# Picked up some panels



## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

I picked up some panels made by Solarworld I was told that Solarworld panels are good panels
UL listed and made in the USA 
Do these look good? I ended up with 5 of these 
Do you think I would be OK running 4 of these through a 40 AMP controller?


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## Maine-Marine (Mar 7, 2014)

do you know the difference between hooking them up parallel and series...?


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## Kauboy (May 12, 2014)

245W mono-crystalline panels?
I'm jealous.
Can I ask how much per panel?

As for the charge controller, these panels are rated close to 8 amps a piece, and you have 5... That's 40 amps right there.
I would not hook all 5 into that one controller.


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## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

It looks like a 40 amp controller could easily handle four panels BUT look at the controller to find out what the maximum voltage and amperage should be on the input side. Running in series will increase the voltage but the amperage will remain constant, while running them in parallel will increase the amperage but leave the voltage constant. If you plan on using an inverter to get AC power out buy only a pure sine wave inverter - they are more expensive but they are much easier on motors and electronics than the stepped square wave inverters.


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## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

Kauboy said:


> 245W mono-crystalline panels?
> I'm jealous.
> Can I ask how much per panel?
> 
> ...


I did some trading and ended up with $229 for the 5-------- He was selling them for $180 each 
they were used for 1 year and then put in storage. They were tested and they fell within the spects of new

And I'm only going to be running 4 of these. (240 watts ea ) 
And the other two bigger panels I already have up (235 ea ) so I should have about 1,430 watts total
That would be a big improvement for my small set up


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## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

PaulS said:


> It looks like a 40 amp controller could easily handle four panels BUT look at the controller to find out what the maximum voltage and amperage should be on the input side. Running in series will increase the voltage but the amperage will remain constant, while running them in parallel will increase the amperage but leave the voltage constant. If you plan on using an inverter to get AC power out buy only a pure sine wave inverter - they are more expensive but they are much easier on motors and electronics than the stepped square wave inverters.


I'm going to be running them in parallel. I tried running in series and that didn't work to good for me. 
I get some shade and some gloomy days--And that just kills a series set up

I guess in a perfect world where the sun shines bright everyday series is better 
I have seen deep snow on my panels and they still charge decent if the sun is out. (parallel)

And I have a 1500 watt pure sine wave converter that should be big enough for what I'm doing


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## PaulS (Mar 11, 2013)

Looks good!
Do you think you ought to install a fan to keep those battery fumes off the electronics?


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## paraquack (Mar 1, 2013)

Color me jealous


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## GTGallop (Nov 11, 2012)

PaulS said:


> Looks good!
> Do you think you ought to install a fan to keep those battery fumes off the electronics?


I would even consider a future enhancement to put a partition between the batteries and electronics. When / if I build this at my place, I'll put the batteries on the other side of the wall.


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## Camel923 (Aug 13, 2014)

Great deal


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## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

Maine-Marine said:


> do you know the difference between hooking them up parallel and series...?


yes I do


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## Kauboy (May 12, 2014)

I like the setup man. Very nice!
Like I said, I'm jealous.


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## azrancher (Dec 14, 2014)

budgetprepp-n said:


> I did some trading and ended up with $229 for the 5-------- He was selling them for $180 each
> they were used for 1 year and then put in storage. They were tested and they fell within the spects of new


Did you trade the wife, if so you did good.

*Rancher*


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## budgetprepp-n (Apr 7, 2013)

PROBLEM : 
I called two controller manufactures and they said when your figuring out what controller to get the math goes like this,
4 - 245 watt panels = 980 watts ,, 980 watts -divided by 12 volts= 81 amps


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## Kauboy (May 12, 2014)

The wattage rating of the panels is based on the voltage.
When in full sun, does the panel report 30vdc output?
How would you force it to 12vdc without a transformer?
Does the charge controller handle this? I thought controllers had to be specific to the voltage of the system.


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## 8301 (Nov 29, 2014)

A MPPT type charge controller converts it to 12v to match the battery bank, or 24v ect, whatever you set the MPPT controller at. It increases the amperage as it lowers the voltage to maintain the watts.
A cheap basic solar controller will simply waste a lot of the excess voltage/power.

150 watts divided by 30 volts = 5 amps
the MPPT controller changes it to 12v so it looks like this
150 watts divided by 12 volts = 12.5 amps feeding into the battery.
The MPPT controller is not perfect so you'll probably only get 11.5 amps into the battery but it's a lot better than what you'd get with a cheap controller.

In addition some MPPT controllers can handle over 200 volts input allowing you to run higher voltage wiring between the panel strings.


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## Kauboy (May 12, 2014)

That answered my question perfectly, FoolAmI. Thank you!
I wasn't aware that there were different types of controllers.


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