My NEW solar/inverter/battery setup

[Chad Heiser]

4 hours ago, lappir said:

So would turning the batteries end to end not create space for the terminals not to touch and maybe allow you to do a "buss bar"? Can't tell from the photos today.

When connecting batteries individually to a bus bar (the Lynx Power In in this case) in a system, the battery cables for each battery need to be the same length.  This way each battery gets used equally.  In my original plan, the bottom two batteries would have been end to end with the battery terminals toward the center.  The top two batteries would have been the same, but upside down.  This would have put all four sets of battery terminals within about an 8 inch cube.  It would have made keeping all the battery cables the same length very easy with no excess slack in any of the cables. 

Since that plan didn't work, I went to plan B.  Now the batteries are still end to end and the terminals are still toward the center, but the top batteries are right side up.  I was still able to make all the battery cables the same length, but the cables from the bottom batteries have some extra curves/slack in them compared to the cables from the top batteries.  This is because the top battery terminals are about ten inches higher than the bottom battery terminals.  The cables from the top batteries have to run along the top of the batteries and then come over the end and go down to the Lynx Power In.  The cables from the bottom batteries don't have to come down to the Lynx, so they have some slack in them compared to the cables from the top batteries.  In my original plan there wouldn't have been any slack in any of the cables and the cable runs could have been slightly shorter overall (not that they are excessive now at about three feet).

I will be going to the ECR, but I don't know what my route is going to be yet.  I have to make a stop in Oklahoma along I40 on the way, but I haven't decided how/when I will pick up I40 on my route yet.

[Chad Heiser]

Today I wired the batteries into the rest of the system, programmed all the components and finished the battery rack, including a storage rack on top of the batteries. I started the day wiring the Lynx Power In to the Lynx Distributors.  I drilled out the hole on the positive bus bar exiting the Lynx Power In from 5/16" to 1/2" so I could mount my Blue Sea 3000 HD on/off switch directly to the bus bar (it has 1/2" studs).  The Blue Sea switch has two additional studs to feed power out the other side of it.  I ran 4/0 cable from each output stud and connected the two 4/0 cables to the positive bus bar of the Lynx Distributors.  I also mounted the SmartShunt and ran dual 4/0 cables from the negative bus bar of the Lynx Power In to the shunt and then another set of dual 4/0 cables from the other side of the SmartShunt to the negative bus bar of the Lynx Distributor.  With this done, the trailer 12 volt systems and inverters are now running on the Battleborn batteries.  

Once the system was powered by the Battleborn batteries, I programmed both Quattro inverters.  I hooked my laptop up to the inverters and set them up to run in 120/240 volt split phase.  I also programmed the charger side of the inverters to Battleborn battery specs.  I set up all the Bluetooth connections to all the Victron devices via the Victron Connect app on my phone.  I ran all the control cables for the various Victron Devices to the back of the basement compartment.  These cables will eventually connect to the Cerbo GX communication device.  This is going to get mounted somewhere in my connection center and these cables will extend to that area when I am ready to make those connections.

I spent the rest of the time coming up with a good way to cover the top batteries in the rack I built yesterday and incorporating that cover into a storage rack.  I am pretty happy with the final product.  The upper storage rack extends to the compartment door and will allow me to store my flag poles, broom, fire poker and other long, slender items.  The rack spans over the stowed TV (which is mounted to the roof of the compartment) and allows full movement/storage of the TV.  The only thing I have left to do on the rack is add some support brackets at the end near the compartment door.  These brackets will secure the end of the rack to the roof of the compartment.  The completed rack and cover also secure all the batteries in place, but allow sight lines to see the batteries.

I am super happy with how everything has turned out so far.  I am actually going to have slightly more storage space in the basement with the new system configuration than I had with the old set up, even though the new system has more (and larger) components.

Here is the finished battery rack and storage shelf.

Here is an overall photo of the interconnections between the Lynx Power In and the Lynx Distributor.  I added some shielding to protect the wiring from items stored in the basement.

Here is the SmartShunt.  It is hidden on the wall behind the on/off switch.  It is a 1000 amp shunt, which is much larger than the typical 500 amp shunt most people use.  I took this picture before I added the VE.direct cable to the SmartShunt.

There are some additional pictures on my Google drive if you follow the link in my signature.

 

 

 

[lappir]

I'm just a couple hours north of I 40 and have made the trip to Memphis to have lunch with my daughter once when I was here. They were heading to Mississippi and her then boyfriend's brother lived in Memphis. I'd do that if you happen to have a stop scheduled there. I don't want to have you go out of your way or make an unplanned stop. My daughter lives in Norman, I have worked in Edmond, Tahlequah, Lawton and Ponca City and of course have visited the daughter several times. Drivers in and around OKC are some of the worst ever, maybe even worse than South Florida, but I guess it's been 10 years since I did much driving down there maybe with all the cell phone use while driving they are just as bad. 

Rod

[Larry Burkett]

Hmm, a stop in Oklahoma, sounds like a visit to Rollin Retreats in your future. 😁 

[Chad Heiser]

59 minutes ago, Larry Burkett said:

Hmm, a stop in Oklahoma, sounds like a visit to Rollin Retreats in your future. 😁 

Yes, I figured if I was going that way I might as well stop in.  I made an appointment to get the trailer re-caulked.  I also need to get the living room slide adjusted.  It will be good to stop in and say hello too.  I haven't been back there since I picked the trailer up in February of 2018.

[Chad Heiser]

Today was another productive day.  I wired in the 120/240 volt side of the system.  I spent some time figuring out the best way to route the wiring.  Once I had that figured out, the rest was pretty straight forward. 

The transfer switch for the trailer is behind a sliding wall on the back side of the basement (the opposite side of the basement from where the inverters are located).  I needed to come from the output of the transfer switch, go into the inverters, then come out of the inverters and go to the main power panel.  In that process I needed to split the four wire feed (L1, L2, N, G) into a six wire feed, with three wires going to each inverter (L1, N, G to inverter one and L2, N, G to inverter two).  The return run then needed to re-combine those six wires back to four before the trailers main power panel. 

I accomplished the split and recombination with two small panel boxes.  Each panel box has a 50 amp double pole breaker in it so I can completely isolate the inverters input and output if necessary.  I was able to mount the panel boxes next to the transfer switch.  I removed the wire coming from the output of the transfer switch and moved it to one of the new panel boxes.  This panel will now feed the main power panel in the trailer.  I then ran a new 6/4 Soow cord from the output of the transfer switch to the other panel box.  This panel will now feed the inverters.  I then ran two 6/3 Soow cords from the inverter feed panel (grid side of the system), with one going to the AC In on each inverter.  Finally, I ran two more 6/3 Soow cords from the AC Outs of the inverters to the other panel feeding the trailer.

Here are the new panels (I had to move the vacuum to the left to make room for the panels):

The system is basically done now and everything works 😁.

The trailer was running from the batteries with no charger in the system since yesterday.  Today, the little inverter was keeping the refrigerator going while I was working on the electrical feed to the trailer's main power panel.  (I unplugged the trailer from shore power so I wouldn't electrocute myself working on the transfer switch 😜). 

Once I had everything wired up, I tested all the connections with my meter and then powered up the inverters.  The batteries were down to 90% state of charge when I powered up the inverters.  They immediately went into bulk charging mode.  They were putting about 325 amps or so into the batteries.  Each inverter has its own charger and I have the chargers set to a max of 165 amps each. 

With that much power going to the batteries and the fact the batteries can absorb so much energy, the batteries went from 90% state of charge to 100% state of charge in 30 minutes (actually slightly less).   With my old system (single 125 amp charger and AGM batteries), that same 10% increase in state of charge would have taken several hours.  This means much shorter generator run times to recharge batteries (when conditions are not ideal for solar).  It also means we will be using a lot less propane to run the on board generator when it is needed.  I am a happy camper. 🤑

As before, there are additional pictures on my Google Drive if you follow the link in my signature.

Tomorrow I will finish the system up.  I still need to connect the Cerbo GX, the generator control module and change the wiring between the original Main Power Panel and the original Sub-Panel.  There are currently two long 10 AWG romex cables between the two panels.  One comes from the main panel and used to feed the old inverter.  The other was the feed from the old inverter to the sub panel.  They are just wire nutted together right now so there is power in the sub panel.  These wires will get replaced with a short run of 10 AWG romex run from one panel to the other (essentially making them one big panel). 

Oh yeah, I also have one Easy Start to install on my third AC (the other two AC's already have Easy Starts on them).  It will be nice to have the system completed.  We will be in the trailer for Thanksgiving, visiting my wife's family.  We will be in a park for the long weekend, but I intend to "boondock" in the park to test out the system.

 

Edited November 23, 2021 by Chad Heiser
for grammatical fixes

[Chad Heiser]

I finished up the installation today (in between some honey do list items I had to get done).  All the Victron components are in and talking to one another (I am still waiting on the GX Touch 70 display to come in).  I was able to connect to the system both through the internet and locally via WIFI.  Both connections give me full functionality just as if I was standing in front of the GX Touch 70 display (once it is installed).  All of the components also allow for individual connections via Bluetooth and the Victron Connect app.  With the Cerbo GX now installed and hooked up, the remote connectivity allows me to see all the components in one spot instead of having to go into each component individually (and I can do it from anywhere with internet access instead of just within Bluetooth range).

Victron offers some amazing features that I will finally get a chance to actually use instead of just read about.  I have remotely connected to other systems before, but that was typically just to make sure the functionality worked or to solve an issue for someone who wasn't local.  Now that I have my own system to connect to, I can really take a deep dive into all the functionality and tracking capabilities it provides.  I will probably geek out on it for a while.

I did find one issue today that could have been a very bad situation.  While I was installing the generator control module (Atkinson Electronics GSCM-Mini), I had to access the junction box where the generator wires come out of the generator enclosure and connect to the cable going to the transfer switch.  The GSCM adds a couple of wires here to sense 120 Volt so it knows when the generator is running (or not). 

When I pulled the cover off the junction box, I found a burnt wire.  I don't know when it happened, but luckily it was contained in the metal junction box.  I ran the generator last at the end of October for about half an hour.  I don't know if that is when it happened or if it had been there for a while (I haven't accessed this junction box for several years).  It looks like one of the wire nuts used to connect the wires worked its way loose and caused heat to build up and eventually burn the wire.

It took a little doing to yank all the wires out of the box, cut off the burnt wire (about 6 inches of L2 - red wire going to the transfer switch) and reinstall everything.  This junction box isn't the easiest to get to now that I added a new wall in the basement. 

I originally wanted to install the GSCM before I put the wall up because it would have been very simple to access the junction box then, but I couldn't.  FedEx in their infinite wisdom routed the package with the GSCM in it from Utah to Sacramento (about an hour and forty five minutes from my house).  Then it got on a truck to Minneapolis for some reason before it came back to me (apparently it got put on the wrong truck according to FedEx when I called).  Because of all this, I didn't physically have the GSCM before it was time to install the wall.  This is a long winded way of saying it would have been a lot easier to find and fix the burnt wire early on in the install (if I had the GSCM when I was supposed to get it).  I guess if everything were easy, life would be no fun 😜.

This is what the GSCM looks like.  It is mounted to the front wall of the trailer just above the old battery box access door, under the overhang of the fifth wheel.

It is a pretty neat bit of circuitry.  It gets installed in line in the Onan generator control cable.  It allows a simple open/close relay signal to fully control the functionality of the generator.  The Cerbo GX has a relay built into it that can be remotely controlled based on conditions you set up or via manual intervention while you are interacting with the system.  In other words, you can manually start or stop your generator from anywhere you have an internet connection or the system can do it automatically based on the conditions you set.

I set the relay up to start my generator based on a specific battery state of charge (for now).  There are lots of other conditions you can use in addition to SOC.  They include battery current, battery voltage, AC load, inverter high temperature, inverter overload and periodic run.  You can also program in quiet hours and have a second set of conditions for some of the triggers to only start the generator during quiet hours for emergency purposes.  You can even set up a regular exercise cycle (periodic run) in which the system will automatically exercise the generator on a regular basis.  Just another neat bit of functionality Victron offers.

As before, I added some additional pictures to my Google drive if you follow the link in my signature.

We are heading out with the rig Wednesday night so I can start testing some of the system features in the real world this weekend.

Just to get an idea what you can do, here is what the online portal dashboard looks like for my system right now:

And here is me accessing the Cerbo GX remotely via the internet.  This is called remote console and it lets you run through all the screens and menus on the Cerbo GX just like if you were standing in front of it and using one of the connected touch screens.

Edited November 24, 2021 by Chad Heiser
for grammatical fixes

[RickS]

Wow! What a nice system you have installed. Looking forward to the results from your testing.

[Chad Heiser]

We headed out on Wednesday evening after dark.  We arrived at the RV park at about 9:00 pm.  I hooked up water, but no power when we arrived.  It was cool in the trailer (and outside) when we arrived.  My wife wanted to run the fireplace (electric heater) to take the edge off in the living room.  It ran for a while (pulling about 1500 watts continuous).  I don’t remember exactly how long, but well over an hour.  We then kicked on the furnace for the rest of the night and it ran on and off all night.  We watched TV (until almost 1:00 a.m. - I’m a night owl), used the microwave to cook dinner, had lights on, etc.  By the next morning we had run the batteries down to about 67% state of charge when the solar kicked in.  That’s over 350 amp hours of usage between travel and our use in a little over 12 hours.  We didn’t exactly conserve 😜.

In the morning the TV came back on, the coffee pot was used, wife’s flat iron got used, etc.  in other words, we used most of the solar we were producing and there wasn’t a lot left over to charge the batteries.  We left the trailer to go to my wife’s family’s house for the holiday at about 10:30 a.m.  The trailer sat with just basic loads on the rest of the day.  

I monitored the system remotely for the day.  It was a sunny day, but we are fairly far north in Northern California and the trailer isn’t positioned ideally for solar production.  Ideally the trailer would be facing east/west for best production the way I mounted the panels.  Unfortunately our site at the park has the trailer facing north/south, which allows the AC’s to shade some of the panels and there are some trees around the site that also potentially added some shading.  I got some decent production for a couple of hours mid day, but the rest of the time was marginal at best.  The batteries got back up to 85% state of charge before the sun went down again.   That is just under 200 amp hours net back into the batteries for the day, including our morning usage.  Not bad for the conditions.  Proper positioning of the trailer would have definitely improved that a bit.

I haven’t played with any really heavy lads yet, but will over the next few days.  I still need to program the new Easy Start I installed on my third AC.  It was too cold the day I installed it (Wednesday morning), so I couldn’t get the AC to actually come on to run through the programming process.  The remote monitoring capabilities are great though and the history tracking makes it really easy to see usage/production over time.  With my old Magnum system there was no remote capabilities and history tracking entailed me looking at menus on the small display periodically and writing values down over time.  The new way is much better. 👍

Edited November 27, 2021 by Chad Heiser

[Chad Heiser]

We have not spent much time in the trailer this weekend, so the testing I thought I would be doing hasn't really happened like I thought it would.  I will say our site is horrible for for solar production.  I didn't pay any attention to the site layout when we arrived because it was late and dark.  I slept in the next morning and didn't go outside until it was time to leave for the family get together, so again I didn't look at the site layout.  It was dark again when we returned to the trailer on Thanksgiving night, so another opportunity to look at the layout was lost.  I was aware based on monitoring the system throughout the day on Thanksgiving that solar production was not what I expected though. 

I finally looked at the site this morning during the daylight before we headed back over to the family gathering.  The trailer is oriented north south in the site and there are definitely trees on both sides of the site that cast shadows on the roof unless the sun is directly overhead.  This meshed with what I was seeing from monitoring the solar production of the system during the day while we were at the gathering.  We got decent production for about three hours midday, but the rest of the day (both mornings and evenings) the production was sub par because of the tree shading.  This is a long winded way of saying our solar production never got us out of the hole I created the first night we arrived and used over 350 amp hours of battery capacity.

I decided to plug the trailer in when we returned to it this evening to charge the batteries up a bit and do some testing.  When I did this, I discovered something I didn't expect.  The site we are in is a 50 amp, full hook up, long, pull through site.  It is ideal for a large rig like we have.  We have stayed at this park many times in various sites here.  They are all similar and we like the park for its convenience when we are visiting my wife's family. 

What I discovered when I plugged in is their 50 amp pedestal doesn't produce true 50 amp 120/240 volt power.  It has two legs of 120 volt, but they are not in opposing phases and don't produce 240 volts.  I have never actually checked the power here because we have a built in EMS from Surgeguard and I rely on that to keep the trailer safe from bad power pedestals (unfortunately the EMS doesn't check for true 240 volt power).  We don't need 240 volt power unless we want to run the clothes dryer (which is 240 volt in our rig) and we have never needed the clothes dryer when we have stayed here because we usually only stay here for a few days at a time.  In other words this has never come up before.

The reason I discovered this is because when I plugged in, the inverters were only producing half the charging power I was expecting.  I checked the inverters and realized L1 was charging, but L2 was still inverting.  As I explained previously in this thread, the way the inverters are programmed to produce 120/240 volt power, they will always produce that power regardless of what the shore source is or regardless of whether there even is a shore source.  When there is less than 50 amp 120/240 volt power, L1 will pass that power through and L2 will invert in an opposing phase to make 240 volt power.  Because L2 was inverting, it wasn't charging and only half the charging capabilities of the system were being used.  This is what clued me in to the issue.

I pulled my meter out and verified this power issue at the pedestal.  I didn't pull the pedestal apart to see if it was a four wire feed (just with non opposing phases of power) or if it was a three wire feed and they just jumpered the other side of the 50 amp plug to make it appear to be a four wire 50 amp feed.  If it is a four wire feed with non opposing phases of power, it could cause a dangerous overload of the neutral wire if the rig were pulling near 50 amps on both L1 and L2.  This is a possibility in the summer up here because it gets hot.  A rig like mine with three air conditioners and other high draw appliances could easily have an issue like this in the heat of summer here (luckily we never stay here in the summer). 

If it is just a three wire feed jumpered to L2 then there is only 50 amps total available at the pedestal and overloading the neutral wire isn't an issue.  Trying to run too many appliances (like three AC's and a few other things at the same time) might be an issue though because of only having 50 amps total power available instead of 50 amps on each leg (a total of 100 amps) in a correctly wired 50 amp power pedestal.  I'm thinking about talking to someone at the park about it tomorrow before we leave, but I doubt they will really know what I am describing unless they have a background in electricity.

Just an interesting (at least to me) development.  😀

[Chad Heiser]

The new GX Touch 70 display showed up this week.  It is significantly bigger than the GX Touch 50 I am used to dealing with.  Who would have thought 2" could make such a difference 🤪.  Of course it is 2" on the diagonal, so it is very noticeable.  It needs a decent amount of space to mount it, which not all control centers or cabinets will have.  Luckily my cabinet has plenty of room.  I really like it and am glad I went with the larger one.  It is easier to interact with the menus on the larger screen too.

Here are a couple of pictures.  Hopefully I will get some time this weekend to play with running some heavy loads from the inverters (who knew retirement would keep me so busy 😁).

Now that I am thinking about it, I have a Touch 50 sitting around.  I will have to take a picture of them side by side to show the difference.  Stay tuned.....

Edited December 4, 2021 by Chad Heiser
add information

[Chad Heiser]

Here is the Touch 50 hanging under the Touch 70.  It gives a little more perspective on the sizes of the units.

[RickS]

Nice.. It is and noticeably larger display. Would be nice to see some kind of flush mounting in the wall or cabinet.

[Chad Heiser]

38 minutes ago, RickS said:

Nice.. It is and noticeably larger display. Would be nice to see some kind of flush mounting in the wall or cabinet.

There are two different mounts for it.  The one I used has a slight stand off from the wall.  It allows the HDMI cable to come out from behind the display while it is mounted to the wall.  My HDMI cable goes up into the ceiling of that cabinet and then over to the sidewall and down to the Cerbo GX.  It comes with a different mount that can be mounted directly to the wall without a stand off.  That mount requires a hole be cut in the wall for the HDMI cable.  I couldn't cut a hole in that particular wall because the routing of my HDMI cable wouldn't have worked to get to where I needed it. 

A completely flush mount to the wall would have to be some kind of custom inset.  It could be done relatively easily if there was access to the back side of the wall it was mounted on, but in most cases in an RV that is pretty difficult to do because of the lack of access.

[RickS]

Yeah if you were doing a new build like most other things it could be pre wired in location you needed. Very nice build you have done there. This is the system I would go with in a new build or if upgrading ours.

[Chad Heiser]

I finally had some time to play with power draws through the inverters.  I was able to run all three air conditioners, the refrigerator, living room entertainment center and the microwave all at once from inverter/battery power.  I still had more power available from the inverters, even with all that going.  The inverters were producing nearly 6000 watts of AC power, so there was another 2000 watts minimum available.  The were pulling 624 amps from the batteries in order to do this, so I can't do it for any extended period though 😁.

This experiment did make me realize I need to better balance some of the high draw circuits between L1 and L2 in the power panel.  I will get that taken care of in the next day or two.

[Chad Heiser]

I updated my website with a complete description of my system and all the pictures.  Here is the link.

[Chad Heiser]

I thought I would come back and follow up with my experiences with the system so far.  I am extremely happy with it.  It is meeting all my expectations and allowing us to live like we are plugged in whether we have hook ups or not.  We just spent three weeks in Quartzsite and really gave the system a good test.  We were staying in the LTVA south of town (with a group of other HDT'ers) so we had no hook ups for the stay.  We payed attention to our power usage, but we basically lived like we normally would.  The only conservation we did was to turn off the dual 5k inverters when we weren't in the trailer or when we went to sleep and didn't need to have them running.  When the big inverters were shut off, the small (1.2K) inverter took over and kept the refrigerator running.  It also powered an outlet in our bedroom for our clock, WIFI router and for charging wireless devices.

We watched TV, my wife worked remotely for a few days each week.  We ran the heater every night, the residential fridge was on 24/7, we ran the dishwasher and even ran the washer and 240 volt dryer.  With us living our lives as we pleased, we never had to run the generator once in the entire three week stay.  We had several days of cloudy weather during our stay and one day of severe winds that had a lot of dust in the air (which affected solar production similar to cloud cover).  The system got back to 100% state of charge almost everyday.  The only days we didn't get back to 100%, we were still back into the 90% range.  These were the cloudy days.  

The only unexpected outcome was that the system actually maxed out the MPPT 150/100 solar charge controller several times throughout our stay.  I knew this controller was over-paneled with the six 365 watt panels I was running through it, but I didn't think I would actually max it out in winter sun conditions.  I knew it would definitely max out in summer sun conditions, but didn't think I would get there in winter.  I had plans to add a second solar controller to the system (and divide the panels between the two controllers) before our big trip in June.  Knowing that I am already maxing the controller out, I will move those plans up a bit.  

[lappir]

Thanks for the update and information. 

Regarding the maxing out of the solar controller, are you using the largest one available for a mobile unit or did you plan to use two from the start and as you said it wasn't thought you would overpower the controller during the winter?  The Sun in Arizona is different by how much compared to where you are now? Do you still max out on a sunny day? 

 

Any way of determining how much "Power" you saved by not leaving the larger inverters running? Is it really worth it? 

With your heat. You mentioned a "Heater" is that just a room heater for sleeping and you have to stay bundled up when awake? 

I'm sitting with my trailer in 18 degree weather and the Mini Split is running away. I have to throw the covers off at night and am sitting shirtless this morning at the computer. I have the thermometer set at 72 which so I have found to be the best for keeping condensation at a minimum. The dehumidifier has not run at all at that setting. Before at 68 (my preferred) the dehumidifier would run quite a bit and I'd still have condensation on the windows every morning.  It will be interesting to see how it changes when the temperatures outside warm up to the 30's and 50's. 

 

Thanks again for sharing. 

 

Rod

 

[dennisvr]

Great to hear that your system worked pretty much what you expected.  Always nice when a plan comes together.  
My system is performing better than I expected.  I have so much excess power, I have my camping neighbor plugged into my unit and still only get down to 93% SOC in the morning.
To let everyone know, I bought Chads solar panels that he removed from his rig.  He did a fantastic install and introduced me to Victon products (150/100 Charge controller).  Since the Install I have installed a Victron inverter/charger and a shunt that I can view the working via bluetooth.  Thanks again Chad................

[Larry Burkett]

Chad, I feel for your poor wife having to work while you play.😁😁

[Chad Heiser]

On 2/6/2022 at 5:54 AM, lappir said:

Regarding the maxing out of the solar controller, are you using the largest one available for a mobile unit or did you plan to use two from the start and as you said it wasn't thought you would overpower the controller during the winter?  The Sun in Arizona is different by how much compared to where you are now? Do you still max out on a sunny day? 

Victron’s solar controllers are all capable of working with multiple battery voltages (12, 24, 36 and 48 volt).  As the battery bank voltage goes up, so does the wattage capacity of the solar controller.  My battery bank is 12 volt.  The largest solar wattage capacity of a Victron controller on a 12 volt battery bank is 1450 watts.  The MPPT 150/100 and MPPT 250/100 are both rated for 1450 watts of solar on a 12 volt battery bank.  I have 2190 watts of solar currently on a 150/100 controller.  This is obviously over-paneled, but I didn’t think I would get up to 1450 watts of production out of my flat mounted panels in winter time conditions.  In winter conditions with flat mounted panels, I expect about 50%-60% of the wattage rating of the panels.  I was actually making slightly over 60%, which is what was maxing out my controller.  I intend to add some more solar in the future and divide the panels up between two 150/100 solar controllers.  I will probably do that sooner than later now that I see I am making more power than I expected under the current winter conditions.

On 2/6/2022 at 5:54 AM, lappir said:

Any way of determining how much "Power" you saved by not leaving the larger inverters running? Is it really worth it? 

The two large inverters with just the basics on (residential fridge along with minimum draws to keep the entertainment center connected but not powered on, the microwave clock, the bedroom clock, etc) draw about 10 amps of DC power continuous from the batteries.  That number goes up when we actually actively use 120 volt stuff.  The small inverter just keeps the fridge and the bedroom clock going and it runs just at just about 3 amps of DC power continuous.  That is a 7 amp (generally) savings.  That can add up over 24 hrs.  We probably had the big inverters of for about 12 hrs a day (8 hrs while sleeping and a few more hours each day when we weren’t in the trailer to use any 120 volt stuff).  That is almost an 85 amp power savings each day.

On 2/6/2022 at 5:54 AM, lappir said:

With your heat. You mentioned a "Heater" is that just a room heater for sleeping and you have to stay bundled up when awake? 

The heater I was talking about was the built in forced air propane heater in the trailer.

[Chad Heiser]

On 2/6/2022 at 7:09 AM, dennisvr said:

Great to hear that your system worked pretty much what you expected.  Always nice when a plan comes together.  
My system is performing better than I expected.  I have so much excess power, I have my camping neighbor plugged into my unit and still only get down to 93% SOC in the morning.
To let everyone know, I bought Chads solar panels that he removed from his rig.  He did a fantastic install and introduced me to Victon products (150/100 Charge controller).  Since the Install I have installed a Victron inverter/charger and a shunt that I can view the working via bluetooth.  Thanks again Chad................

Good to hear yours is working so well for you.

[dennisvr]

4 hours ago, Chad Heiser said:

Good to hear yours is working so well for you.

I have a confession to make.  My last post I bragged that I had 93% in the morning even with me powering my neighbor, which was not true.  I have 93% with just me and 84% with him plugged into my rig.  Still, I think is excellent performance from my set up.   Still can't thank up enough for the superb install. 

[Chad Heiser]

I finally got around to separating my solar panels into two separate arrays. I now have four of the 365 watt panels on my original MPPT 150/100 charge controller.  I moved the front two panels on the trailer to a new MPPT 100/50 charge controller.  The 150/100 charge controller is rated for 1450 watts of solar on a 12 volt system.  It now has 1460 watts of solar connected to it (instead of the full 2190 watts I had connected to it before).  The 100/50 charge controller is rated for 700 watts of solar.  It has 730 watts connected to it.  Between the two charge controllers, my system is now only “over-paneled” by 40 watts.  I shouldn’t be leaving any unused solar power on the roof with the new configuration.  This should get me some additional charging amps for our upcoming summer trips.