is this a good set up for the price solar cells

[lightspeed]

i seen this on ebay and wondered if anyone knows about this , and if its a good set up for the price ?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/COMPLETE-KIT-20 ... 0990286%26

it's a 200 watt set up , or is their better cheaper ones? to put on a hightop van?

[markopolo]

I'd say yes. Nice find.
$2 per watt and it includes wiring, brackets and PWM solar controller

They are Mono-Crystalline cells too much better than Poly-Crystalline.

I'd be very happy with that kit for RV use.
The sellers estimate of performance looks to me to be very accurate.

Kit will produce an average of 800 Watt Hours (Wh) or 67 Amp Hours (Ah) of charge per day.

[jackfish]

12 gauge wire between the panels and the controller seems undersized. I'd be more comfortable with 10 gauge.

[markopolo]

That brings up a good point.

12 gauge is good for 20 amps or thereabouts so that's ok. One panel outputs 5.6 amps at 18 volts.

So the concern is voltage drop.
Would you use the 18 volt panel voltage or 12 volts in doing voltage drop calculations?

20 feet of 12 gauge, 18 volts, 5.6 amps = 1% voltage drop
20 feet of 10 gauge, 18 volts, 5.6 amps = .62% voltage drop

20 feet of 12 gauge, 12 volts, 5.6 amps = 1.49% voltage drop
20 feet of 10 gauge, 12 volts, 5.6 amps = .94% voltage drop

Keep the length of wire as short as you can.

I used this voltage drop calculator: http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/showthr ... calculator

[booster]

Originally Posted by markopolo

That brings up a good point.

12 gauge is good for 20 amps or thereabouts so that's ok. One panel outputs 5.6 amps at 18 volts.

So the concern is voltage drop.
Would you use the 18 volt panel voltage or 12 volts in doing voltage drop calculations?

20 feet of 12 gauge, 18 volts, 5.6 amps = 1% voltage drop
20 feet of 10 gauge, 18 volts, 5.6 amps = .62% voltage drop

20 feet of 12 gauge, 12 volts, 5.6 amps = 1.49% voltage drop
20 feet of 10 gauge, 12 volts, 5.6 amps = .94% voltage drop

Keep the length of wire as short as you can.

I used this voltage drop calculator: http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/showthr ... calculator

When we bought our two 100 watt panels (monocrystalline) and controller, AM Solar pushed hard for the biggest wire possible, everywhere. The panels came with 10 gauge and connectors, and their standard recommendation would be to go to a combiner box with the existing wires and then to the controller with 8 gauge. I decided to add connectors to hook them up in series for a 24 volt input (actually 34v max), as the controller we got maximizes output at 12v regardless of input (MPPT). At 24v, current drops in half, so the voltage drop as a % is very low because of the higher voltage and lower current. I used 10 gauge to go to the controller (about 8 feet). Being able to run panels in series, at higher voltages, has changed a lot of rules of wire sizes, I think. Everyone used to talk of wire size based on the total watt rating of the panels, but now, you need to know the voltage and amperage that is being run to know what is really needed.