solar panel controllers

lydiak
lydiak Forum Participant Posts: 1
edited February 2016 in Caravans #1

can anyone recommend a Controller to go with our 80W Solar Panel?

Comments

  • ChrisRogers
    ChrisRogers Forum Participant Posts: 435
    edited February 2016 #2

    Good choice from the following link. I got my 150w folding solar panel from them, good service.

    http://www.renytek.co.uk/solar-charge-controllers

     

  • rogher
    rogher Forum Participant Posts: 609
    500 Comments
    edited February 2016 #3

    Get a MPPT controller. It will be more effective at charging your battery quickly and then keeping it trickle-charged.

  • PaulRT
    PaulRT Forum Participant Posts: 33
    edited March 2016 #4

    Hi Lydiac,

    I went round this circuit a year ago and took advice from a discussion on another forum. I decided that it was not worth going for a MPPT controller ( much more expensive), but I would fit a pulse width modulation (PWM) controller. I settled on a Steca PR1010,
    supplied then by Astrum Energy Solutions for 70 quid. I have used it for the past year and found it very effective. You can monitor battery voltage, current feeding into the controller, current feeding into the battery, and ampere hours fed into the battery
    (since the last reset). 

    Cheers

    Paul R T

  • ABIPete
    ABIPete Forum Participant Posts: 88
    edited March 2016 #5

    Hi Lydiak, I have used a £19.00 SOLAR 30 brand PWM controller since last year which
    has worked fine. I chose a larger one than my 100watt panel needed so as it give me the option to add more panels later. This setup has kept my battery topped up right over the winter in storage. Before that the battery drained down due to the alarm and tracker.
    Even though these were switched off! I have looked on the ebay site but it is out of stock!

  • peedee
    peedee Club Member Posts: 9,392 ✭✭✭
    2,500 Likes 1000 Comments Name Dropper
    edited March 2016 #6

    You peak output current will be of the order of 6,5 amps so you will need a controller capable of handling this. A 10 amp controller is probably overkill but it will allow you to increase the size of your panel if you ever feel you need to. As Rogher say MPPT controllers are more efficient but if you feel you panel is a little undersized or you want to capture what little sunshine there is in the winter or for that matter in summer too, I would go for one of these.

    peedee

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