Paralleling 100W HQST with 200W Rich Solar Panels

[homespice]

Hey folks. It's my first post here, but I've been lurking and learning for a while.

Long story short, I'm converting a Ford Transit for full-time living, including 12V, 400ah of DIY LiFePO4 batteries. Now I'm playing the game of rooftop tetris trying to fit 400W of solar on the roof. Shouldn't be a problem right? Yeah, that's what I thought, but between the vent fan, sun roof, and rear deck, real estate is limited and oddly shaped.

I've iterated several layouts and have not been able to find one that gives me 400W using a single type of solar panel. Neither 4 x 100W, nor 2 x 200W (or 180/190W). They just don't fit. So, I've come up with a few potential not-perfect-but-best-I-can-do options:

1. 3 x 100W on the roof and deal with it. Maybe add a fold-out 100W panel and cheap SCC for harvesting while camped.
2. Use flexible panels, which extend my useable space down the front curvature of the van. Not a fan of the extra cost plus longevity concerns of flex panels.
3. 2 x 100W and 1 x 200W panels in parallel. The 100W Compact panels from HQST have darn near the same Voc (24.6) and Vmp (20.6) as the Rich Solar 200W panel (24.3, 20.4). From my understanding these values make it OK to link these panels in parallel without risking significant performance reduction.

Question: Is option #3 viable? Stupid?

Thanks for the help, y'all!

 

[grizzzman]

Parallel they will be fine. Your well within the less then one volt differential.

 

[Substrate]

Be safe - when paralleling panels, if you panel more than 2 together, each panel needs a fuse prior to the SCC in case one of the other panels shorts. (Wiring run kink, roof-critters nibbling at night, or skinned cable dielectric to racks with sun degradation finally causing a short for example).

If you don't fuse, and if there is a short in one panel lead, then depending on what gauge your individual panel wiring is, burns up from the rest of the array total, and acts as the flammable fuse.

So weedy little panels not much of a problem - but then again if one is using speaker wire... just saying.

More than 2 in parallel? Be sure to fuse.

 

[homespice]

Thanks y'all, I read you loud and clear. I'll probably go this route then, making sure to fuse.