Solar upgrade in progress

[huntindog]

Last week I left paradise.
We had a Turkey hunt on the North Rim. With the price of fuel, hardly anyone showed up. In eleven days, only 3 vehicles drove by. I never actually saw another human the entire time..And The Solar kept. the batteries up for the entire trip. I never had to run a generator... That said, my factory Jaboni controller was next to useless halfway into the hunt. It kept going into float. I ended up turning it off with it's 300 watt panel and just letting the Victron 1080 watt system do the job. So I decided to get another Victron controller for the 300 watt Jaboni panel... And since I was spending money and had enough space to easily put 4 more 120 watt Aims panels on... I made sure the New Victron was big enough to run both the Jaboni and Aims panels. That meant a Victron 150/60 smart controller to go along with the 250/100 Victron already installed. All parts have been ordered. The controller arrived yesterday. I installed it today It is running the Jaboni panel like it should, and with both Victrons being of the smart variety, they work as one switching modes together with having to wire them together. When it's all done, I will have 14 panels totaling 1780 watts. And I think I will be finished with it.

[SolarPoweredRV]

Last week I left paradise.
We had a Turkey hunt on the North Rim. With the price of fuel, hardly anyone showed up. In eleven days, only 3 vehicles drove by. I never actually saw another human the entire time..And The Solar kept. the batteries up for the entire trip. I never had to run a generator... That said, my factory Jaboni controller was next to useless halfway into the hunt. It kept going into float. I ended up turning it off with it's 300 watt panel and just letting the Victron 1080 watt system do the job. So I decided to get another Victron controller for the 300 watt Jaboni panel... And since I was spending money and had enough space to easily put 4 more 120 watt Aims panels on... I made sure the New Victron was big enough to run both the Jaboni and Aims panels. That meant a Victron 150/60 smart controller to go along with the 250/100 Victron already installed. All parts have been ordered. The controller arrived yesterday. I installed it today It is running the Jaboni panel like it should, and with both Victrons being of the smart variety, they work as one switching modes together with having to wire them together. When it's all done, I will have 14 panels totaling 1780 watts. And I think I will be finished with it.

I think your experience shows the difference in performance between "Retail Grade" Solar Controllers and "Professional Grade" Solar Charge Controllers. The systems the OEMs are installing are moderate performers at best.

Victron has an excellent reputation for a reason, they perform day-in and day-out in the toughest conditions.