School bus RV setup questions

[Daley]

Hi there,
First of all thank you so much for all the great videos, such an awesome resource!

I bought a school bus that was part converted into an RV, it came with (6) 1000w of solar panels on the roof but not much else. 2 of the panels got damaged on the way home so I need to buy more which leads to my first question.
Does it matter if my panels don’t exactly match? I’m thinking of buying 3 new ones of a bigger wattage, if I do this would they be better wired in parallel or series?

I plan on purchasing a Tesla battery and have been trying to figure out all that I may need to go with my 1000-1500w of panels. Would I be quicker and better off just getting a mpp unit?

What ac voltage do the mpp accept as input? I am wondering if I can hook up the high voltage (220v) battery from my Prius in an emergency, any thoughts on this would be great. I have seen people use 220v UPS devices to essentially turn there Prius into a high output generator so I was wondering if the mpp could do this.

many thanks in advance for any input.
Daley

 

[eddie1261]

Your panels will all normalize as far as capture ability to the level of the lowest panel in the chain. So if you have 3x200w and you add a 100w, they will all act like 100w. So I'd say match them. Then you have to get into how you wire them. Series or parallel, or 2 pairs in series, then those pairs connected in parallel...... Research on the charge controllers will answer your question about capacity and capability of power handling. Since the function of the charge controller is to do the exact job you are asking about, you should be good. Just follow the path and look at the specs on them.