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45 watts is not enough to properly charge a 100 ah battery. It's even worse since you don't have good sun. Yes you can add a 100w panel on another charge controller to the battery. That may not be enough with your shade issues. You might look at also replacing the HF panels with another 100w panel.
Your battery may also be destroyed as that small of a load on it would not discharge it that much in 1 night. That tells me you've had is in an undercharged state for quite some time.
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Buy a higher voltage higher wattage Grid Tied Panel of 200 to 300 watts. Low voltage battery panels cost 2 to 6 times more per watt than grid tied panels.MSEE, PEComment
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Get better panels, like grid tied panels, find a sweet spot either on roof of cabin and cut the trees nessasary for solar insolation, or ground mount in a close but ideal sunny spot. Either way 45 watt's is a joke and will eat as many batteries you can feed it over 35 AH. you need to stop buying and start reading/learning to design your cabins solar power battery system. Trow the junk panels away and get those batteries on a good stiff source of charge. If solar power is important to you cut the trees, if not run a genny. Off grid systems are a particular beast, very hands on solar to battery matching as well as maintenence and monitoring.Comment
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What kind of funky math are you using?
2.4 watts would be 4.8ah @ 12v. Since you should only use 20% of a battery in a day you need at least a 24ah battery.
With shade issues on your panels they are putting out zero. Simply shading one corner of a panel with your finger will shut down the power it will drop the voltage to low to charge the battery.
My guess is that your battery is not too small. Just that the 45w panels and shade issues you do not have enough power to charge it.
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I believe that because people see the size of those HF panels (~3' x 3') they think they generate a lot of power. But combined they are only 45 watts total and very inefficient. IMO are better at providing shade then generating electricity.
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NO. 45 watts with shade issues will not supply enough to keep the battery charged.
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Well the decision is always yours to make. HF solar panels are a joke even if others say they work. They really don't produce much and do not last. Both of those data points come from a relative that I trust that owned a system and watched it degrade very quickly.
As for what you want to spend. Again that is up to you. But there are cheap ways to go and better ways.
I went what I thought was a better way with a 30A PWM CC, 5 x 80 watt battery panels, 4 x 12v 50Ah AGM batteries along with combiner box, racking, wiring, fuses, etc. I spent ~ $2500 and got a system that produces ~ 600 watt hours a day.
What I could have done was go with a 30A MPPT CC, 2 x 200 watt panels, 2 x 6v 232Ah FLA batteries, no combiner box, less fuses and wire for about $1000 less and gotten a 700 watt hour system. But I would not listen to the fine folks here because I thought I knew better. Live and learn.
The choice is your to make.Comment
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I do not speak for SK nor does he, I. I only offered advice on your set up and your expectations. I did not belittle you or call you names only critique your set up and allow you to make the best decision for your particular needs. You are just upset that we speak the truth that you do not want to hear. If you buy 9 more HF kits you will have 450 watts, that's so much better than 45 sounds good to me.Comment
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To be honest, I came to this forum with the same reasons -- I had done my own research and wanted my thoughts to be validated. But they weren't. But you know, I'm willing to admit that - I was wrong, and had done the wrong research. And I'm glad that I got corrected before I sunk a whole lot more money into the wrong direction and then felt like I couldn't back out.
It feels like your feelings are hurt because your thoughts weren't validated? I can't read what your other posts were because you deleted them for some reason(?) But it really seems like you need to just stop and take a deep breath for a few days/weeks, and then do some more digging. Even if it's not on this forum.
I'm not doubting that you talked to others, but for whatever it's worth, what is their experience long-term? From what I've learned, it's really easy to run an underpowered system for a while, until doing so kills your batteries because they never get a proper charge. Then all of the sudden things get really expensive really quickly.
By the way, congrats on bragging about how much money you make. Personally, I don't make that much money, so I have to be careful with how I spend what I do have...Comment
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