Thor Forums

[heiser252]

Glad I could help.

If you run 3 strings of 2 panels in series (the way I would go to minimize potential shading issues), you would have a voltage of 35.8 (17.9+17.9) and an amperage of 25.14 (8.38+8.38+8.38). This would in essence give you 900 watts at 36 volts, which is well within you controller’s capacities. Of course these would be maximum numbers at peak conditions that you probably will never actually achieve in the real world, but it is what you need to base your calculations on.

When you run panels in series, I like to minimize the number of panels in the series to minimize potential shading issues. The way solar panels work, if you shade any part of the panel you can greatly reduce the panel’s output. When you run panels in series, you in essence turn the series string into one big panel. Now if you shade any part of any of the panels in the series, you will reduce the output of the entire series set. With this in mind, I prefer more parallel strings of small series sets. So for your six panels, I would do three strings of two panels.