Club 80-90 Forums

Whilst its a fact that if you point the panels at the sun they work better, its royal pain in the a*** , i just decided to have more wattage and fit them on the roof and forget about them , with a decent mppt controller and a pair of 120w panels in series i get 120w at 40v in full sun, but get much better results in lower light because the voltage is always above 14v as long as its day light , so more charging over all . I’m my experience that is better than one 240W panel at 20v ( or two 120w panels in parallel )
It’s well worth paying out for a good quality MPPT controller , and a lot less hassle than moving panels about

Well they seem to think its OK to trim them

Well, bit of an update. Would have been done earlier but picked up the bug thats going round so been drugged up and recovering.
Last week I trimmed the panels down a bit but still wasn't enough to get them to sit side by side due to the roof tapering.

So got one in the old location and luckily with the other one trimmed down it fits on the back without issues. Other than a slight overlap on the raised section for the roof light.
The usual sikaflex mess ensued although I was a little less messy with it this time...

Cables to tidy up and see how the power is.. maybe tomorrow if we don't get drowned again.



Clean roof

Looks like it’ll do the job …….

Probably have to cut some wires on the front one so the routing can be better. I'll see about it tomorrow all being well with the weather.

If your controller can accept the higher voltage you're better to run the panels in parallel. Higher voltage, lower amperage and fewer connections. Tidier cable run too.

Yeah they are in parallel.. currently. Annoyingly the cables are too short to pass through the roof gland so all the connections have to be outside.. at least for now.

Weathers been a*** so havent been able to really see what the outputs are.

My MPPT controller is rated for 30Amp max charge

The rated charge powers are 390W (12V) / 780W (24V)

So well within

Rosie n' Jim wrote: ↑11 Feb 2024, 07:50 If your controller can accept the higher voltage you're better to run the panels in parallel. Higher voltage, lower amperage and fewer connections. Tidier cable run too.

Series for the higher voltage? Parallel for panel voltage.
 

wot i said.

Yeah I know, just posting a picture .

Theres benefits to both setups and drawbacks but will see how these go in Parallel for now.

Honestly , the benefits of series heavily outway parallel in this country
I have two 125w 19v panels in series and a MPPT controller, and in the height of summer get 250w BUT more importantly in winter get useable charge in low light poor weather conditions because the MPPT controller can track the voltage as soon as it gets a input above the current battery voltage .

In parallel yes in full sunlight you get full o-output , but in winter conditions its hopeless , barely useable in overcast dull conditions

Sorry, series, brain took the day off!