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Old 05-12-2021, 01:20 PM   #11
Gaetan
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Join Date: Oct 2020
Location: Clarence
Posts: 14
M.O.C. #27325
[QUOTE=Sharko;1219752]I Have a Montana 3830 with a pre-installed 265W and 30A controller with 2- 6V 225Ah AGM batteries.
If I understand correctly a 10 gauge wire has a max capacity of 30amps (used by factory) allows MAX of 365W @ 12V. OR 26A @ 14v if batteries are full.

I want to add 2 more 350W panels. Since the existing wire won't handle this much current how hard is it to pull another wire through roof and fish it through? What size should I run?

With a total of 225Ah in batteries how many watts is over kill, bad for batteries? My combination would make 965W.

I would need a 2nd controller, looking at Victron 50A/100V to run the 2 - 350W in parallel to combat shading. This enough?
Original and NEW panels would be on their own and the 50A controller would be in parallel with my original 30A.
Would this work???
Thanks in advance for any advise.[/QUOTE

Your panels should be pushing a lot more than 12 volts. Check behind your panels and u will notice that they push less than 8 amps. I have 560 watts of panels with gage 10 wire and a 40amp mppt charger with an inline fuse from solar of 30 amps. Fuse of 30 amps was never blown and never got close to 30 amps to the charger. Most I had was close to 20 amps. So your gauge 10 wire is sufficient. Check specs of each panel and I think u should be below 30 smps
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