- I'm looking for a sun charger for my boat. 4x400w solar cells are installed, which gives a maximum current of 130A. Which solar charger should I choose to charge on my 12v 600Ah Lifepo4 battery bank?
asked
Car charger parallel connection
Hi Hvam. A 100 Amper should suffice. Too small you say? Your 130A you may have calculated from the nominal 12V, but if you use the actual recommended charge V for your batts, lets say it's 14.0V, then that reduces to 114A.
Unlikely on a boat they'll always be orientated correctly, so you'll lose some there too. Even if they were, the 'bell curve' of a typical day would see that reached for a limited time only.
Those are big panels, perhaps commercial 72-cellers. They may be able to be strung serially into a 250/100 if you look to the total Voc, or a 150/100 with 2 strings of pv otherwise.
The Smartsolar version is recommended. Sure they're not cheap, but it's the price to pay for being at the upper end of 12V practicality.
If you have selective shading, maybe there's some value in considering a 'divided' system, but only then..
