SIZE OF SOLAR PANEL

[puggsy]

Does a 40 watt solar panel require a charge regulator...into two large wet cell 'truck' batteries. thanks for any advice. Puggsy

[Divecoz]

Any size charger, solar or not should have some sort or regulator.. OK maybe not those $10 toss aways .
If your talking ....Over The Road Commercial Truck ( Semi..or Tractor )... batteries? I very much doubt , a 40 watt solar charger could hurt them. Do the math, and figure 80% potential.. Its summer down there now right? 16 hours of sun ? Clouds no clouds, some places dont get clouds.. YOu going to keep an eye on it and wash it as needed? Dust dirt and poop, Bird Poop can bring that unit down to almost nothing really quickly under the right conditions..

[Sumner]

I agree, get a controller and be done with it.

We got a PWM controller from these people....

http://www.solarblvd.com/Charge-Control ... index.html

....for under $30 and you should be able to find something down there that is similiar.

Since then we have upped the solar array....



http://purplesagetradingpost.com/sumner ... de-33.html

...to a 180 watt total and we bought the more expensive MPPT controller to maximize the array since we don't have room for anymore panels. I'm glad we did, because right now with the low sun angles and short days here if we had less wattage we would have to run the gen-set more. So far now we have had to run it for about 1 1/2 hours total to add to what the panels are putting out in the 3 weeks that we have been on the boat..

We love the 63 quart Edge Star frig and now couldn't do without one. It has given us complete freedom on trip planning. No more planning on when and where we will have to go for ice. When it is running it uses 3.5 amps roughly and doesn't cycle on that much, but when it does it runs a while to get the temp back down to the setting. We have it set on 39 and it will kick on about 43 and off at about 38. It is nice!!

c ya and broadcasting from over 3 miles from a wifi hotspot ,

Sum

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[rtrinkle]

I agree,, any type of charging needs a controller. Watts=Volts X Amps. I keep my solar panels on a 7 AMP controller.

[Boblee]

Yep Puggsy get a controller there are plenty of economy ones on ebay, in actual fact now that our election is finished I will probably put an old one I have here on, the LED readout is U/S but it works ok.
No point in cooking a battery.