more solar questions

Why not fit a dual battery monitor, I'm sure I've seen one that would do the job with a bit of easy wiring at BCF

Ron

Ray,

I'm not a fan of controllers on the back of panels. They are usually pretty minimal and because of where they are they may need a long run of cable to the battery. That's the exact opposite of what you really want. The cable between controller and battery should be as short as possible, and if it is long should be of heavy gauge to minimise voltage drop. I'm thinking 8 gauge (=8 B&S, =8 AWG, about 8.4 sq mm of copper)

However, if what you have is working really well and you're happy with it, then why change? Unless you want a better result than what you already have then don't worry about another controller, just install a battery monitor system as per the previous reply.

If you want a better controller, then think about a 20 amp MPPT and bypass the controllers on the back of the panels.

Cheers

G'day Ray
Jaycar sell digital voltmeters QP-5586 which work on the supply voltage they are reading.
Around $25 and they draw 8milliamps while on.an be used with a selector switch to select one or the other battery. Reads to one decimal place ie 12.7 reads 8 - 30 volts.

They also sell an amp meter which QP-5588 and reads 0 to 50 amps

I use two of these voltmeters. an usually let them run full time.

Cheers

Ross M

I have a set of folding Solars, but the supplied regulator (with the LEDs) failed. I replaced with another which also gave problems. I then went to a more robust panel mounted regulator PV Charge Controller MP-3722 available from Jaycar. As you will see on the link, it has a LCD display to show the current charging currents and voltages, as well as total AH input for the day.

I used 8B&S cable via Anderson to plug to my car, van or both. This gives only a small voltage drop over the cable run at full current (5 Amps from memory)

Seems to work fine - am self sufficient for power, at least in Summer ;)

Gaz