New solar panels working, and possibly a little bonus!

The solar panels I had bought last August were defective. The company who supplied them had me do some tests, and neither one of them were putting out the rated amps. They gave me a 50% refund, and I got to keep the panels because obviously it wouldn't have made sense to return them.

But as a result, the system wasn't working the way I designed it. 

100 watt solar panels typically put out 5.5 amps each under optimal conditions. And we have two of them. So you would expect to get 11 amps going into the batteries when the sky is blue and the sun is high in the sky.

But these panels were only putting out 5.5 amps combined.

So I bought another 200 watt kit including a new charge controller, so now we have a spare. And I had it delivered to our friend Doug's place here in Guanajuato.

Doug brought the panels over yesterday morning and we removed the old ones and installed the new ones.

Doug and I and Igor. Notice the cat under the front bumper.

The cat was our third work partner.

We got the old panels off and Doug tested them. He is an electrical engineer, and had brought a clamp meter so that it's easy to read the output. Surprisingly to both of us, one of the panels appeared to be putting out the full rating. Of course this makes no sense since I had measured them myself last November, and even yesterday the reading on the charge controller had been lower than it should be. Very strange. Possibly a bad connection somewhere inside the panel?

We got the new panels installed, and right away the reading on the charge controller went up to 7.7 amps. That's the way it should be! And as the sun got higher in the sky, I saw the reading as high as 8.9 amps.

Perfect!

I got them bolted in place and the brackets sealed.

It was getting too hot up there to do anything more, but the plan now is that this morning I will take the one old panel that is now reading good, and put it up there and plug it into the system. If it works fine, and I can find suitable roof space to mount it, I will do so. It would sure be a nice bonus to have 300 watts instead of 200. And then we also have the 100 watt portable panel for when we need an extra boost or are parked in the shade.

Igor, with two German rigs as neighbors.

The one on the left was here when we arrived. They are a nice young couple who work online. They also have a Starlink Mini. Then yesterday, a motorhome showed up, also with German plates.

The parking for RV's here is very haphazard, and we've read where it can actually get quite crowded up here. It's not ideal, but the couple are about our age, and he actually came over and introduced themselves and apologized for having to park so close to us. Of course we'd prefer to have more space, but at least they handled it the right way.

You can't really see it unless you click on the photo to zoom in, but there is a cross on top of this hill.

Might have to hike up there this week!

Houses directly opposite us.

We never left the RV park yesterday other than I did a short walk over to a ferreteria (hardware store) to buy a tube of caulking to seal the solar panel brackets where they mount on the roof.

But today, we are going into town to meet up with Doug for lunch. Chinese food in Mexico!

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