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diy solar

Solar Panels and where to go from here??

Al Slitter

Trying to learn something new every day!
Joined
Feb 22, 2021
Messages
85
Location
Thailand
Greetings All;
Now that I have my base solar system upgrade out of the way it is time to look at my panels.
My solar controller is a EPEver Tracer 4215BN this is a 40 Amp controller with the usual add-ons.
At present I have 2-55 Watt panels wired in Parallel to provide me 110 Watts at 18.0 Volts at maximum output.
My thinking was to purchase a single 110 Watt panel and wire it into the array ( Parallel) thus providing me with
220 Watts. However there is an issue it appears with dong that with a net result of one of the 55 Watt panels capacity being cut in half.
I therefor stared looking for other solutions and one being going to much larger panels in the 350 to 400 Watt range.
My question is, will these panels be fine when tied into my Tracer controller and running a 12 volt LIFePo4 battery?
Yes I know 24 volt system would be better but at present I do not have the extra cash to buy another comparable battery cell
configuration so as to make the batteries in series a 24V system.

The new large solar panels specifications are listed below:

Thank You in advance.
 

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You may want to read this thread:
When you using not matching panels, you will not get the full power as you know, you SCC can be over panel easily as log as you do not exceed PV max input Voltage, see that thread,
 
If you look at the cost per watt, you will get so much more for your money just getting a larger panel in the 250 to 450 watt range. The controller you have is limited to 40 amps out at the battery. On a 12 volt system, that is about 500 watts total. You can over panel a little on EpEver, but not a lot. I would think a pair of those 345 watt panels would max it out for a couple hours a day. Can your single battery take 40 amps of charge current? Putting the 2 panels in series will give you a maximum Voc of 92.4, that is plenty of safety margin under the 150 volt peak rating of the controller. With 690 watts of panel, the two 55's are not worth even trying to work into it. San Tan Solar is listing new Hansol 355 watt panels at just $130 right now. I am thinking of getting 6 of them to charge my 48 volt bank. If you want to save even more money, they also have used 240 watt panel at just $50 with no visible flaws. The charge controller actually works best when the input voltage is higher than the battery voltage by a good margin. Running your existing panels in series would probably net you more power. The MPPT tracking uses a DC-DC converter to drop the voltage down to the battery, and it trades off the voltage for current. If the voltage is cut in half, it will be nearly double the current. At 84 volts in to a battery at 14 volts, it can be near 6 times the current. So to max out the 40 amp charge current, you need less than 7 amps. This allows you to get your 500 watts of charge power with some pretty light wire to the panels.
 
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