Thread: Aldi 40W Solar panel Kit

New setup - used 18 guage marine grade UV stable wiring and the quick connect couplings. I have a 10 amp fuse between the controller and the battery that is under the battery box lid.

The overall vehicle and current panel location.....they are on the leading edge of the roof rack....





Closer up.....



The connection from panel to cable......



The solar controller mounted on battery box.....between the controller and the terminals, I have a 10A fuse.



The solar controller connection to the other end of my cable....



Stable maintainance charge voltage....sits around 13.20 Volts to around 13.10 when charged.



I set it up yesterday and after an hour the panels had topped off my batteries - the deep cycle the panels are connected to is linked to the cranker via a Traxide SC-40. Interestingly, the help desk sent me an email claiming diode protection and smart circuitry to prevent overcharging within their supplied controller, although neither are actually used. All it does is step down the voltage. The electronics engineer here at my work has the wiring diagram for their controller, as the part number was on the controller chip. Here is some info that came from the chip part number for the supplied conroller....he tells me that while discharge out of the battery would be very minimal, there are no diodes on the battery side of the circuit. It uses a simple buck converter. There is certainly no smart overcharge detection circuitry.

[ame]http://www.xlsemi.com/datasheet/XL4016%20datasheet.pdf[/ame]

For the sake of my AGM deep cycle battery, happy to spend $30.00 for a quality controller.

Originally Posted by Pedro_The_Swift

Hey Scallops! want to come round and rewire my caravan??

Happy to help! It might look a bit messy at the battery box, but the hole was there already so I utilised it!