Beginner looking for help

[Fire425]

Hello all,
Looking for some help. I am looking to install a few solar panels at the cottage. I know basically nothing about electrical. I have 2 330w, 8.88amp panels that were given to me. I was going to buy a 30amp controller hooked up to a couple deep cycle batteries. 30-40 ft between panels and controller. I will be using this too power a number of lights and charging phones/iPods/laptops and other things in the future.
Here are my questions.

The connectors on the back Of the panel I have never seen. How do I splice the wire that goes from panel to the controller??

What gauge wire should I use??

Should I put batteries in series or parallel??

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also if I am an idiot and setting this up wrong let me know cause I am just following some diagrams from on the web.

[Amy@altE]

We need a lot more information to be able to help. What is the voltage of the panels? I'm guessing nominal 24V, which would have a Vmp of about 38V and Voc of about 44V. What is the brand and model of the panel? They likely have MC4 connectors on them, but we won't know unless we know the model.

Are you planning on powering anything that uses AC power, that plugs into the wall, or does everything have a car charger that you can charge off a 12V battery? If AC, you need an inverter, if not, you can just use a 12V battery bank. Either way, you are likely going to need an MPPT charge controller to bring the voltage from the panels down to the battery bank and manage the charging. Depending on which charge controller you use, you may be able to wire the panels in series.

I'll hold off on any more answers until we get more details from you.