Setting up a Renogy 400 Watt 12 Volt Solar Panel Kit, along with my impressions of it.

Описание: This video shows the Renogy 400 watt solar panel kit set up, along with a Victron 12/500 500 watt inverter, and using one of my ancient soldering irons as a load.

Updates: Links to additional Renogy panel kit videos:

   • Renogy 100 watt solar panel leg retrofit p...  
   • Renogy 100 watt panel leg and power lead r...  

The Greening Fire Team (tasked with helping to make Wildland Firefighting more sustainable and environmentally friendly), a group of absolutely AMAZING people, got a grant to buy a number of these kits and make them available for Wildland firefighters.
This is one of the kits that we've been working with. The kit was a bargain at roughly $400 last year (2023): It came with four panels, the Rover 40 Amp MPPT controller, a Bluetooth device to show status of the controller, a 40 Amp fuse and holder, plus various wires and MP4 style adapters and combiners.
The kit worked well, but had a couple of irritating issues: The cables on the panels were very short, so you can't easily move the panels around to catch the sun better unless you have a dozen people to help you move the panels as one huge group. Also, the panels don't have legs or supports, so they would have to lay flat, thus not allowing you to catch maximum sunlight.
I have built a version 1.0 retrofit leg for the panels, and am working on the finished Version 2.0 prototype. Also in the works are 20 foot extension cables to make the panels individually moveable.
Once I have the legs and cable sets done, I'll post the retrofit video.
For Wildland Fire use, I'm combining all the panels in parallel and feeding the controller at 12 Volts, as this keeps things simple. The controller will also allow you to connect the panels in series, so you can benefit from less current loss in the wires. Power loss is to the square of the current, so 4 times the voltage at the current of a single panel has 1/16 the loss of running the 4 panels in parallel at 12 Volts.
If you are confident at series wiring the panels, you'll obviously have less loss.
The Renogy system has an App (DC Home) that you can use to monitor power parameters, similar to the VictronConnect App.
The panels are good, but I'd much prefer a Victron controller like the 100/50 over the Renogy Rover (Mercedes 300D reliability vs Yugo).
Also, the panels aren't as good in subdued light as the Harbor Freight 57325 100 watt panels (my personal Wildfire go-to).
Tests with multiple HFT's and Renogy's clearly show that under identical conditions, the HFT's deliver considerably more power. One test showed the HFT's at 88 watts, while the Renogy's struggled to supply 65-75 watts.
Still, it's not a bad kit, and it will do what it's supposed to.
Thanks for viewing!

-Tom