[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by M&M Hokie

I have two 80W panels. While they are tiltable, I have never tilted them due to the practicality of getting to roof to do it. I have achieved in excess of 9A of charging current into battery even though the panels were not angled to be normal to incident sunlight and my current non-TM trailer has a parasitic draw of 1.0A. That said, I have the SunSaver MPPT controller which is allegedly capable of up to 15A current with 200W of array. Your mileage may vary but if you can swing the cost of the fancier controller, it may be worthwhile.

Under ideal conditions the other day, panels angled to face the sun, air temp 52 deg. and crystal clear skies I measured 9.78 amps into the sunsaver 10 pwm controller. That was with almost 20 vdc at the panels. What would be more effective for small arrays is a tristar 45 pwm. This is much lower cost then mppt while having user adjustable set points. The two most important factors in getting fully charged batteries are 14.8VDC at the battery(s) and temperature compensation. The 14.8 is especially true for Trojan batteries. Interstate wants 15vdc for their batteries while other battery makers range from 14.4 to 14.8. I haven't looked at the sunsaver mppt but the one I have is fixed at 14.4 and isn't user adjustable.