Solar Power Feedback

Hi Paul,

I've spent a lot of money on Solar stuff of late and got some decent results but again had that problem of not getting the power that I wanted.

First question is whether or not you have a stand-a-lone solar power controller / regulator?

If not might I suggest the Regulator that is available from JAYCAR Electronics, not sure of the exact details but it's about $180, and allows you to hook up half a dozen panels to it, something like up to 600W or something... I'm just saving up to get one of these myself to fit in to my bus which will soon have solar panels across the entire roof.

I've got 2 x 80W foldable panels, my problem was that without using an external regulator then one panel could cancel out the other panel when the sun moved over both of them, thus not getting full AMPS out of the panels to charge my 100Ah deep cycle.
THUS what I ended up with was approx 12 days of power for my FridgeMate 55L car fridge before I had to re-charge the deep cycle from a battery charger. That was running BOTH the panels at once so that one was NE facing, the other NW facing.

120W solar panel as one unit will still only get power through the optimum times of the day based on the direction it faces. Panels should be at the degree angle that you are in Latitude (is it latitude that goes across ways? - if it's not then it's supposed to be longitude, but whichever it's about 23 degrees in Alice Springs to give an idea). So unless you move the panel about once an hour to follow the curvature of the sun across the sky you won't get full power out of it, and at best you'll probably end up with no more than about 10 to 12 Amps coming out of it, though that's brilliant if you do get that - worth checking with an Amp Meter.

So firstly, a second panel would be great. Might I suggest an 80W though, it's better to go slightly bigger and have too much power than not enough. Grab an external Regulator if you don't have one, and plug your panels all in to the Regulator and then take your power out of the Regulator as well..
Hopefully, it'll all work to give you what you want.

What are you powering and what sort of battery do you have?

Can you give me some more info and I'll see if I can give you more help on it.. (no, I'm not an expert, just have over $1500 invested in solar stuff and adding more to be able to power everything on my bus with Solar - I'll do a write-up some day.)

Where / from whom did you purchase the 120 Watt panel?

Can you provide a link?

Thanks..

:)

Hi Paul,

How much power do you need? ????
My 120's Will charge my batteries, 2 x 120Ahr and run my 80Ltr Waeco.
But I do chase the sun and move panels on a regular basis.

Cheers
Simon.

Thanks for the replies, Re the solar panel, I dont seem to be getting the amps that you all talk about, at the best I seem to get about 6amps, through my regulator, my frig pull;s between 6 and 4 amps, so I need a bit more panel, I saw that a 40 Watt panel is suppose to give about 2 Amps and I thought that may be enough for me, but I dont know if I can marry up the 120 with a 40 watt panel. I have bought my panel from sydney on ebay