a quick count I have 8 different brands of solar panels, 2 different AIO's and a motley connection of other stuff. From time to time I wonder why old Victor was so conservative and did not improve on a few things like 3 arms and 3 hands. I can't tell you how many times an extra hand would have come in handy. Not to mention a second head.
But here I am with 2 more panels and having to decide where they should go and how I am going to connect them. At first I had thought to simply replace 4- 100w panels I have in my second array so that all the panels in it were now 200w. It presently is in a 3S2P-semi arrangement. Semi because the 100w panels were in parallel to create a equivalent 200w panel at same voltage and amperage. Those 4 panels would then join my first array of all 100w panels that was in a 8S2P configuration making it a 10S2P setup. (My #1 AIO can handle up to 450Voc).
So I built a new ground mount for the 100w panels. All good almost. I found out that in the afternoon the corner of my building shades the top panels as the sun works towards the Western horizon. Obviously a bad thing for series connection. So what now?
After much thought I decided to make the 4 -100w panels into another array (#3) as 2S2P upper 2 and bottom as pairs and wire them to my alternate SCC. This will mean that my battery bank now has 4 chargers hooked to it (2-AIO's, 1SCC and 1 battery charger). This can work out because I have a 24vDC battery setup and high voltage is not needed for the SCC to work.
Now the only question will be, Is it Alive?
You have to think that before the final monster that Victor must have made a few starts, stops and discarded first editions. Hard to have perfection in the first attempt.
But here I am with 2 more panels and having to decide where they should go and how I am going to connect them. At first I had thought to simply replace 4- 100w panels I have in my second array so that all the panels in it were now 200w. It presently is in a 3S2P-semi arrangement. Semi because the 100w panels were in parallel to create a equivalent 200w panel at same voltage and amperage. Those 4 panels would then join my first array of all 100w panels that was in a 8S2P configuration making it a 10S2P setup. (My #1 AIO can handle up to 450Voc).
So I built a new ground mount for the 100w panels. All good almost. I found out that in the afternoon the corner of my building shades the top panels as the sun works towards the Western horizon. Obviously a bad thing for series connection. So what now?
After much thought I decided to make the 4 -100w panels into another array (#3) as 2S2P upper 2 and bottom as pairs and wire them to my alternate SCC. This will mean that my battery bank now has 4 chargers hooked to it (2-AIO's, 1SCC and 1 battery charger). This can work out because I have a 24vDC battery setup and high voltage is not needed for the SCC to work.
Now the only question will be, Is it Alive?
You have to think that before the final monster that Victor must have made a few starts, stops and discarded first editions. Hard to have perfection in the first attempt.
