On Fri, Apr 03, 2009 at 02:53:24PM -0400, Jim wrote: > My charge controller has turned up it's toes. It wasn't a MPPT > controller so I'm now off the fence about buying one. I have seen the > Morning Star unit discussed here before. I'm leaning to the Morningstar > SunSaver 15 Amp unit at about $230. I have two 95 watt panels. > > I also see that you can connect panels in series up to 75 volts or so > and use this unit to charge a 12V bank. > > Two questions, does anyone have any other controllers they'd suggest I > look at?
I've got a BlueSky 2512i 25A regulator (should have bought the iX, darn it. I missed the fact that only the iX has an auxiliary battery output; I thought both of them did.) Other than that little basic bit, I just love the thing: it's boosted my SP output significantly. Oh, and I got a really good deal on it from a place in California: $189, if I recall correctly. I saw one at a boat show a couple of months ago, where they wanted $450 for it. > And by hooking two panels in series I'd double the voltage and keep the > max current lower than a parallel configuration. Actually, no - the current limit on those units only relates to output. So, whether you convert, for example, (4 panels * 4A)@19v or (4 panels * 19v)@4A, the output is still [email protected] (if I recall the nominal output voltage correctly.) > That means less loss > in the wire. What I don't know is if one of the panels is blocked, will > that hurt the output of the other panel? In series, yes, it would. -- * Ben Okopnik * Editor-in-Chief, Linux Gazette * http://LinuxGazette.NET * _______________________________________________ Liveaboard mailing list [email protected] To adjust your membership settings over the web http://www.liveaboardnow.org/mailman/listinfo/liveaboard To subscribe send an email to [email protected] To unsubscribe send an email to [email protected] The archives are at http://www.liveaboardnow.org/pipermail/liveaboard/ To search the archives http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] The Mailman Users Guide can be found here http://www.gnu.org/software/mailman/mailman-member/index.html
