I have a 2 volt deep cylce Everstart battery with 845 cranking amps, and a Grape Solar GS-S-250-Fab5 250-Watt Monocrystalline Solar Panel . I use them to power a 48Flat screen TV, a Roku, my 65 watt consuming MacBook Pro, and a 65 watt Fan.I know from previous experience that just the battery, an inverter, and the fan, that the fan will blow for 0 hours straight.Should I really be concerned with a Charge Controller?
Should I really be concerned with a Charge Controller? Yes. The main purpose of the charge controller is to protect the battery from over charging. Over charging reduces battery life. And spending extra money for a MPPT type controller will get more more useable power out of your solar panel. Would another battery of the same magnitude be helpful in preventing an accident? How much storage capacity does your current battery have (measured in kWH)? A ~$20 Kill-a-Watt meter would take a lot of uncertainty out of how much power you actually use. Even deep cycle batteries suffer reduced battery life from deep discharges. The battery sounds too small for the loads you describe so I would think you would want more. ---------------------------------------... After reading the other answer In a nutshell, with your small 2 volt starting battery, 24 volt panel and a mix of unknown loads, (which is correct), I thought I would elaborate. I had not considered the possibility that you bought a 24 volt panel for your 2 volt battery. Hooking the panel you bought directly to the current battery is a horrible idea. I you were lucky it would just cook the battery in a short period of time. You basically bought the wrong type of panel for a 2 volt system. I assume that there are no controllers on the the market for this situation. If that's the case, I don't know of any good way match the 24v panel to the 2 volt battery.
