Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronnie
So it seems that from what everyone is saying is that panel wattage should be close to equal battery amperage to get in the "zone" for good chargeing. In other words one watt of solar should be paired with about one amp of battery capacity? Hope I am saying this clearly.
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That will work, sort of, but it's not ideal. By doing that you'll be charging the batteries at the lower end of the recommended 5 to 13% charge rate. My feeling is that it's best to aim for the higher end of that range on a bus or RV roof, simply because it probably won't be ideally oriented most of the time to the sun, especially in winter when the sun is lower. FYI, I have a smidgeon over 2kW of panels to charge about 900aH of FLA batteries, and that calculates to be about a 13% charge rate. My plan is to have all the batteries fully charged each day even in winter, so in summer I'll probably have excess power that I can then use for water heating, arc welding, smelting aluminum, jump-starting nuclear power stations, mining Bitcoins, etc.
John