Solar Controller for 180 W folding panels.

[T1 Terry]

As the max rated output is 10amps ( Current at Pmax: 10A) a 10 amp or 15 amp controller would be fine to use with this panel. If you are likely to get more portable panels some time later then you would be better off buying a controller that could handle 20 Amp or even 30 amps.
If you just want to use the panel as a booster for poor weather conditions and have the other panels as the main charging source, one of these evilbay cheapies will do the job fine. These are only a single voltage controller but the voltage can be adjusted up to say 14.4v by simply adjusting a dashpot under the cover. If you want to know how to do this let me know when you have taken delivery of it and I'll post a photo up showing what to adjust.
Mount the controller close to the batteries, wire up a Merit socket to the solar terminals on the controller and mount that some where that will be easy to access when you want to plug your portable panel in. Then wire a Merit plug to the solar panel using 6mm auto cable max around 7mtr long, any longer and you will need heavier cable to stop voltage drop and that won't fit in the Merrits plug so 7 mtr is about the limit, otherwise you would need to use 50 amp anderson plugs and that is kinda over kill for a 10 amp panel.

Terry, the controller you suggested has arrived from China. I had a look inside and I see a green little block with a screw on top. Is this the adjustment you refer to?

Blue/green colour, if there is only the one that will make life much easier. When you have it all connected to the van battery and charging it will most likely get to 13.8v and not go any higher, adjust the screw 1/4 turn at a time till the volts go up to 14.4v. you will soon wotk out if you are going the right way, the voltas will start to drop after a while if you go the wrong way. It doesn't matter if you go a bit past the 14.4v mark, then you can adjust it back a bit till you get it to hold 14.4v while the sun is out.

[SteveW]

Thanks, Terry. I'll be on to it tomorrow.

[MarkPott]

As the max rated output is 10amps ( Current at Pmax: 10A) a 10 amp or 15 amp controller would be fine to use with this panel. If you are likely to get more portable panels some time later then you would be better off buying a controller that could handle 20 Amp or even 30 amps.
If you just want to use the panel as a booster for poor weather conditions and have the other panels as the main charging source, one of these evilbay cheapies will do the job fine. These are only a single voltage controller but the voltage can be adjusted up to say 14.4v by simply adjusting a dashpot under the cover. If you want to know how to do this let me know when you have taken delivery of it and I'll post a photo up showing what to adjust.
Mount the controller close to the batteries, wire up a Merit socket to the solar terminals on the controller and mount that some where that will be easy to access when you want to plug your portable panel in. Then wire a Merit plug to the solar panel using 6mm auto cable max around 7mtr long, any longer and you will need heavier cable to stop voltage drop and that won't fit in the Merrits plug so 7 mtr is about the limit, otherwise you would need to use 50 amp anderson plugs and that is kinda over kill for a 10 amp panel.

Terry, the controller you suggested has arrived from China. I had a look inside and I see a green little block with a screw on top. Is this the adjustment you refer to?

Blue/green colour, if there is only the one that will make life much easier. When you have it all connected to the van battery and charging it will most likely get to 13.8v and not go any higher, adjust the screw 1/4 turn at a time till the volts go up to 14.4v. you will soon wotk out if you are going the right way, the voltas will start to drop after a while if you go the wrong way. It doesn't matter if you go a bit past the 14.4v mark, then you can adjust it back a bit till you get it to hold 14.4v while the sun is out.

Thanks for sharing information. I have been searching for solar controller and I hope I got the right one now:)

[T1 Terry]

Welcome to the forum Mark. These are very basic controllers but for a very small system or one for a few portables they will do the job fine. strangly enough, they are an excellent controller for lithium batteries as they only need a single stage charging regime.

[SteveW]

Update:
I've done the voltage adjustment to 14.4 on the little green block that is blue. OK; 19+ volts in from the solar and 14.4 volts from the contacts out to the battery. Now here's an interesting thing that might be important.

The motorhome has the vehicle battery then the two house batteries separated by a voltage sensitive relay (VSR). The second solar panel plugs in on the house side of the VSR. All is good when the second (portable) solar is connected. The Toad, my Daihatsu Terios, has the vehicle battery and a deep cycle battery (for the Engel), also separated by a VSR that is built onto the house battery box. The connection to the deep cycle battery is; vehicle battery to Anderson Plug to VSR to deep cycle battery. When I plug the solar panel into the Anderson plug that is before the VSR, a check of the voltages at the controller shows 19+ volts in from the solar and 19+ volts at the contacts out to the battery. Now, the instructions with the solar charge controller state that the battery should be connected first and the solar panel connected after that. When connecting the battery via the VSR to the solar panel controller there is power at the battery side of the VSR but none on the solar panel controller side because the VSR is in isolation mode (there being no voltage yet from the charging side of the VSR). This means that the battery is NOT connected first and so there seems to be a switching problem in that the controller is not powered up before the solar is introduced and, therefore, the controller does not function in reducing the voltage to a level suitable for feeding into the battery.

The point is, I think, that it is important to power up the controller from the battery before connecting the solar to the controller. Funny; that's what the instructions say. I tell this story to point out that there could be a serious consequence in not wiring correctly. I will now insert a plug on the battery side of the VSR to connect the controller to the battery on the battery side of the VSR.

[SteveW]

Another bit of information, Terry. I have an Anderson plug at the front of the Terios connected to the vehicle battery. (It supplies 12v to a small winch on the rear of the MH that I use to draw the Toad up to the MH if I am on my own and on sloping ground). If I plug the controller into the vehicle battery then the solar into the controller, the solar via the controller via the vehicle battery closes the VSR and charges the house battery in the back of the car. No problem.

I encountered the problem described in the previous post because I was trying to charge the house battery while I had it out of the Terios in its VSR controlled battery box.

[T1 Terry]

As far as connecting the solar before the lights come up on the controller, I had a dead one here as a result of doing just that. The controller manufacturer knows it's a problem but that didn't sink in to the people who glued them onto the portable solar panels. The instruction with the should say, connect to battery and then lay solar panels out facing the sun, but of course, their instructions are the other way around and after doing it this way a few times, the controller dies, then the poor controller gets the bad rap, not the silly buggers who glued the controller onto the panel, which is the wrong spot in the first place, and then wrote the instructions wrong