New on solar system

KahneFan5523

Hello everyone, I have a question for you guys. I got from a family relative three solar panels and three charge controllers. The family relative did not want them, so person sold them to me. Anyway, I would like to wire them up and use them for some landscaping lights around the house. I have yet to decide of lights to use. I was thinking of to wire up all them together and came out of idea I don't know if this will work or not. The solar panels are 80 watt, 60 watt and 50 watt solar panels. Two charge controllers look like a simple design charge controller and the other one is a Morningstar PS-30. My idea is to wire each solar panel to one charge controller. And from each charge controller go to one marine battery. Can I get away with this, just wondering. Thanks.

vtmaps

Re: New on solar system

KahneFan5523 wrote: »

And from each charge controller go to one marine battery. Can I get away with this, just wondering.

Yes. Actually that is often the best way to deal with mismatched panels... each panels gets its own controller and all controllers charge just one battery. --vtMaps

BB.

Re: New on solar system

Batteries are going to be your "weak point" here...

First Marine batteries are not very good "deep cycle" storage batteries (they are usually trade-off between automotive and deep cycle). So--Deep cycling will probably take the battery out in a year or two.

Next, lead acid batteries do not like being taken below ~50% state of charge when cycling... And if you take one down to 20% or less state of charge, you run the risk of damaging more or more cells.

So, if this was landscape lighting you turned on when needed--vs something automatic where amount of power/sunlight could take the battery to near zero state of charge (say winter time).

You can read about lead acid batteries here:

Deep Cycle Battery FAQ
www.batteryfaq.org

If you still wish to do this project... Then I would suggest starting by measuring your loads and defining the "on-time" per night (amp*hours or watt*hours per day).

Once you know how much power you will need, then we can define the battery bank to support it. And finally the amount of solar panels needed to supply the needed power and properly recharge the battery bank.

If you want automated lighting, there are some night "lighting" controllers (with darkness detection and timers) that make automating a bit easier:

Solar Lighting Controllers

-Bill