solar panels

Where are the panels for? It's about right on price in comparison with other brands so it depends if it's for the motorhome or home or where it (they) will be sited.
 
Domestic panels are incredibly cheap compared with 12v panels I don't know anything about those ones Raul is the man.

Two reasons I wouldn't use them, the difficulty of fitting a panel that size with a weight of over 20kg on a Motorhome roof. I would rather have two or three panels which would give more chance of some output if the roof is in partial shade.

The 100/30 will be fine it stands for max input voltage 100v, max output current 30 Amps.
 
mitzimad said:
can some one look at the spec on these panels and comment please Lenny HB Raul

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Click to expand...
The victron mppt calculator gives this recommendation. 100/30

1702354002092.png


www.victronenergy.com

MPPT Calculator - Victron Energy

MPPT Calculator - Victron Energy
www.victronenergy.com www.victronenergy.com

All you have to do it tap in the panel details. The top one is the minimum, the more results is bigger giving you future headroom.


Edit: PS: Direct link without the facebook nonsense for those without FB access.

LONGi Solar Hi-MO 5m 405WP Full Black PV Module LR5-54HIB-405M

LONGi's high-efficiency PV modules are widely used all over the world, from alpine grasslands to desert wastelands, and from ponds and vegetable beds to household dwellings. LONGi's ultra-high-value PV module products continue to benefit customers and local economy with its advantages of higher...
www.cityplumbing.co.uk www.cityplumbing.co.uk

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If you have space, the big panels are the better choice vs several small ones. That panel will work well with the 100/30 controller.
 
If you are serious about fitting large panels I urge you to avoid the usual camper / motorhome / boat /yacht sites and go to where domestic solar system installers buy their materials. I compare lots of sites; in the UK I usually find either ITS Technologies or Trade Sparky turn out to be the cheapest (remember to include delivery cost when comparing, it is significant on small orders). A big panel, say 420 Watts, costs about £90 including VAT. I have no interest in either of these companies apart from as a satisfied customer. Just buy a panel the size you can accommodate, make sure Voc (open circuit voltage) is within your charger / inverter range. Its not hard to do, the companies publish the data sheets, just read them, its not rocket science. Paying £120 for a 175 Watt Victron solar panel is nonsense. This cant go on.
 
Sorry, forgot to add - look at inverters too. A hybrid inverter works off-grid and on grid ("grid tie"). It's a solar charge controller; pure sine wave inverter giving 230V from your battery; mains charger; and all the protection /management / reporting you need. When you install a solar and battery system in a house you dont have all these little blue boxes and loads of fat cables, fuses, busbars and switches. You'd never make a living that way! It's all in one box. And you use a 50V battery, not a 12V one. Just compare the costs on a kW-hour basis - you cant beat them. A motor home is 90% home, 10% motor. Think of it as a small house, not as a large car. Buy domestic system materials, not 12v car stuff. It wasnt this way 2 years ago but the market has changed.
 
AlanandMayya said:
Sorry, forgot to add - look at inverters too. A hybrid inverter works off-grid and on grid ("grid tie"). It's a solar charge controller; pure sine wave inverter giving 230V from your battery; mains charger; and all the protection /management / reporting you need. When you install a solar and battery system in a house you dont have all these little blue boxes and loads of fat cables, fuses, busbars and switches. You'd never make a living that way! It's all in one box. And you use a 50V battery, not a 12V one. Just compare the costs on a kW-hour basis - you cant beat them. A motor home is 90% home, 10% motor. Think of it as a small house, not as a large car. Buy domestic system materials, not 12v car stuff. It wasnt this way 2 years ago but the market has changed.
Click to expand...
The problem with 48V battery for van is the B2B. Trying finding a 12V -> 48V B2B
 
AlanandMayya said:
If you are serious about fitting large panels I urge you to avoid the usual camper / motorhome / boat /yacht sites and go to where domestic solar system installers buy their materials. I compare lots of sites; in the UK I usually find either ITS Technologies or Trade Sparky turn out to be the cheapest (remember to include delivery cost when comparing, it is significant on small orders). A big panel, say 420 Watts, costs about £90 including VAT. I have no interest in either of these companies apart from as a satisfied customer. Just buy a panel the size you can accommodate, make sure Voc (open circuit voltage) is within your charger / inverter range. Its not hard to do, the companies publish the data sheets, just read them, its not rocket science. Paying £120 for a 175 Watt Victron solar panel is nonsense. This cant go on.
Click to expand...
Thanks that's good info. My only concern is - do you think Victron panels are engineered to withstand the vibrations of being on a motorhome roof? I.e tougher than household panels?

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I havent tested them so I dont know, but I really doubt it. I suspect that the huge factories churning out the silicon wafers and encasing them in glass sell these to all panel manufacturers. Looking at them they all appear to have been made in the same place. It is true though that a bigger panel will need more support than a small one (to give about the same amount of panel area per support) to give the same protection. And vibration isnt that much (at least, I dont notice a lot on my ancient Transit!). I dont see car radios and loudspeakers, for example, being specially made to endure vibration, and my mobile phone has worked for years as a nav aid without failing from vibration. I think the bigger concern is making sure your attachment system can withstand the lower-frequency forces like cornering and wind load. The panels can take this - they are designed, for example, to sit atop a skyscraper in Singapore or Jakarta and survive the monsoon winds that blow people off their feet. At ground level! But only if the mounting system is properly fixed to the roof. That does worry me in principle. I am using the eight threaded holes provided in the roof by the factory for fitting the roof rack. The manual says this is designed to take 100kg, spread over the entire roof surface. The panels weigh 20kg each, so about 65kg with fixings. I use aluminium rails and brackets made by Renusol for fitting panels to flat roofs; I used them earlier on my garage and found them excellent. Very light, strong and quick to install. If you applied a horizontal force to the rail I think you would topple the van before the fixing failed. But if you do a DIY fixing job with 1mm ali angle, self-tappers and sealant, I think you're taking a risk.
 
Gromett said:
The problem with 48V battery for van is the B2B. Trying finding a 12V -> 48V B2B
Click to expand...
True. My solution (I'd be interested to hear what others have done) was to buy a 1.1kW 12V - 230V inverter. Cost about £120. I set this right next to my starter battery and connected with a 25mm2 cable, 200A fuse and isolator, as you would for a B-B charger. The 230V output goes to my hybrid inverter, which then charges the 50V battery as it would from the grid. So I now have a 1.1kW B-B charger for £120. What capacity 12V - 12V B-B charger do you get for £120? Last time I checked, 2 x 40A Renology units , so together giving just less than 1kW at 12V, cost £220. And they would need 2 x 4 metres of 25mm2 cable, whereas I need 4m of 1.5mm2 twin mains cable. Reason being, Im transporting that 1kW to the back of the van at 20 times the voltage (230 vs 12), so at 1 / 20th of the current. And with this system, the charging current is managed - so I can set it, for example, to charge battery at 1kW. If as Im driving along, the sun comes out and I get 800W from my panels, the inverter only takes 200W from my alternator, to keep the charging at 1kW. I dont think that happens when you have separate B-B charger and PV charge controllers - I think they both sense the battery voltage and fight each other (but Ive never built such a system so dont know for sure). As the battery approaches 100% charge, the BMS in the inverter tails off the charging current, first by taking less from the alternator, later by taking less from the panels. If there is a fault, say High battery temp, all charging inputs would stop (so it says; but havent tried that). Its so advantageous to have all the programming, reporting and fault protection in one integrated box, rather than having each box doing its own thing.
 
Gromett said:
The problem with 48V battery for van is the B2B. Trying finding a 12V -> 48V B2B
Click to expand...
I use a Sterling 12V to 48V B2B (BB124870), input is 70A at 12V from the alternator. I have two 48V Pylontech US3000 batteries (3.5kWh each, 7Wh total, equivalent to 583Ah total at 12V. It works as advertised, but only fills the batteries at about 10% per hour of driving because the batteries are so big. I couldn't find any other 12V to 48V DC-DC chargers, but the Sterling BB124870 works fine
 
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