Adding Second Solar Controller for Side Mounted Solar Power Plug

BigE-WO

Member
Joined
Jul 14, 2023
Posts
22
Location
Marco Island, Florida
I just purchased a Micro Minnie 2108TB. First thing I did was purchase two 230 amp hour batteries and set them up in parallel. I am taking this one step at a time. I simply disconnected and removed the battery on the tongue and installed the total 460 amp hour batteries inside the front compartment. I then used 3/0 gage wire to connect the batteries together and connected the positive cable to the exact same place that the positive cable used to be connected to on the unit with 4 gage wire. The negative went to the chassis.

I added another 200W solar panel to the roof and connected it in parallel.

I also replaced the GoPower PWM with a EPEVER MPPT 40 amp solar controller.

I set up the monitor for the charger inside the unit between the beds.

Everything seems to work wonderfully. Now here is my question.

I am thinking of using my surplus GoPower solar charger to manage the side port charger and connect it directly to the battery. Can I have two solar controllers connected directly to the battery? Especially as they are different modes of charging? I like the simplicity of just taking a raw panel and plugging it into the side port controlled by my surplus controller. Is this a good idea?

Next thing I will do after I experience the performance of the upgrade is to go ahead and install a Victron 2000 watt multiplex controller. That install should go easy and entail from what I gather, disconnecting the stock charger in the power center and connecting the AC shore power to the inverter and then the AC power from the inverter back to the power center.

Thanks in advance for any replies.
 
I am thinking of using my surplus GoPower solar charger to manage the side port charger and connect it directly to the battery. Can I have two solar controllers connected directly to the battery? Especially as they are different modes of charging? I like the simplicity of just taking a raw panel and plugging it into the side port controlled by my surplus controller. Is this a good idea?

Yes to all your questions. No issues with multiple parallel solar controllers joined at the battery connection, regardless of their individual state at any given time.

Have you considered to connect your 2nd roof panel in series vs. parallel? Pros and cons each way depending on panels electrical specs, like Voc and Isc.
 
Thanks Electric,

I will use the surplus controller for that purpose. Yes, I did consider hooking them in series, but from what I read and my tendancy to like some shade i compromised and opted for parallel. I will look again for the decision criteria and review my decision.

Thanks again for confirmation.
 

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