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Old 04-08-2018, 09:47 AM   #1
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Solar Panel Mixing?

Hello,

My 2005 Fleetwood Bounder came with two 65w poly solar panels and a Blue Sky 30 PWM charge controller. the previous owners had two additional solar panels on top that they removed when they traded it in.
My question is that I thought the current panels where 100w so I ordered two additional 100w panels to give me 400w of solar.
So now I have two 65w panels already installed, can I simply install the two 100w panels and hook up? Or will the smaller panels pull the 1000w ones down in power? And I can't tell which left behind wires are positive or negative on top of the coach without pulling the wires all out and starting over.

Ken
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Old 04-08-2018, 09:51 AM   #2
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as long as a panel is the 12v variety, I assume the same as came with your coach, you're good to go
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Old 04-08-2018, 10:11 AM   #3
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From what I've seen playing around with solar you can get away with quite a bit of variance when using a PWM controller and parallel connected solar panels. Ideally you want to keep the panel voltages as close as possible, but in practice, different voltages output doesn't seem to have as much of a negative impact as might be expected. Using a PWM controller and different wattage panels doesn't have a negative impact at all and your total current will be all the outputs added up. My experience is that MPPT controllers tend to be a little less tolerant of mixing panels in parallel and if one is significantly lower in output you just basically tend to loose the output of that panel completely.
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Old 04-08-2018, 11:34 AM   #4
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as long as a panel is the 12v variety, I assume the same as came with your coach, you're good to go


Thanks, yes its all 12v
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Old 04-08-2018, 11:36 AM   #5
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Originally Posted by Searching_Ut View Post
From what I've seen playing around with solar you can get away with quite a bit of variance when using a PWM controller and parallel connected solar panels. Ideally you want to keep the panel voltages as close as possible, but in practice, different voltages output doesn't seem to have as much of a negative impact as might be expected. Using a PWM controller and different wattage panels doesn't have a negative impact at all and your total current will be all the outputs added up. My experience is that MPPT controllers tend to be a little less tolerant of mixing panels in parallel and if one is significantly lower in output you just basically tend to loose the output of that panel completely.


Thanks for the help, I thought that somewhere it was mppt was better then the pwm but I probably had it backwards.
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Old 04-08-2018, 12:18 PM   #6
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Better is one of those subjective things where it depends. Especially with high voltage panels, mppt controllers can harvest more energy from your panels. They are also the only option for high voltage systems be it high voltage panels or hooking your panels in series. They do however sometimes have more issues in figuring out setpoints if you have a mismatch in parallel mounted panels. During bulk charging pwm controllers basically just directly connect the panels to the batteries allowing the max current the panel can produce at the batteries voltage. With mismatched panels this can be advantage whereas with a more balanced system where an mppt controller can do it’s magic more effectively, the mppt controller will often harvest 10 percent or so more energy.
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Old 04-08-2018, 12:21 PM   #7
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It's not as simple as saying one is better than the other more like one works better with a particular size system.
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Old 04-08-2018, 03:43 PM   #8
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I have a 12v 400w watt system. With a 100-30 mppt controller. If i expand my system can i use a 100-15 controller in addition to the 100 30? Im assuming if i only run the additional 2 panels off of it it would be fine..
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Old 04-08-2018, 04:24 PM   #9
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Cover you panels with a blanket. Check continuity with multi meter for figuring out your wires.
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Old 04-08-2018, 04:41 PM   #10
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Mixing panels would be a good question for Handy Bob: https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/
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Old 04-22-2018, 04:10 PM   #11
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Quote:
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I have a 12v 400w watt system. With a 100-30 mppt controller. If i expand my system can i use a 100-15 controller in addition to the 100 30? Im assuming if i only run the additional 2 panels off of it it would be fine..


Yes you can, if you make sure that both controllers have the same charging settings.
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