Quote:
Originally Posted by Bear
Great feedback.
Things have changed so much with the solar controllers and panels in the years since we had our Sportsmobile built - 2015. Would the additional cost to change out the PWM solar controller to a new MPPT controller?
Adding a matching panel to the existing seems the best option, for KISS method to work, especially for guys like me.
Thanks again for the information. This forum again shows how a great community we have.
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Most any 12V RV panel combined with your existing panels is going to get you 95-99% of the rated power. If you buy exactly the same panels and parallel them, then 100% at least on paper.
MPPT controllers are a little more efficient and can use house/residential type panels if you have room for lots of watts. They need around 5-6 volts of headroom to do their thing so sometimes (as was in my case) one RV panel does not have enough voltage for the MPPT controller to operate properly. You can wire 2 (or more) panels in series to get the required headroom if needed.
In your case your panels have a Vmp over 20V so that shouldn't be an issue.
Parallel wired panels are more shade tolerant than series wired panels; something else to keep in mind.
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