. Hello vanners ,I have just mounted a new solar panel to the roof of my van and have not connected it to the controller as yet. Do I need to disconnect the panels from the controller ,the existing panel is still connected up ,so how do I go about installation of the panels ,hope I made sense .JOHN..
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Atherton tableland Nth Queensland. Currently have a Crusader Manhatton ,But in april 2017 will be trading it in on a Retreat Brampton.
Ideally you would combine like panels, as in same brand and model. However panels of the same voltage and cell type (mono or poly) together would be fine.
In the ideal world you would be able to look at a panel and tell by how many cells were in a long row how many cells were in series and what the voltage was, but a couple of things get in the way, many panels have two long rows connected together in series, and ther eis now such an amazing range of technologies that the cells themselves are now producing different voltages.
When I wa sin the industry 22% was regarded as the theoretical maximum conversion efficiency, but I just read an article that a company was moving towards production with a 34.6% efficient cell (tri junction technology), and the article was discussing newer better technologies that were being trialed.
With the advances in efficiency, and the ever reducing costs, why would you consider using anything else other than solar as your power source for a new house.
