This entry has been added because of questions concerning the DTS fiber and the power required by the electronics.

The Vicrons (Solar battery chargers / managers) will provide a maximum charge current of 20A to the any batteries being charged. Assuming we are using 12V batteries in parallel, then the maximum instantaneous power generated is 240 Watts.  Assuming a 12 hour solar cycle, the Victon, solar panel, battery setup, should be able to provide ~ 120 Watts of continuous power (day and night).

This power number could be increased if the batteries are put in series configuration to produce a 24V battery (however the load would have to be able to use 24 volts instead of 12 volts).  In this case the Victon would still charge at 20A, producing up to 480 Watts of instantaneous power, and yielding ~240 Watts of continuous power (day and night).  This does assume that the batteries are well matched and correctly handle a series configuration.


Our batteries are 100 AH batteries (1200 Watt hours, or 50 Watts of continuous power 24/7).  If we are using 3 batteries in parallel, they should provide about 150 watts of continuous power.


The peak production of a single solar panel (we have 2 panels on a frame)  is about 150 Watts.  If we de-rate this to 120 Watts.  We still should generally not require more than 2 solar panel (one frame) when we have the batteries connected in the 12 volt configuration.  The power from additional panels will not be used, however non-optimal orientation, or cloudy / rainy days will reduce power generation and could warrant additional panels added to the system.

3 Comments

  1. Steve Oncley

    A couple of days ago, I added a third panel to each side (6 panels total).  As stated above, they probably aren't helping much if at all, but we had them.

  2. Chenning Tong

    For some reason, the Victron is only providing 14 amps max to the batteries, even when they are low on voltage. It could be because the inverter is connected to the batteries, not to the "load" output of the Victron, confusing it.

  3. Steve Oncley

    So, we just added a 4th battery in parallel with the inverter and moved both to the Victron's load.  Just for giggles, we also swapped Victrons, but the new one seems to behave exactly like the old.  At the moment, (screenshot below), it is just charging the main batteries, albeit at only 189W, rather than 290W, which is curious.  It also isn't showing a load, presumably because the inverter is still discharging the parallel load battery.

    I'm thinking of firing up a DSM just to monitor this power, since our twice-a-day screenshots don't quite give us enough information.