[Spruce]

Hi Rich,
As we are deep into winter but on the right side looking forward to summer, how are you managing with the solar panels?

[P @ F]

Hey , Happy New Year matey 

If im totally honest , not been great , but then i was never expecting miracles !
In general its been poor in terms of no bench intervention , once the sun had taken its low position in the sky it was a totally different ball game , in the summer i was getting more in than going out , winter was more a case of on average 1 Amp in and 10 Amps out , and thats shorter hours done than most others .

I was running the 80 and 40 panels in paralell at the time , if i got a bit of sun it was not too bad , but overcast saw the yield drop to as little as half an amp all day .

I decided to take a different approach with the wiring , i ordered some hopper cables that enabled me to swap from parralel to series wiring in seconds , the results were far better .

If the sun is out i run in parralell , i grab the higher amps and  lose the open circuit 18 volt which is cut down to 14 volt or so .
If overcast i run in  series , i grab the highest voltage available , possible 36 volt and convert anything over 14 volt with MPPT.

This i have found to give me at least 30% more yield being overcast with series wiring .

On Thursday it was a mix of sun and overcast so i left the wiring as series , at current settings my pump is pulling 3.5 amps .
10 am until 3.30 pm on run of the mill houses ........3 amps in with 12 amps out .

I think i have gone as far as i can with the gear i have got , the only place to go now is a tilt mech on the roof to maximise yield.

I am fairly confident that in winter i could get away with 1 maybe 2 benches a week , and summer not bother to bench at all .       

[Spruce]

Hey , Happy New Year matey 

If im totally honest , not been great , but then i was never expecting miracles !
In general its been poor in terms of no bench intervention , once the sun had taken its low position in the sky it was a totally different ball game , in the summer i was getting more in than going out , winter was more a case of on average 1 Amp in and 10 Amps out , and thats shorter hours done than most others .

I was running the 80 and 40 panels in paralell at the time , if i got a bit of sun it was not too bad , but overcast saw the yield drop to as little as half an amp all day .

I decided to take a different approach with the wiring , i ordered some hopper cables that enabled me to swap from parralel to series wiring in seconds , the results were far better .

If the sun is out i run in parralell , i grab the higher amps and  lose the open circuit 18 volt which is cut down to 14 volt or so .
If overcast i run in  series , i grab the highest voltage available , possible 36 volt and convert anything over 14 volt with MPPT.

This i have found to give me at least 30% more yield being overcast with series wiring .

On Thursday it was a mix of sun and overcast so i left the wiring as series , at current settings my pump is pulling 3.5 amps .
10 am until 3.30 pm on run of the mill houses ........3 amps in with 12 amps out .

I think i have gone as far as i can with the gear i have got , the only place to go now is a tilt mech on the roof to maximise yield.

I am fairly confident that in winter i could get away with 1 maybe 2 benches a week , and summer not bother to bench at all .     

Thanks for the update.

We are on the right side of longer days so it can only improve from now into summer.

[Marc Stock]

Do you have a box with the series and parallel circuitry wired up so you can switch it over. Or are you manually swapping wires about on the panels?

[P @ F]

I just have to place these into the wiring , with them in place I can run parralell , without its series , takes about 1 minute to do .

[Marc Stock]

Ah i see.