Help for beginners pls

Re: Help for beginners pls

Could you be more specific about what you are doing and what advice you wish. Is this battery based, or grid tied... or??? As for the temps, I am assuming that's in Celsius? Give a few more details and I am sure you'll get some good advice...
Good Luck

Re: Wiring strings

this thread is nearly a duplicate to your other thread seen here,
http://forum.solar-electric.com/showthread.php?p=32573#post32573
so i will merge them.
please only do this once as duplications won't get you a faster or more varied answer.

Re: Help for beginners pls

very good on the back ups to the grid, but with that many pvs are you expecting long term outages? most will have enough battery capacity to last 2-3 days charged from the grid and still not exceed 50% dod. if your loads are so big that the battery bank will need to be huge enough to prevent affording that many batteries then conservation needs to be implemented to conserve on usages and in this case the pvs can make up that difference even for short term. it all depends on how the poweer consumption is and your best economic path with equipment to determine if you'll lean heavier to more pvs or more batteries.

Re: Wiring strings

IF you would respond to the questions asked, you are more likely to get an answer to your question......for example, it took you 3 more responses to find out your charge controler is a Flexmax 80.....which has a voltage limit of 150v input.

Now, once again...WHAT is the panel voltage.....look on the data tag for Voc or Vmp.....or spec the EXACT model of the panel you are looking at....

Exact answers ( "how many panels in a string" ) require exact information on your part.

Re: Help for beginners pls

tnandy,
for the kc-200gt it is 26.3v vmp, 32.9v voc, and 7.61a imp as a simple search of kyocera revealed. as to the flex 80 he did state so in the beginning, but typoed it somewhat.

drchatnuff,
yes, 3 or 4 can be series (4 seriesed works out well for 16 pvs as it will be a 4x4 arrangement) and each string will need to be sized for the wire run and thus the proper size wire to carry the loads for each string. now this is where i am at a loss to know what connector type is on the module (mc?), but you don't want to cut off the connectors that are on the pvs as that could void the warranty. you will need to buy connectors with wire pigtails to make connections to whatever wire you elect to use. if more than 2 strings of pvs are to tie together (you will have 4) then these will need to be fused and combined in a combiner box.
here's some examples of combiners,
http://store.solar-electric.com/sopawiinco.html
from the combiner box a larger size wire needs to take the pv power down to your controller.
hope this has helped you some.

Re: Help for beginners pls

DrChatNuff wrote: »

I fully understand what you've said. considering you said four panels in series is ok you dont think the voltage might be too high

you should be fine with 4 in series as this is straight from the outback specs on their website,
150 VDC absolute maximum coldest conditions / 145 VDC start-up and operating maximum.
with 32.9v voc per panel and that gives 131.6v for 4 in series which is greater than a 10v difference to the max start and operate voltage of 145v. if you went with 3 in series that would mean paralleling 5 of those strings for a total of 15 pvs leaving 1 pv unused.