Winter Panels Controller

[mcsarge]

In addition to the main solar system (6 HES 270s and a Midnigh Classic 150 with WhizBang Jr), I have 2 old 90 Watt panels connected to an old MPPT Solar Controller mounted in such a way as they do not get covered with snow, but still will get light on them for a few hours each day. They are there so that when the panels on the roof get covered with snow, there will still be some power generated to keep the batteries topped off and to run my remote monitoring system and the solar controllers.

My question is, would be be better to invest in a Brat or other Midnite Solar device to run those panels? I, of course, run the charging power through the WhizBang, but I am thinking that having something more modern might work better with my Classic. Do any of the smaller devices interface to the Classic?

Comment and advice are appreciated.

Matt

[ClassicCrazy]

I think if the controller you have works - if it was me I would just use that.
The other Midnite controllers don't interface in any way with the Classic.
At least you can see the output from your other controller by having it go through the shunt and read by the Whizbang.
There is a way to get some remote monitoring of the Kid but it is very limited and not easy to do if you read the comments in the forums by those who have integrated it. The Kid is not being supported by future updates any longer either and one of the older updates broke the limited data output it had that could be monitored remotely via other software. But I think that was fixed - haven't kept up on it too closely recently.

Larry

[mcsarge]

Larry,

Thanks for information. I may do just that, but the existing system has no monitoring at all either. I may switch to another a solar controller I have that does have a modbus output I can read from my Raspberry Pi. It can handle 30A which is far more than what I will ever get from the 2 80 Watt panels.

Matt