Renogy Solar

The solar panel arrived Wednesday afternoon, and the MPPT Controller that evening. (The UPS driver filled his truck with bigger items for his first run, then the smaller boxes for his second run. UPS delivers a lot to our Beaches!) So Thursday morning I drove over to my friend Stephen's house, and we proceeded to Get Solar!


The first step was to look at all the new equipment. The panel was bigger, the controller was bigger and the wires were bigger. Bigger is Better? In this case, I believe so. The old controller was tiny, befitting the little wires in and out of it. The new controller had a heat sink base with instructions to leave several inches above and below for air flow. And the bigger panel befits a 160W output versus the old one's 100W nominal.

The old non-functional panel

A gloppy mess of sealant over the wire hole

The old panel on top of the new Renogy panel

Taking off the old panel took some time to scrape off the sealant covering its wiring. It was coated with a thick gloppy pile of sealant that was a bear to get off. But underneath it was a nice plate that would accommodate the larger wires of the new panel, though we needed to expand the hole in the roof to get them through. Stephen's Dremel with the diamond bit cut through the roof like soft butter, the hard part was controlling it. We unscrewed the four screws holding the old panel on, and Voila! Ernie was solar free.

After we cleaned the roof and let it dry we sealed all of the screw holes, and then placed the new panel on the roof. Instead of new screws, we laid EternaBond tape on all four edges. The tapes sticks impressively well, and we both are confident that the panel won't be going anywhere. The tape will likely be more difficult to remove if we ever need to replace the panel than the sealant of the old one. We threaded the wires though the roof, and then sealed the hole bracket with sealant, and then more of the tape.

The new panel stretches all the way from the AC to the back

All taped down and ready to go

Next up was putting in the new Controller. It's bigger and requires the Inverter to move to make enough room, easily accomplished. Then connecting the wires, and we start charging the house battery! It works efficiently, and it's easily measurable. I bought the Bluetooth module so I can monitor the solar output and battery charge level from my phone.

The new controller passing on the power

My phone monitoring the panel and battery

We spent the weekend in White Springs and powered the refrigerator with just the panel, and everything worked beautifully. Renogy's warranties the panel for 95% efficiency for the first 5 years or so, and 85% after 20 years, so I'm hopeful that we won't have any issues with this setup for quite a while. Being able to monitor it's status from my phone is a delight – metrics make things more real.