My Little System

[Campnut]

Just a line to describe what I have installed. So far it seems to work. I have 4 Sunforce 15W panels wired parallel mounted on a 20 ft TV tower, feeding into a 7 Amp Sunforce Charge Controler, The Charge Controler feeds two 103amp/hour 12V Marine Deep Cell Batteries which are wired in Parallel. All I normally run are 3 - 7w CFI's (1 at a time) using a smal 75w inverter, a small 1.8 gal/min on demand water Pump (12V), and a 12V car Stereo(14-16 hrs/day).
I have stayed as long as 17 days with no issues although I did run the batteries down to 11.3V due to 6 continuous days of rain and overcast. I do have a 2900 watt generator if things get out of hand and I need to charge the batteries, but I really hate listening to a generator.
I do have two questions though: 1) I have one panel that cracked do to the wrong type of fatener used in the wrong spot - Is this interfering with the output of the other panels? and 2) If I was to charge my batteries using the genarator, which are wired parallel can I hook the charger to one battery and have both charge at the same time or should I hook the charger to the positive on one battery and the charger negitive to the negitive on the opposite battery?
Thanks for your help

[hay4man]

1) You should test this manually if you can. Disconnect the panel, check output power, reconnect panel, check output power.
2) It doesn't matter.

[Campnut]

My Little System

Thanks for the replay hay4man. If the snow doesn't get to deep before New Years I will try disconnecting the broken panel. I was at the camp last weekend and the batteries were fully charged after a 2 week absence

[hay4man]

I was wrong about number two. I would recommend hooking up the charger to the positive on one battery and the charger negative to the negative on the opposite battery. It doesn't matter if you are charging at low currents, but with a high power charger such as the one you describe, it does.
Please see:

http://www.smartgauge.co.uk/batt_con.html

[Campnut]

I just read the attachment in your reply, Wow, I never would have believed that the power draw was so unequal. Looks like I will need to get to the camp and do a little rewiring as I added a couple of batteries. Yes I know I am not supossed to mix old and new but the old batteries are only 7 months old. I guess I had better dust off the old snowshoes.