Hello All, first post here. My and Wife live in a retired Ski Shuttle that we converted ourselves into a tiny home. We’ve been living in it for about two years. We recently bought some land in Pagosa Springs, CO and will be moving there soon. When we first built the bus we put in a complete electrical system that has served us well. I set it up in order to have some solar capacity but we’ve been plugged into shore power pretty much the entire time we’ve been living in the bus minus the occasional cross country road trip. Here’s the setup:
-4 Vmax SLR155 AGM 12v Deep Cycle 155ah (620ah)
-Renogy 4 100w panels (Mounted in Series-Parallel)
- Rover 40a MPPT
- AIMS Pure Sin Inverter/Charger 2000w with 6000w surge 50ft 10AWG Solar Cable
- MC4 Male/Female Connectors TriMetric TM-2030 Battery Monitor
12v distribution center
Loads: 2 12v Led lighting strips (primary lighting
12v Water Pump
Suburban Propane heater electric ignition 12v
Magic Chef 4.3 cuft fridge (main consumer, on startup it will surge about 10-12amps, including inverter, and when maintaining it will run 2amps including inverter)
Aims Inverter/Charger
Occasional Laptop and phone charging
With this setup my battery bank (12v Parallel) will last rough 28 -32 hours to get to 50% ie using 310ah. Obviously my 400w array doesn’t do much to fully charge the battery bank. I received the panels from a friend for free so I can’t complain.
Here’s where I need some help, with our soon to be move to Pagosa I would like to move to 100% solar. I have a backup 2000w gas generator to use in case of emergency. Ideally, I’d like to stay around $1k to beef up my setup. I’ve been thinking of either getting a new charge controller, 80a or up, or getting another charge controller and installing it in addition to the existing Renogy 40a MPPT. Is it a good idea to hook another CC up to the battery bank with my current Renogy MPPT? I’ve thought about going the 24v route but I don’t want to switch out all my lights, water pump, water heater, and inverter. As my setup sits now I’ve thought about adding 200w more to my 40a MPPT and then getting an additional 60a or 80a MPPT and putting somewhere between 600-800w worth of panels(Grid tied or 12v?). The property we have has great southern exposure on a hill and typical gets 6-8 hours of useable sun midwinter (gotta love the SW!). Any help on MPPT choice and how to setup my next array would be greatly appreciated!
-4 Vmax SLR155 AGM 12v Deep Cycle 155ah (620ah)
-Renogy 4 100w panels (Mounted in Series-Parallel)
- Rover 40a MPPT
- AIMS Pure Sin Inverter/Charger 2000w with 6000w surge 50ft 10AWG Solar Cable
- MC4 Male/Female Connectors TriMetric TM-2030 Battery Monitor
12v distribution center
Loads: 2 12v Led lighting strips (primary lighting
12v Water Pump
Suburban Propane heater electric ignition 12v
Magic Chef 4.3 cuft fridge (main consumer, on startup it will surge about 10-12amps, including inverter, and when maintaining it will run 2amps including inverter)
Aims Inverter/Charger
Occasional Laptop and phone charging
With this setup my battery bank (12v Parallel) will last rough 28 -32 hours to get to 50% ie using 310ah. Obviously my 400w array doesn’t do much to fully charge the battery bank. I received the panels from a friend for free so I can’t complain.
Here’s where I need some help, with our soon to be move to Pagosa I would like to move to 100% solar. I have a backup 2000w gas generator to use in case of emergency. Ideally, I’d like to stay around $1k to beef up my setup. I’ve been thinking of either getting a new charge controller, 80a or up, or getting another charge controller and installing it in addition to the existing Renogy 40a MPPT. Is it a good idea to hook another CC up to the battery bank with my current Renogy MPPT? I’ve thought about going the 24v route but I don’t want to switch out all my lights, water pump, water heater, and inverter. As my setup sits now I’ve thought about adding 200w more to my 40a MPPT and then getting an additional 60a or 80a MPPT and putting somewhere between 600-800w worth of panels(Grid tied or 12v?). The property we have has great southern exposure on a hill and typical gets 6-8 hours of useable sun midwinter (gotta love the SW!). Any help on MPPT choice and how to setup my next array would be greatly appreciated!
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