300w solar on 2006 Sienna. Help me find a charge controller and batteries.

[John61CT]

It makes no functional difference in your case but the product is incorrectly described (perhaps unintentionally) by Renogy.  I just reported the discrepancy to Amazon.

AFAIK there is no real standard for these now-pretty-obsolete nominal labels for "12V" vs "24V".

Certainly never heard of any in between.

When used with PWM SCs, the question becomes,

"how much wattage is being discarded by the over voltage?"

And in fact the lower voltage could mean "more efficient" for charging a 24V bank.

But these labels are now mostly irrelevant for most MPPT, users should just compare the Voc rating with the range accepted by the SC.

 

[frater secessus]

The nomenclature is based on .5v/cell.

The labels are irrelevant assuming a 12v bank. Vabs for 24v bank could be 29.6v (14.8v x 2). With a Vmp (in lab conditions) of 32.25v there's not a lot of working room there.

 

[frater secessus]

Too late for an edit, but my nomenclature claim is clearly wrong.

 

[frater secessus]

Now if you can find me a cheaper dometic cfx35, we are in business.

Cheapest I see right now is 621.97 shipped.

You might watch it with a pricing tracker.  Here is the info on camelcamelcamel:

 

[tripper]

I would just get the Victron you originally linked, the 100/30, your panel will be well below its limits and the controller will be stay happily cool all the time.  Call around your local home solar installers and see if they will sell you one house panel, I was able to with a huge savings, no shipping and they sold the panel cheap as they buy in huge lots. If you really want a crazy nice panel find an LG, they have 365 watt 60 cell panels and 405 watt 72 cell panels, these are much better panels than the Renogy's and put out a lot more power for the size.  I personally have these LG's (older versions) 3 x on my RV and 30 x in my backyard, they have performed flawlessly and been thru some crazy hailstorms, and some rough off roading on the rig.

I have 4 Victron controllers and I am very impressed with them, they never get hot even at max capacity, and have a crazy number of programmable options.

LG Panels manufacturers site, Google Lg panels to find local sellers.

You will find for example at the RTR 2 years back, a few cloudy, overcast or rainy days and you will wish you had as much solar as you could get, every day isn't a perfect day and sometimes you get that 1 hour break in the clouds and that is when the most solar you can have really pays off. the worst thing on multiple rainy/overcast days is to have to severely limit your power use when you are stuck inside.

 

[jrose152]

I would just get the Victron you originally linked, the 100/30, your panel will be well below its limits and the controller will be stay happily cool all the time.  Call around your local home solar installers and see if they will sell you one house panel, I was able to with a huge savings, no shipping and they sold the panel cheap as they buy in huge lots. If you really want a crazy nice panel find an LG, they have 365 watt 60 cell panels and 405 watt 72 cell panels, these are much better panels than the Renogy's and put out a lot more power for the size.  I personally have these LG's (older versions) 3 x on my RV and 30 x in my backyard, they have performed flawlessly and been thru some crazy hailstorms, and some rough off roading on the rig.

I have 4 Victron controllers and I am very impressed with them, they never get hot even at max capacity, and have a crazy number of programmable options.

LG Panels manufacturers site, Google Lg panels to find local sellers.

You will find for example at the RTR 2 years back, a few cloudy, overcast or rainy days and you will wish you had as much solar as you could get, every day isn't a perfect day and sometimes you get that 1 hour break in the clouds and that is when the most solar you can have really pays off. the worst thing on multiple rainy/overcast days is to have to severely limit your power use when you are stuck inside.

As much as I would love to throw more solar on top of my van, at the end of the day it's a minivan and my roof rack measures 60 inches long by 44 inches wide. The renogy just about fits in there perfect so I'm not sure anything higher wattage would fit unless they are higher watts and the same size. This is something I will look into though.

Edit: how much better are those panels then Renogy panels? It seems their panels are like 100$ more for 20 extra watts over the Renogy. I wonder if that extra cost would be worth it in my case? I would think that adding a solenoid for alternator charging as well will make up that gap between Renogy vs LG performance and then some.

 

[John61CT]

I would think that adding a solenoid for alternator charging as well will make up that gap between Renogy vs LG performance and then some.

Probably, but don't overestimate the alt as a power source, it's only going to be significant when you are driving many hours several times per week.

And for helping get the bank to 100% for longevity, the driving needs to be in the early AM before solar charging starts.

 

[prone2wander]

The LG 350W and 360W both measures 67"x40".

I have a 2007 Sienna and watching this thread with great interest.

 

[John61CT]

I realize the opposite of stealth, but couldn't you get 600W by putting a good rack up and going sideways?

Maybe have to watch your head getting out the side doors.

 

[tripper]

As much as I would love to throw more solar on top of my van, at the end of the day it's a minivan and my roof rack measures 60 inches long by 44 inches wide. The renogy just about fits in there perfect so I'm not sure anything higher wattage would fit unless they are higher watts and the same size. This is something I will look into though.


Edit: how much better are those panels then Renogy panels? It seems their panels are like 100$ more for 20 extra watts over the Renogy.

The 365 watt LG panels are 2 inches longer and same width as the Renogy's, they also put out 65 more watts than Renogy's, not 20. One of these panels will fits easily on you  roof rack (rack is 44 inches, panel is 40 inches wide). Being as you are limited on space if you can afford to I would get the much more efficient panel.

In fact, the single 405 watt 72 cell panel will fit on your roof rack, it is 80 inches long by 40 inches wide, I would put one of those on you roof,  since it should sit in between the outer rails and on top of the inner rails (crosswise) on your roof rack it will look nice too.

 

[jrose152]

As much as I would love to throw more solar on top of my van, at the end of the day it's a minivan and my roof rack measures 60 inches long by 44 inches wide. The renogy just about fits in there perfect so I'm not sure anything higher wattage would fit unless they are higher watts and the same size. This is something I will look into though.


Edit: how much better are those panels then Renogy panels? It seems their panels are like 100$ more for 20 extra watts over the Renogy.

The 365 watt LG panels are 2 inches longer and same width as the Renogy's, they also put out 65 more watts than Renogy's, not 20. One of these panels will fits easily on you  roof rack (rack is 44 inches, panel is 40 inches wide). Being as you are limited on space if you can afford to I would get the much more efficient panel.

In fact, the single 405 watt 72 cell panel will fit on your roof rack, it is 80 inches long by 40 inches wide, I would put one of those on you roof,  since it should sit in between the outer rails and on top of the inner rails (crosswise) on your roof rack it will look nice too.

While this does makes sense, the 365W panel is almost 200$ more. I'm not sure I can justify that.