Impressed with my Classic 150

[Jfet]

I am getting much more power than I expected for Seattle in March.

System is 1080 watts consisting of four 270 watt mono panels on the flat roof of a truck camper.  They are wired 2s2p for about 80V open circuit to a Classic 150.

When the sun comes out I am getting 620 watts around noon (panels not pointed directly at the sun though).   Not bad for March in Seattle.

The good stuff happens when the clouds come.   Today it was overcast and I was still getting 220 to 260 watts.   This is much better than I expected.

Pretty happy.   I may need to investigate that "Waste Not" feature as our Lifeline battery bank is only 24V 125AH :-)

[vtmaps]

Welcome to the forum,

Your system sounds well balanced... good ratio of panel to battery.  Also, its nice to see a 24 volt system in a truck... so many truck systems are stuck at 12 volts.  What would you do with the waste not feature... produce hot water?

Also, tell us (with pictures if possible) how you mounted the panels... that's always a topic of interest.  Is there an air space below the panels?  Could it possibly leak?  Do you have a combiner (not that you need one)?  Will this rig be exposed to ice/snow?  How easy is it to inspect and look for leaves and bird droppings?

--vtMaps

[Jfet]

Yes, I was thinking about using the aux output to send power to the 6 gal water heater or possible run the small 6000 BTU 500 watt A/C during the summer when the batteries are at full charge.

Our solar panel mount is home brew.   We built our camper from the ground up and designed the roof to be a continuous sheet of 0.040 aluminum covered in truck bed liner with no holes to caulk.   It is a near zero maintenance roof.    We bought some aluminum 1.5x1.5x3/16 angle to make a frame which attaches to each 60 cell panel and attaches to the sides of the camper with 3/8" grade 8 bolts into the steel camper frame.  The center angle supports just rest on the roof with 3/4" rubber block feet.  I did a test video at 60mph and saw zero lift or really any movement of the panels or frame.   The panels are spaced off the roof about 3/4" and of course there is about 1-1/4 inch between the bottom of the cells and the bottom of the panel frame so the cells themselves have about 2 inches of air gap to the roof.   Maybe not ideal but we wanted to keep the profile low for both wind and height (camper/truck is 12 feet from ground to top of panels).

There is room to walk between the panels for cleaning and inspection.  Technically we could have paneled the entire roof to about 1600 watts but I doubt we need that much.

[Jacotenente]

Nice work on that install!