[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by brulaz

Harvey has pointed out to me, with solar panel prices going through the floor, it would be more cost effective to just get another panel or two and the cheapest controller out there.

But I really appreciate well-designed electronics, and the Rogue seems pretty nice that way. You can get a usb adapter for your computer and go crazy monitoring things too. But that's my inner "nerd" talking.



Solar panels are the last thing on my to-do list of upgrades. And since Everglades N.P. put in electricity, we have even less reason to go with solar panels. I may just have to take them off my to-do list.

Wayne has a point, my 80 watt panels were $149 each and they are grid tie rated. The only thing I have against the cheaper controllers is getting the voltage high enough at the battery to get a full charge. This can be especially true for batteries like the Trojan T105's. On our TM the 8955 converter takes 2 and 1/2 days to bring up a single marine deep cycle and that is with no use of anything 12 volt in the camper.
I know in handybobs blog he rants a lot but one thing he is correct about, it's not amp rating of the wire that prevents getting a full battery charge, its the voltage at the battery to push the current in. I'm still testing my solar setup but the first thing I did was get rid of all the #12 AWG I could.