With an mppt charger, putting the panels in series means the voltage gets to the point of charging earlier in the day. There is in general a wider range of solar input that is usable with series. Your point about shading is well put and I guess in my case I have not have that issue (no sails) so far. That is about to change (bought sailboat). What I have done, however, is to use 4 panels is series/parallel. I have put two series sets so that each set gets about the same view of the sun. Two charge controllers would be better but I don't have the room. That said, The panels are mounted flattish on a slightly curved deck and the 400 watts of panels provide over 300 watts much of the time (so long as we have a load that demands that much) which I would consider pretty good for a 45degree angle of incidence. Breakers should be DC rated mostly. AC breakers are often rated for 48V DC which is ok for 24 V systems but not "48v" systems which charge at higher voltages. Two 12v panels in series can have an open voltage of over 40v. This is just barely within that 48 volts range. So use a breaker as a panel switch with care. With an mppt controller it would seem that the controller should be close to the battery (or closer) as there will be more current there than from the panels... but make room for the inverter to be even closer. This is another reason for the panel voltage to be higher than the battery voltage, the panels are often mounted in a place where the wire runs will be longer anyway (we didn't have that choice).

Thanks for taking your car apart ...your router apart ... your moms camper apart ! great info, now you can re assemble everything , nice camera work Emily .😊

So grateful for your well organized and explained videos!

Great video! Simple and informative.

Fantastic presentation Clark

Your presentation and method of teaching is absolutely on point 👍👍

Thank you for your advice and guidance. You are a great teacher. Please keep it up!

Great post Clark. I appreciate all the information you are sharing here. 🌞🌴⛵️

Great video Clark! I love your technical boat videos!!

Another super good video!

Great video! Thank you for the in depth explanation!

Great job as always! Really appreciate you guys sharing your knowledge and producing professional level videos!

So helpful. Thank you. Have watched a fair few similar and have a well known book… but you explained a few bits in a way I had never understood before.

Hi Clark, I think you need to mention that you really need to have a DC rated circuit breaker between the solar panel and the charge controller. Solar panels are always "ON" !

Good stuff, cheers Clark.

Boondocking - I just bought a new Nucamp Ciruss 2022 820 truck camper and I placed it on my 2007 Ford F-550 Flat bed truck. The truck has 2 batteries and the truck camper has two LA Exide batteries and 200 watts of solar supporting the 2- LA batteries. I am considering buying a Pecron lf 2000 and adding 3- solar panels on the roof rack for it and also setting up alternator charging through an inverter for the Pecron (needs AC Charging) when the truck in travelling. My plan is to plug the Pecron into the shore power of the camper to provide AC power to the micro-wave and as a supplemental battery source. The Pecron is portable and expandable. It will also support the AC window air conditioner I cut into the back of the cab of the truck (Red Neck Move) 700 watt unit. I guess my question and challenge is setting up the inverter charger for the pecron off the truck alternator, and selecting panels for the pecron DC charging. I have a Honda 1000 and 3000 eu too for emergency. I am not sure any of this really make sense but it is fun to ponder it.

Another great tutorial! Thank you Emily and Clark! Happened to buy the EPEVER MPPT charge controller 6 years ago for our first solar system on the boat and it has been working flawlessly. Looking forward to the real-life experience on the Redodo LPO battery, maybe they achieve the same price/quality position as the EPEVER! Looking forward to next week´s video!

Thank you. Perfectly clear.

Thank you so much. This was another easy to understand and so very educational KZfaq. My "Bank Manager" arrived!!!! Now I am just waiting for my relay/switch/contactor to arrive. I did see it was shipped Thanks!!

MAESTRO! Your teaching/presenting this video is super! Thanks for this really cool lesson. 😊🤓 good details and super-fluid explanation!

Thanks Clark. Yes, much appreciated👍🏻. God Bless🙏🏻⛵⚓

Nice video, awesome introduction to the world of solar and DC system. I have a small system on my CLC teardrop with 50ah AGM battery, PWM charge controller and some foldable solar panels. I found that where I camp (mostly state parks) my camper is in shade, so being able to move the panels is helpful. I would also say because my power demands are so low, LED lights, fans etc I am thinking about just using a solar power station, (Rockpals, Jackery etc) that basically has battery, charger, inverter all built in. Prices are coming down, and makes sense for lower power demand. Thanks again for the video!!

Now you need to do the solar panel series/parallel research to figure out which is better under what conditions. Personally I'm betting on the series set up winning out over all.

I installed a small solar system (800 watts) to run a deep water well. I debated using an AGM or a LiFePO4 battery. I finally settled on the Lithium battery and purchased Redodo 12v 200ah plus.

Great video

3 yrs ago I helped install a 640w PV system on a sailboat that ran $1/w or $640. Two 320W REC solar panels in parallel, a 60A Make Sky Blue MPPT with WIFI (chosen for budget reasons as it was $130, but it does have cooling fan) plus MC4 connectors, wires and circuit breakers. Power fed into 12v golf cart house battery bank. The Make Sky Blue has performed well in marine environment and can be checked via screen on unit or smart phone via free app. A 60A DC circuit breaker used going to battery, it was an off brand and triggered at much less than 60A so switched to better brand with no subsequent problems. Definitely go for rigid panels and bifacial on sturdy davits.

A battery with good potential LoL that sounded like an unintentional voltage joke. :)

Thank you!!!

Great video thanks Clark. just last Friday I completed installing a remote solar powered UHF radio repeater here on a mountain top in the wilderness. Note : Inverters, solar controllers and switch mode power supplies are notorious for causing RF interference on HF and VHF radio in vessels so equipped. Be aware and prepare to shield. :-)

massively informative as usual. The thing I am still missing conceptually is where and how in the circuit you'd add a shore power configuration (both 110 and 240 for bluewater boats). I know that's not "off-grid" but many of these installations, especially mobile ones such as boats and vans, would include this anyway.

Basic Basic, good for those that need to understand.

I have that battery a 200amp hour great but got the 410 Amp hour this is in my rv works great

This video is just the best explanation of a solar setup ever. Thank you so much. I have a question I hope you can answer: Given that inverters use power (when switched on) even when there is no load, and bigger inverters use more. than small ones, would it be more efficient to have several small inverters dedicated to the load device/s. e.g. one inverter dedicated to the galley, say, and another dedicated to the computer station, etc.or even one inverter for the induction stove and one inverter for the kettle or toaster etc. and only switch on the inverter when that device is required. (This could be simplified with the use of relays attached to the device on/off switch.)?

21:50 i think you are right, but that is where diods come in, to open up the flow around the shaded panel and reduce the resistent that the shading creates in the whole circuit.

Ya know one of these day's Emily's going to right songs about you. Massive respect, READ THE MANUAL PEOPLE. If you don't understand the parts particularly with triangles that have lightening bolts through them don't proceed. Pay somebody that does. When God made electrons she wasn't messing around!

Oh, and thank you for not perpetuating the idea that one must use Victron products. Some of us are not millionaires. and do not have room for 40 boxes to mount (exaggeration on purpose). The controller you have there is generic... there seem to be a whole whack of them with the same case and everything, but I have heard that the one difference is in the terminals that the battery connects to is too small on some manufactures products. (mine looks the same as that one)

I agree with you.... but please add High current Diodes between solar panels to protect your system, back-feeding voltage between panels is bad for them. Each panel will receive some random Shading during the day.

Hi Clark love this video! We are new to solar. How does the charge controller handle the two different battery chemistries? Thank you!

Just a couple of questions. I noticed that you didn't talk about shunts. Does that EPever box take care of that our are you just not using one? You also didn't discuss low temp protection for the battery. I know that most sailors don't have this issue but us land lubbers in RVs do. Do either the charge controller or the battery have low temp cutoff that you are aware of? Over all really, really good information and I'm glad your not in love with the blue stuff like a lot of folks are. Keep the good stuff coming.

Great video Clark, Well presented and easy to follow. As this is geared toward beginners, a caution regarding state of charge being equal before parallel connecting LiFePo batteries might be in order.

Victron charge controllers are now as cheap or cheaper so ya know Also you should have talked about fuses/breakers/ switches and shunts!!! Plus cable size

Darn it Clark, here you go again. No girls in bikini or sexy stuff 😉. I still think you're the best out there. Keep it up you two. This is a very good explanation and back to basic stuff well presented. Your point of installing a 'switch' between the panels and MPPT is a good one. Once I get back on my boat, I'll have to see it this was considered in the system. Cheers!

Great video, Clark, as usual. Two quick comments... First, when you were talking about the batteries being capable of arc welding would have been a good place to remind folks to take off any metal jewelry, lest they become part of a metal shop art sculpture. It made me a bit nervous watching as you were waving your metal watch band over the terminals. Second, to your question about series vs parallel panels. I have a small 2-panel off grid system here at home, intended to recharge batteries that would be used during power outages. While waiting for an outage, I'm using the solar power to run things like the computer and ham radios, thus paying for itself over a few years. Surplus (used) 250watt rigid panels, 35 volts open circuit. The MPPT is good for 100v, so I can configure it either way. Initially I went with parallel, since there are trees that cause partial shading for a good part of the day, and didn't think the commercial panels had internal diodes. After watching one of Will Prowse's videos on the subject I tried going in series, and sure enough, that works too. Which is better? Not super clear, but I think the nod goes to series. The parallel operation worked very well with both panels contributing what they could, and even with only one panel in full sun I got what I expected out of the other one. For the series arrangement there are definitely times where I can tell that only one panel is making all of the power (input to the MPPT is in the low 30's), and times where I know there's some shading on both panels but the voltage is still up in the 60's and the net is producing usable power. There should be a penalty with the diodes in the shaded panel letting current flow, but each will have the proverbial 0.7v diode drop on the overall output (2.1v total). Not a lot, but it's there. It's hard to know from such an uncontrolled test, but after watching this thing operate for a while it appears the series array can operate somewhat better with various partial shading scenarios, ones that would probably have reduced output with the parallel configuration. I think this is the more important benefit, for example, when there is one column shaded on each panel. That could have reduced the parallel configuration to not having enough voltage to operate the charger, especially with 18v panels where there's no headroom to spare. In series, there's still plenty. With both panels under full sun I'm limited by the 20 amp MPPT that I have, so I can't measure the effect of the higher voltage on peak efficiency. If nothing else, the series configuration requires a bit less wiring (no "Y" splitters to buy), and fewer connections to go bad. For what it's worth, I've left the panels connected in series. Keep up the good work!

What is that little white box with bunch of wires?☺️....are you going to have part 2...3...etc🤓

Thanks Clark. I have a recently purchased 1968 Hughes that is an electrical nightmare. My plan is to convert to electric propulsion and planning for 5 to 6 hundred AH at 48vdc with about a 200 AH 12vdc house bank. All Lithium Iron Phosphate. As I am slowly doing the changes for financial reasons I am wondering about the buck or boost MPPT charge controllers.

Did you use a switch to each battery chemistry from the charge controller? If not, can a switch be used to select the battery to be charged by the solar panel?

Great video. One question, how do you get all the new gear to the boat? Ours is in Tortolla and I'm betting it is expensive and slow. We live in GA and I am thinking about waiting until our Boat gets to the east coast in 2024.

😎

Any opinion on using buck converters in place of chargers, or in addition to, assuming an all lead bank? Far as I can tell the only meaningful difference is that the charger sometimes goes to 14.4 temporarily (which is said to prolong battery life - I would need to test and compare to know if this is true or worth it) while the buck stays at a steady 13.8, which is a safe permanent charging voltage.

This can help rural families in villages that can use this knowledge! I'll share with my Nepali families!

Hi Clark! Greetings from Brazil! I have three 170w solar panels and an Epever controller I want to install in my sailboat. Turns out I know very little about it, and doing some research on KZfaq I run into your videos. I also have a Xantrex 2000 inverter. Your video came in handy, but I’m still have some questions about how to do it. Is it possible to get the wiring in writing? Thanks!!

Can i parallel connect AGM and Silver calcium

thanks! Is the charge controller also the BMS?

I've seen video that suggest in order to get the befits from one panel getting shade or dirty, etc. you need micro controllers on each panel. I would like to know more about this.

If I wanted to use a small AC battery charger to help charge the batteries when there is no or little solar, could I just hook up the battery charger directly to the battery and leave it always on, or not?

Thanks, Clark! A couple of questions from a total noob. 1st... I've seen another reason given for placing a fuse or breaker between the MPPT and the panels. Off-grid Garage says, if a panel shorts out it could overheat and burn when in parallel with other panels. Let me know if you think that's a valid concern. 2nd... is there any reason to use a smart shunt in this setup, or does the MPPT serve the same purpose?

On channel, "Sailing Turtle 26, their charge controller stopped working, and it took them a while to source a replacement, so they went a while without being able to charge their batteries. My question is this: Can you charge a battery directly from the solar panels without using a solar charge controller, IF you carefully monitored the batteries state-of-charge using a multi-meter, and manually disconnecting the panels from the batteries once a full charge is reached?

Clark i have a few 12v 200 ah lithium and a 100 ah lithium and a few 100 ah agm can i mix all of these together with the bank manager?

How to program controller charger victron to tell you the status of your battery

Cool video... but when it gets to -6c in my off grid abode, its not going to work too well. What sort of battery would be best for me?

You did not mention diodes on solar panels or Fusing or circuit breakers .

The purpose of a solar system for me is just to charge: AAA batteries, drone batteries, tool batteries, phone, Kindle, iPad via USB; MacBook. All DC. All the USB charging cables that I use are plugged into an AC 110/240 plug. Inverters have a power cost. In this setup, shouldn't I have a direct DC to DC charging system?

I ama total non engineer but the battery you are using, the manufacturer says its name is "Red" O.D.O. They say o d o is not a name, but each a letter like O....D....O. So its pronounced " RED O. D. O." Just thought you'd like to know :))

"the battery has good potential" ... 😉😆

Need to shorten video. Spend more on wiring.