solar pannels

[herbie]

(email deleted by DamonHD)

[herbie]

[DamonHD]

What were you trying to achieve with this?  Would you like the thread removed?

Rgds

Damon

[wpowokal]

How could any thinking person vote?
How many can you afford?

allan

[XeonPony]

As said above, or perhaps you meant series?

Then that would depend on your controller, and is the 24V the Voc or the Mp rating as that again will affect the answer!

[herbie]

As said above, or perhaps you meant series?

Then that would depend on your controller, and is the 24V the Voc or the Mp rating as that again will affect the answer!

I have connected 10x205watt solar pannel in parallel they are 12volt each the charger controil is 12valso.the system is working ok but the question was how many solar pannels can be connected in parallel.

thanks herbie

[Bruce S]

As said above, or perhaps you meant series?

Then that would depend on your controller, and is the 24V the Voc or the Mp rating as that again will affect the answer!

I have connected 10x205watt solar panel in parallel they are 12volt each the charger control is 12v also.the system is working ok but the question was how many solar panels can be connected in parallel.

thanks herbie

Herbie:
Main reason every one is asking these questions is to help get you to the right answer.
You have stated now that you have 10 205 watt Panels in Parallel, that is 2050 watts... 2050 watts at 12Vdc is between 90 & 170Amps which in a pretty tidy amount.

You will need a controller that can handle to this amount. So if you're buying a solar controller for this look for one that has growth potential; so ONE that can handle say 200Amps at 12Vdc sound good.

AS to the original question as to how many? This still remains to be the answer of how many your 12VDC controller in AMPS it can handle.
OF course then there's the line lose for having panels so far away from the controller and such.
Do just a little bit more reading on here or grab a book ( even Google books reading online) about installing Solar Panels, this will help with  the long term answer. 

PS I fixed some of your spelling a grammar to make it a little bit more readable. Hope you don't mind too much.

PPSS>>> That's is a nice set of panels you have, would be very nice to see a picture of them 

Cheers;
Bruce S

[wpowokal]

OK now a real question, everything Bruce said about such high currents and also I say one can have too many panels (not that you appear to have). Depending on one's battery bank size the controller will be limiting the current and thus the panels may be underutilized. Living off grid is very much about load scheduling, operating discretionary loads while there is incoming power best utilities the panels capabilities and saves battery life.

Then of course if you throw in a wind turbine or two it all changes, for my money each installation require a unique design.   

allan

[tecker]

 The battery bank is the most important point here . I think if you have the ability to run your loads with 48 you should do so .

[herbie]

I have 12 sunwize solar pannel at 24v connected 3 in series and parellel.producing 2100watts, I also have 16 TR 105 battery =24v
at 900ah  my return amps is 18amps  and I was thinking if that is enough amps to charge my batter.

[Rover]

If I read you right, 3x 24v panels in series , 4 groups in parallel ?   I wouldn't be worried about the amps , your voltage is ~ 72 volts? I'm unsure of your battery bank configuration, but you say t105s at 24V so I am assumming a 24v battery bank. (4 in series, 4 groups parallel)

Your voltage is too high without a proper controller of some kind... Maybe someone here knows one that can bring your voltage down to a better level for 24 v battery charging ( I don't).

 Otherwise yes it will charge them, and when fully charged, destroy em

[wpowokal]

My house system has Outback Flex max 60's (amps ) their max input voltage is 150v and can accommodate 12,24,36,48 or 60 V battery systems, my only negative comment is the fan noise.

allan

[herbie]

thank gentleman. my sustem is the FP 1-1 flexpower one single inverter pre-wire

1 hub 4
1 fndc
1 charge controller flexmax 80
1 3.5kw inverter
12 sunwize solar pannels at 24v at 175watts

isc    5.2
voc  43.9
imp  4.8

my pannels is 4 set of 3 wired in series.
 then 4 set of wired in parallel that add up to 72 vdc  and producing  (19 amps)

16 trojan battery at 6vdc  225ah
4 wired in series =24vdc  at 225ah
4 parallel = 24vdc at 900ah

900 x 2%=18 amps ( = my return amps)

my question is will 18 amps be able to charge all of my batteries.

my setting are as follow.

absorb  29.6 vdc   for 4 hours
float     26.4 vdc   for 4 hours
eq       31.0 vdc    for 2 hours

my system work ok during the day time but sometime in the morning my batter in on red at 21.4 or a bit hier

thank  herbie

[Rover]

You batteries re charging, I'd have a look at how much you are using. It looks like you are using more than you are producing, I'd manage that frst.

[herbie]

thanks. again I think that you are correct.what if I was to reduce my 72vdc to 48vdc by connecting my pannels 2 in series
that would give me 6 sets of 2 in series and 6 parallel.or connect all 12 pannels in parallel to give me a total of 57.6amps.

[Rover]

"my system work ok during the day time but sometime in the morning my batter in on red at 21.4 or a bit hier"

So what do you have on at night that is drawing power from the bank and how much? You really need to get a handle what your loads are and how many watts they are drawing from the bank. What is the inverter powering?

As far as going to 48 volt  and charge efficiency I can't answer that since I don't know the effciency of the controller at various input voltages going toa 24v bank. If mppt my assumption would be that your efficiency would possibly be worse as your voltage drop on the input wires would increase.  Hopefully somone else will chime in.

[Rover]

On more thing " then 4 set of wired in parallel that add up to 72 vdc  and producing  (19 amps) " This a totally theoretocal value based on the  potential values for your panels. Your actual charging numbers are probably not even close to that. Does the charge controller have any metering functions? Amp/hrs in Voltage in W/hrs in ? Without that and a knowledge of what your loads are taking from the bank , you realy don't know what is going on.

[rossw]

thanks. again I think that you are correct.what if I was to reduce my 72vdc to 48vdc by connecting my pannels 2 in series
that would give me 6 sets of 2 in series and 6 parallel.or connect all 12 pannels in parallel to give me a total of 57.6amps.

Your batteries have a fixed number of watt-hours. If you reconnect them in series for higher voltage, or parallel for lower voltage, will make no difference to the amount of power you can pull out of them before they're flat.

Similarly with the solar panels, reconnecting them in series will give you a higher voltage at lower current - for the same POWER (watts). the exception ot this is if you are NOT using a MPPT type charge controller. (In that case, you CAN get more useful power in a day by more closely matching the array voltage to the battery voltage so you're not "wasting" so much).

(I've posted here before about the benefits of voltage matching)

[herbie]

thanks again gentleman, I think that rover was correct.when he said that I was taking out more than I am putting in.
so this is what I will do. because I have a 3.5kw at 24v ( vfx3524) inverter.also flexmax80 and my total solo pannal watts is 2100watts
I will add another flexmax80 or flexmax60 and also add another 6 pannals ( sunwize 127w at 24v ) that will give me a total of 3150 watts.and think that this will give me enough power.and also enough to charge my battery.
also I am not sure of how to wire up two flexmax together.would I be correct in linking the two battery negative. and the two battery positive together. and then fit equally the solo array to each flexmax.
please can some one shed some light on this.thanks in advance for your help.

herbie

[herbie]

I need to add some more solo panels.to my system.because the one that I have got can only handle 2500watts and I need to Increase it to another 1050watts.but to do this I need to wire in another flexmax80 charge controller. not sure how to wire them together can anyone tell me how or do you a wiring diagram please.

[Rover]

Herbie,
Have you thought about looking at how much power you are using, and maybe reducing that? Its the cheapest thing to do

Just guessing and adding more panels is NOT the right way to do it, find out how much you are using. You may find that your usage far outstrips what you plan to do, even with an increased number of panels.

Make a list of everyhing you have that draws power
For each item determine how much power in Watt hrs (basically how many watts it draws x how many hrs you use it )
Add them all together for a total # of Watt hours

The you need to get a realistic measurement from your solar array (not by the numbers written on the panel) , but by measuring it. There are a ton of small inexpesive, monitors (Doc Watson) etc, that can be used to log the out put in Watt hours.

Then compare the two

You MUST get a handle on borh what is comming in, and what is being used .... otherwise you are just guessing... and guessing can get expensive.