Making 2 solar panels into a portable suitcase.

[Bigbillsd]

I have two 100 watt Grape 12/18v panels (GS-STAR-100W) that I was going to mount on my RV, but since I bought them last fall I have decided that I may upgrade to a new coach next year and want to make those panels into a 200 watt portable solution for this summers travels starting in a couple weeks. I am looking for sources for legs, handles, hinges, and cabling to make it quick to setup and take down.

My plan it to install a controller inside the RV Inverter cabinet to piggy back on existing 4/0 cables going to the batteries and wire the input side to a mountable plug if I can find something. I am looking for things like heavy gauge flexible wiring from the panel to a mountable outlet/inlet to plug them into the coach. I want no more than a 2% voltage drop for the cabling. I'm using 18v in the voltage calculation.

I am looking for the below parts
1. Folding legs to stand them up on the long length sides.
2. Corner Protectors
3. 15' cable (10 GA) to connect from MC4 to whatever inlet ports are available for mounting. SAE? (possibly a 30' cable too, 7 or 6 gauge) (12v 12amp )
4. I am thinking that hinges and a handle will not be hard to source, probably HD or Lowes. but if you know something better?
5. I found MC4 connectors to parallel them together from Amazon.

Best Regards, Bill

[Sunking]

Bill why are you using low voltage panels, and why are you planning to wire them in parallel? That just causes you the problems you are trying to fix and work around silly.

Use high voltage panels wired in series with a MPPT Controller and all your problems go away. 2% voltage drop is much easier and a lot less expensive working at say 60 to 120 volts.

Edit Note:

Wire your 2 panels wired in series, use 12 AWG 2-conductor SO up to 30 feet 1-way, with a SunSaver 15-amp MPPT Conmtroller. Use Anderson Solar Power Speck connectors.

[Bigbillsd]

I'm using low voltage panels for two reasons. 1 I have them. 2 they work great with PWM controllers.
I see no need to spend triple the cost for an MPPT controller for such a small system when I can just spend a few dollars more for the right gauge wire. Also, that Sunsaver won't charge with high enough voltage for my Absorb cycle nor its Equalize cycle and its voltage is too high for float on my batteries. Also when I was doing the research for controllers the guys at Morninstar told me the charge values are not customizable on those.

With all that said, I wasn't looking for any of that, I'm building a portable system. I need sources for Legs, cabling, connectors etc, that's what my post is about.

-Bill