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Old 23-06-2012, 07:42 PM
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MrB (Simon)
Old Man Yells at Cloud

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Join Date: Jan 2007
Location: Rockingham WA
Posts: 3,435
Sadly you will never see 10 Amps.
Solar panel ratings are tricky to relate to real world conditions as they are determined in a lab, also, this retailer has provided no ratings which does not help.
It's not as easy as dividing the power by the battery voltage unfortunately.
Typically, the panels do not produce their rated output current until they hit about 16 to 18 volts and at about 20 - 25degrees(or less). This varies somewhat on the manufacturer and cell technology.
In full Sun, at midday in December -January, you could expect maybe 6 to 7 amps if the panels are aimed DIRECTLY at the sun.
Changing the angle of incidence does have a drastic effect on output.

I use a 70W and a 80W panel.
Here are the ratings for the 70W:
PMax: 70W (Power Max)
Vmp: 16.8v (Volts @ Max Power)
Imp: 4.16A (Amps @ Max Power)
Voc: 21v (Volts open circuit)
Isc: 4.63A (Amps short circuit)
TEST: AM1.5 1000W/m2 @ 25c
In summer you may get close get 1000W/m2 of Sun, at midday, but the panel will most certainly get hotter than 25deg C (even on a sunny winters day) so the output will be derated further.

If we say these 120W panels have similar characteristics and test conditions, this BOM map shows an average of approx. 15MJ of Sun per m2 for a whole winters day in July in Brizzy.
This is about 4000 watt/hours per m2.
Day length in Brisbane is about 10.5 hours in July, so 4000/10.5 = ~380W/m2
0.38 X 120W = ~45Watts at 17volts, even less at ~14v!!

There are special charge controllers that will keep the panel at its optimum output, these are called MPPT or Maximum Power Point Trackers.
Basically they are step-up/step-down (Buck/Boost) DC-DC converters that maintain the panel at (in my case) 16.8v and charge the battery at the correct voltage(11-14.4v depending on state.) They're reasonably efficient too at around 80-90%, the rest disappearing as heat.

The most current I have ever seen from my 70W panel is about 3.5A
The most current it can produce is 4.63 amps but then the voltage is too low to be useable.
A far cry from the 5.8Amps you would expect from 70/12
Last weekend it produced 2.9 amps in full midday winter sun, aimed directly.
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