MisterSandals, thank you for your reply. I was not clear on one item. When I said "foldable" I meant foldable like a laptop computer not foldable like a rollup
Not MisterSandals. But I have a small camp trailer (14', no toilet/shower, but water, heat, oven and four propane burners and oh yeah a 7.4 cubic foot 120v fridge that runs off the Victron inverter and lithium battery). So I can understand your use case.
We have 400W of flexible solar panels on the roof. Because of how we care for these flex panels, I expect them to last a long time, but probably not as a long as rigid panels. We also have a 2x100W rigid panel folding suitcase and it works well. I deploy the suitcase when we are camped in one spot for the night or multiple days. It works well enough.
Word of warning - you might find yourself woo'd by Renogy products. Please don't do what I did and get woo'd. Long story short - what a big waste of time and money. That said, we have one Renogy product left that is decent - the 2x100W solar panel folding suitcase I mentioned. But for all things holy, please fork out a bit more money for something better (I recommend Victron - it's a cry once buy once thing but for a small 12v setup like yours it's not cost prohibitive but if you're a penny pincher you'll feel a small pinch, lol), I highly discourage buying Renogy. Poor design, poor build quality, poor customer service and at the end of the day, not actually a good value when you consider the poor quality/design and hours/days of time you will waste dealing with their products and service.
To Renogy's credit - their customer service team is friendly and respectful. That's about it. They seem like they
want to help, but seem
impotent to actually do anything useful. One time they came through with a warranty without much headache - a lead-acid battery that arrived leaking new in the box. They also replaced another lead-acid battery but only after they made us jump through a ton of hoops to make it happen (it took many hours of our time to jump through those hoops...how much do you earn per hour in your job/work??) But our charge controller issues was a mind-bending experience that reminds me of the comedy skit "Who's on first?" They asked for info/photos/screenshots, I gave it all to them and then they asked for it again and again and again as if they would never read my messages to them. I could never gain any traction with them. Sigh.
Finally, I think other companies have something useful to learn that Renogy actually gets right - looks. The curb appeal of many of Renogy products is no doubt part of their selling success. I'm embarrassed to say that it was a major reason why I was attracted to them (and their
seemingly low prices). Their products look quite nice, sexy black against turquoise, useful features (like built in 2.4A USB ports) and seemingly good built quality (solid metal casings such as on the inverters) and regular sales that make their
seemingly low prices even lower. Other much better quality brands are generally down-right ugly, IMO.
I have nothing but good things to say (other than looks, lol) about Victron products. And I have had nothing but good experiences with invertersRus.com, who sell a lot of Victron products. They sell so much that they have a "Victron b-stock" page on their website where you can often get hefty discounts on open box/used/cosmetic damage items. Last thing we ordered from them we actually called in the order and asked the guy if they had any coupons available and he gave us 10% off on the spot (always free shipping). There are other excellent Victron dealers, including Current Connected, who is a regular on this forum and has many happy customers (this forum is harsh on sellers that aren't always excellent).
Anyways, the
Victron SmartSolar 100/30 is a good charge controller. Bluetooth (AWESOME app), super fast MPPT tracking (will harness more watts than cheap controllers (I estimate 30% more production compared to my previous Renogy controller)) and is built to last a very long time. It will also have a high resale value should you ever wish to sell it. If you search ebay for used Victron stuff you will not find many, because people tend to hang on to them and used ones sell fast.
