preinstalled solar wiring 2021 Micro Minnie 2108 FBS

[eagene]

My 2021 Micro Minnie 2108FBS came with a 100 watt flex solar panel lap sealed to the top and wired to the 10 amp Go Power controller in the forward compartment. That panel is quite damaged , cracked from the Tucson sun. I'd like to install 2 120W bracket mounted panels and a new controller. Does anyone know what gage wire they ran to those 10 amp controllers? I'd like to avoid having to rerun larger gage wire.

 

[bcborn]

Hello eagene,

You can contact Winnebago directly and request the Mini Breaker Wire layout and Chassis Wire Schematic for you VIN and they will email them to you. The documents will provide you with the build data.

You will need to determine the wire size (panel side/battery side) and controller size based on how you wire the two panels (Serial vs Parallel) required for your upgrade (ie. 240 watts of solar )

 

[jwcolby54]

My 2021 Micro Minnie 2108FBS came with a 100 watt flex solar panel lap sealed to the top and wired to the 10 amp Go Power controller in the forward compartment. That panel is quite damaged , cracked from the Tucson sun. I'd like to install 2 120W bracket mounted panels and a new controller. Does anyone know what gage wire they ran to those 10 amp controllers? I'd like to avoid having to rerun larger gage wire.

You need to understand the volts / amps of the solar panel you will install. A 120 watt panel would provide 10 amps if the panel voltage is 12v (V x A = W), or 5 amps if the volts are 24 (V x A = W). You see where I am going with this.

Then you need to decide if you are wiring them in series or parallel. Let's assume that the Volts from the panel is 24 (a good assumption but check it). Best case the panel will provide 5 amps - 5a x 24v = 120 Watts. Put two of these panels in parallel, then the amps will double to 10 amps. Put them in series, the amps will stay the same at 5 amps.

All of the above is required to determine the wire size you need to run the current down to the MPPT controller. You need a bigger wire for 10 amps than for 5 amps. Given that the original panel is 100 watts, then the existing wiring is probably OK for a single 120 watt replacement panel, or two panels in series, but NOT ok for double that current (two panels in parallel).

So place the two new panels in series. The voltage will double but the current will remain the same (5 amps). Wire size is rated in amps (amount of current it can handle).

All of which is just 'rule of thumb' stuff. That said I would be comfortable using the existing wire, wiring the two new panels in series. And do not decide later to add another two panels without doing the calculations all over again.

I am installing solar to my rig this week. I bought ( 100 watt panels. They are rated 25V x 4 amps. I know that for a fact. So I will run 4 of these panels in series, which provides 100 volts at 4 amps. I will then place two of these strings in parallel, for 100V at 8 amps. So my wires have to handle 8 amps.

Whatever you do, learn the minimum and maximum voltages that the MPPT controller can deal with. BOTH are important. Mine can deal with 150V maximum and about 60 volts minimum. So I MUST wire at least 3 panels in series (25v x 3 = 75 volts) in order to reach the minimum that my MPPT controller needs to even turn on and process the power from the panels. And I cannot wire more than 5 in series (25v x 5 = 125 volts) in order to give the mppt controller head room and not burn it up feeding it too much voltage.

So you need to discover how much voltage your two panels put out, add the voltage together to wire them in series, then look at that resulting voltage and make sure you buy an MPPT controller that will handle that voltage, enough voltage to allow the controller to turn on and not so much voltage that it will burn up the controller.

I hope this discussion is helpful in your case.