Re: Adding portable solar panel Reply #50 – September 28, 2022, 08:46:34 pm We recently got the Renolgy 200 watt portable suitcase Solar and have been happy with it.We wanted it for the same reasons as others - park in the shade, solar in the sun. And a waterproof controller!!We are pleased with it - we are getting typically 8-9 amps in the afternoon (southern CA coast). We use about 40ah a day so more than enough for us.One thing I didn’t see mentioned above, while portable solar says to connect directly to the battery (positive and negative) if you use a battery monitor (and shunt) the connection is different. This amsolar video explains this - at about 3 minutes 10 seconds into the video.https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KIVeffHqXu4&feature=emb_logoOur battery bay barely holds the batteries so our victron 712 shunt is inside the Coach (right next to the battery bay, in our power center location).We added some battery junction posts in a convenient location to reach inside our battery bay so we could easily connect the Renolgy to the positive battery terminal and the shunt load post. 2 Likes
Re: Adding portable solar panel Reply #51 – September 29, 2022, 10:41:47 am That's a good point--if you're using any shunt-based battery monitoring system (which is pretty much any one worth having), connecting a portable solar panel that has its own solar controller directly to the battery terminals will completely throw off your readings.That's because the battery monitor can't "see" current that doesn't pass through the shunt, and connecting directly to both battery terminals bypasses the shunt. The result: the monitor will falsely show your batteries slowly losing power, because the input from the portable panel won't register.Thus, you need to ignore the instructions that came with the portable panel, and connect its negative lead to the same place as all your other negative wires: on the other side of the shunt from the battery. Putting it simply: if there's more than one cable on your battery's negative terminal, you're doing it wrong. Again, this only applies if you have a shunt-based battery monitor. 3 Likes
Topic: Adding portable solar panel (Read 1106 times)
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Topic: Adding portable solar panel (Read 1106 times)
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