Battery Configuration

[dinows]

You may have too much charging amps for that battery system IF all of the panels are facing due South and producing nameplate amps. Your batteries should be able to handle a C/8 charge rate which would be about 25 amps but if you get more you could cook the batteries with a C/7 or C/6 charge rate.

If you can measure the charging amps it would help determine if you have too much panel wattage but in most cases panels will never produce their name plate info.

OK Thanks, Guess I will Google how to measure the charging amps and get back to you, My panels face magnetic South, now I assume that if I added two more 6 volt now I would have to much battery<< thanks as always

[PNW_Steve]

Sorry. I thought your batteries were 200Ah at 12v. If you only have a 200Ah bank using 2 x 6v then you have more then enough solar panel wattage. Actually you may have too much depending on the amount of charging amps you get during the day.

Basically you want to have about a C/10 charge rate where C = the Amp Hour rating of your battery system. So with a 200Ah system you would need 20 amps to meet the C/10 charge rate. So right now you have more than enough panel wattage at 400 to get that 20 amps or more.

Depending on what you need for a daily watt hour use should determine how big a battery system you have. With a 12V 200Ah you can safely generate about 600 watt hours a day.

If you need a bigger battery system then you need to match it with charging amps to meet that C/10 charge rate.

Another option was pointed out to me. I have not tried it yet.

the Midnite Classic, when used in conjunction with the Wizbang Jr., can be set to limit charge current to the batteries while making full panel output to your loads.

I hope to try this out on my RV some time this winter. I am installing 1800 watts of panels and a 24v - 400a/h battery bank. I spend a fair bit of time in Western Washington and it gets cloudy there sometimes...

[dinows]

You may have too much charging amps for that battery system IF all of the panels are facing due South and producing nameplate amps. Your batteries should be able to handle a C/8 charge rate which would be about 25 amps but if you get more you could cook the batteries with a C/7 or C/6 charge rate.

If you can measure the charging amps it would help determine if you have too much panel wattage but in most cases panels will never produce their name plate info.

What I think I am going to do is hook the two 6 volt 200 amps in series them hook a 200amp 12 volt deep cycle that I have in parallel which will still give me 12 volts and try that

[SunEagle]

What I think I am going to do is hook the two 6 volt 200 amps in series them hook a 200amp 12 volt deep cycle that I have in parallel which will still give me 12 volts and try that

Unfortunately you then run the risk of having different batteries in the same system which leads to unequal charging and discharging.

[Mike90250]

Unfortunately you then run the risk of having different batteries in the same system which leads to unequal charging and discharging.

No risk at all, it's a certainty. You will have several months of 400ah capacity, but the batteries will race each other to the bottom.