"Larry Jaques" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 11 Nov 2017 09:34:56 -0500, "Jim Wilkins"
wrote:

My 2x100W Grape Solar panels arrived and are producing 140W right
now,
9AM EST, equal to or slightly more than the APC1400, this laptop,
its
19" external monitor and the fridge consume on average, according to
charge and discharge wattmeters. They are already at their rated MPP
current with the sun only 15 degrees up.

Congrats! They sound efficient at that angle.

I'm impressed with how well they perform on a PWM controller, compared
to the maximum 32W I got from an HF "45W" kit.

I couldn't resist $1/Watt with free home delivery. Now I have more
solar panels than good places to permanently mount them. Folding
plastic sawhorses worked well enough for temporary use.

At noon the wattmeter on the controller input peaked at 180W. It
totaled 0.958 KWH from 8AM to 2PM when I stopped because the battery
voltage was climbing into the gassing range. In another 1/2 hour they
would have been shadowed by a tree anyway.

My Windy Nation P20L PWM controller allows a higher equalizing voltage
for 2 hours before limiting at 13.8V (or whatever you program) . For
wet cells it goes to 14.6V, too much for indoors.

I will retest with the battery type set to Gel which drops the 2 hour
voltage limit to 14.2V where my batteries don't gas as much. A
published threshold for concern is 14.3V. It's easy to see if they are
or aren't fizzing or bubbling but difficult to measure the rate. At
the APC1400's 13.6V default float setting there is virtually no
bubbling, but the recharging rate is too low for daily cycling.

-jsw