Will this setup (numbers) work?

[yunaiseng]

Hi there! New to solar here, thanks in advance for any input!

I've got a Marxon G1500 portable power station with input specs of (600W, 11-70V, 25A) connected to 6 Renogy 100W (VOC - 24.3V, ISC - 5.21A) panels. They're connected as 3 sets of 2 panels connected in series, then the 3 resulting sets combine in parallel. If I'm understanding it right, that means the final input specs to the power station is 48.6V, 15.63A. This setup works just fine, but the highest input I'm ever seeing on the device is 480 watts.

So, I'm thinking of adding 150 watts in panels to bring it up to 750 watts, anticipating that with the same 80% drop, i'll end up right at 600 watts input max to the power station. First off, am I off in that thinking?

Now if I were 3 more 50W Renogy panels (VOC - 22.3V, ISC - 2.94A) and add one to each of the pairs in series, to make them each a triple in series totaling 250 watts, and then combine those 3 sets in parallel, would everything work out? (The VOC would add up to 70.9. Would that tiny exceeding be a problem for the power station? Do the amps get thrown off?)

Or is there a neater solution to what I'm hoping to accomplish? Thank you!

[scrambler]

Normally, inverters can be connected to more input power than output power, and just clip the input to what they can output.

That said, if they give you different specs for Input and output, and they say the max input is 600W, then you want to confirm with them if it would be OK to have more panels.

This is because while you may only get 80% of the panel rating on most days, there will be circumstances where you could get more, especially during what we call Cloud Edge effect. When the sun passes at the edge of a cloud, I have seen my panel producing 10% OVER their rated power, so a 750W array could potentially go up to 825W, normally for a brief period, but worth confirming what the inverter can handle, especially on these portable generators which are not very sophisticated inverters....

[yunaiseng]

Oh, wow, I see. I'd never heard of that effect. I'll look into it! And I'll ask the manufacturers directly how their unit gets more input than rated.

That aside, what about the idea of adding 3 more 50watt panels? Specifically, I'm wondering about connecting two 100W Renogy panels (VOC - 24.3V, ISC - 5.21A) panels with one 50W Renogy panel (VOC - 22.3V, ISC - 2.94A) in series:

(1) Is it an issue if the VOC add up to 70.9, which is just outside the range of 11-70V for the power station?

(2) What will happen as a result of the ISC not matching?

Thanks!

[scrambler]

I don't believe you can connect two panels with a different current in series, as it would result in limiting the output of the others.

And I would definitely not want to exceed the input voltage rating.

[yunaiseng]

Got it, thanks so much for the quick responses!