Glad I Upgraded . Info on battery bank please ?

[carolinaken]

As many here in Wilmington NC, we was without power for a week. A month or so before the storm I had upgraded my system from 300 to 500w mono panels and upgraded my battery bank from 2 -100ah to 4 -100ah . Being gas was limited I ran my generator on 6 hours and off 6 hours. My wife has a medical condition that makes things bad for her when she gets too hot. I'm SOOO thankful I had my tiny solar system to keep some fans running to make things tolerable for her when off generator . My question is what is a good balance for a max battery bank for my system ?

[SunEagle]

Depending on the charge controller type.

An MPPT type with 500watts of panels can provide about 40 amps of charging which should be ok for a 12V 400Ah battery bank

A PWM type with 500watt of panels may provide less than 30 amps of charging so your battery bank would need to be around 12V 300Ah.

Even if you have an MPPT type charger it sounds like you have 4 100Ah batteries wired in parallel. That is a plan for at least one of those batteries having an early death.

[carolinaken]

I have a SolarEpic 40A MPPT Solar Charge Controller with MT50 Remote Meter + Temperature Sensor PC Communication Cable Set.. have the panels wired in series.. batteries in parallel.. all equipment is Renogy brand and set up per recommendations via Renogy. . My neighbor came across some unknown brand solar panels he wants to give me. I know its not good to mix and match. I will test and post when I see what they are and if working . maybe I can benefit in using them on a separate system

[Justin B.]

You can test your freebie panels for voltage and current and if they turn out to be the same, but a lot different than the Renogy, I suppose you could run them through their own CC. I have 9 Renogy R100D panels running through a 60 amp MPPT controller at our cabin.

[Sunking]

My neighbor came across some unknown brand solar panels he wants to give me. I know its not good to mix and match. I will test and post when I see what they are and if working . maybe I can benefit in using them on a separate system[/h]

Here is an option for you to use those panels. Get them their own controller to charge a common battery. No problems using two panel systems to charge a common battery providing it is not too much current for the batteries.

[carolinaken]

Thanks for the info.Will update when I know more