Description
- 【Efficient Performance】The 400W Solar Panel Starter Kit will produce an average of 2kWh of electricity per day (Based on 5 hours of direct sunlight condition). The Cell Efficiency can reach 22%. The bypass diode can ensure the panel has an excellent performance in a low-light environment and the TPT back sheet dissipates excess heat to ensure smooth output performance.
- 【Solid Quality】Advanced encapsulation material with multi-layered sheet laminations protects cells from physical damage or distortion, improving cell performance and providing a long service life.
- 【Smart Function】The Wanderer PWM Charge Controller is compatible with four different types of batteries: sealed, Gel, Flooded, and Lithium batteries. It also features advanced 4-stage charging (bulk, boost, float, and equalization) to ensure your battery is efficiently and safely charged to 100%.
- 【Full System Protection】The Wanderer PWM Charge Controller has built-in protection to safeguard your systems, such as reverse polarity protection, battery overcharging protection, overload protection, and short circuit protection.
- 【Ready to Install】This Renogy 400 Watt Solar Panel Kit includes the equipment necessary for building a new system. The necessary cables, Z-brackets, Solar Y Branch Connectors and pre-drilled holes on the back frame of the panel allow fast and secure mounting.
John D. –
After looking for a good Solar Kit and reading reviews I made my decision on renogy. Didn’t wanted to go over board but enough to make sure it would work for my needs. Running a 4.7cf fridge all day and over night then being able to recharged my Battery full charge to continue the cycled plus some TV watching a Movie or two on rainy days if it happens ,led lights, water pump. Just need to get equipped with a Lithium Battery now and will be all set and no worry’s to go off grid. P.S. and was still just able to accomplish what I just described with a 2500 Watt pure sine wave Inverter and just one 12 Volt AGM Battery witch is not even a 100ah by the fridge off for two maybe 3 hours over night with everything still frozen in freezer and cold in the fridge in the morning to be turn back on by the 400 Watt solar panels and mppt charge controller recharging the battery. Happy with my purchase good quality well packaged fast delivery. Damaged package usually done by delivery service ,not the seller, review accordingly.
Amazon Customer –
well packaged, everything you need is there, think good value
Jack S. –
I was surprised with the lack of installation & wiring instructions in the kit. I had to rely on wiring diagrams found on a Google search. I wired the panels in series (not parallel) and was getting 70V on a cloudy day only to find out that the Adventurer charge controller that came with the kit can only handle a max PV input voltage of 50V. There was nothing in the kit to advise series vs parallel and apparently if I had wired the panels in parallel then the controller it may have worked. In hind site I should have wired the panels in parallel but changing the panel mounting and wiring is not an option for me anymore so I have ordered the Rover 40A MPPT charge controller, which can handle 100V PV input voltage.
Jerd –
The system is incredibly easy.
One suggestion is don’t mount to roof UNTIL you have it all connect and tested. Then mount panels. As for connecting panels, ONLY do it in parallel, Not series!
The controller included can only do up to 50 volts. 3 panels produced 70.7 volts. You will need a Larger controller to do a series connection. This is Not mentioned in the kit!
Other than those issues. It’s a plug and play system
Tiny Home Builder –
Nice kit. I’ve installed many, typically on off grid vehicles (schoolies/food truck, etc..) These are not great in low sun/clouds and great in sun. Will run up a 100 AMP HR battery from 11 to topped off in just couple hours. I buy these because the company is the “go too” in solar and I dont want issues with people questioning my selections. controler is very nice, easy to use and read. If you never installed a system, this is a great selection.
krusherkid –
I got this kit to put on my Chevy Express work van. So far, they’ve been awesome. These run my 12v fridge all day with power to spare. I upgraded the fuse to a circuit breaker and added a disconnect between the panels and the controller.
With an inverter connected to the battery that these are charging, I can keep my Milwaukee batteries topped off at all times.
Scallawa –
I’ve purchased Renogy products for other applications. Given the overall quality, it’s time to do it again. The kit was pretty much as expected. It does the job and works well. I have a few things to criticize:
1) The wiring from the panels to the controller is a bit short. I installed this system on a class A motorhome. The wiring from the roof, down the rear cap, into the electrical box just barely reached. Another meter would be just fine.
2) The 30 amp fuse block is a bit big and clunky. It was hard to find a place to mount it so that all the wiring worked out.
3) There was an extra 10 amp fuse included with panel style connectors on it. Had no idea where to put it as it is underrated for the combined output of the panels.
4) No instructions! Good thing I’m an electrical engineer and know what to do with this stuff. Only the controller had instructions of any kind.
5) The BT-1 remote monitor accessory is a joke. It can’t be paired correctly, and takes a long time to get connected and display anything. All I want to do is see what the battery level is and how much current is being pushed. A simpler hardwired panel would be much better and faster to use.
Overall, a good value. I’d recommend this to others.
mike C. –
Thanks
Mark Van Ek –
Had a single panel ordered the 300w kit now I have no issues with the power in my RV as we are off the grid at the lake. I have 2 6v batteries and they are fully charged even using light furnace and tv. Have not installed permanently as I wanted to see if they would work for me. They are performing awesome. Will be installing permanently when I get the RV home in the fall.
Gilbert J Frenette –
This is a great kit. It comes with almost everything you need. Fuses, wiring, controller, mounts, panels and all the bolts and screws you need. I had to buy a solar array disconnect switch separately. The system took me about 6 hours to install. Most of that time was spent fishing wires through my camper walls. I wired the panels in 2 series, 2 parallel. Once hooked up I put my camper in a sunny area and was getting 260 watts, will work even better in full sun. Not bad given there was some small shaded areas on the panels and they are laying flat. Don’t expect to get 400 watts unless your panels are directly facing full sun. That is how solar works. I bought the BL1 Bluetooth as well and it is awesome for monitoring the system which I have hidden out of sight. I can camp anywhere for any amount of time now with no shortage of power. Great value for the money. There are no instructions. If you don’t know what you are doing, pay someone who does or educate yourself accordingly.
krusherkid –
What I liked
The panels were easy to install. I was able to I stall them while camping. I used the drill method so I did use plenty of the dicor lap sealant to seal up the holes. The panels themselves seem pretty sturdy.
What I didn’t like with the kit.
I made a terrible assumption that this kit had everything I needed. This coupled with installing it while camping made for a mess. You will likely need additional mc4 extension cables if you get 4 panels. You will not be able to hook up all of them unless you can orient your panels in one specific way. This meant that I operated on only 2 of the 4 panels that were installed. I essentially missed out on half my power because of a $10 cable that I would have happily paid for.
I cannot blame Renogy for the pwm controller. I needed to have done better research before hitting the buy button. You will likely want a mppt controller instead of the pwm if you need to maximize your power generation. I discovered this after the kit arrived so I ended up buying their mppt controller and have a pwm just sitting. I think a little more guidance in their description would have been helpful.
I didn’t have any problems connecting the Bluetooth app but I do have some grievances. It does disconnect but doesn’t give you an indication that it has disconnected. This can lead to you thinking you have more battery power than you actually have because it might display old data. This led to me randomly killing the app and reconnecting whenever I was suspicious. Everytime I reconnect I have to go into the app and tell it that I have a lithium battery. It always resets to flooded. I think this changes the charging profile and makes it less efficient for my battery. This raises a concern for me. If the mppt is not resetting when ot disconnects why is that setting changing just because the app disconnected? The app also doesn’t autoconnect. It would be better if the system on launch attempted to reconnect to its known devices or the last device it connected to.
I don’t quite agree that the Bluetooth app is useless. It is certainly frustrating but I would still want to have it to know the state of solar charging. I thought I would go without the battery monitor since the bt-module provides some information. It is not accurate enough for my needs and I found it unreliable. I ended up draining the battery enough for it to go into protection mode. This also meant that i had to run out and buy a lithium aware battery charger to charge it enough to get it out of protection mode so that I can use my generator to charge it. Purchasing that took about 2 hours since the closest place was 2 towns away from Banff. The mppt charger has the ability to take out of protection mode but since I was in a shaded area and only running on half my solar power….
I have ordered the smart battery module since I did also buy a renogy lifepo battery.
Overall it seems they make a good panel but if I were doing it over again, I would probably chose a different vendor for the rest of the components.
Leaving the following in parentheses more as a warning. They do have a learn section which i missed. It is good. (Renogy, if you read this, I think it would be worth your time to put together some tutorials on your site.) I deleted my comment on their customer service because I did not have a big interaction with them. I had a pre-sales interaction where they provided very little information compared with the other vendor I reached out to. I ended up chosing Renogy because the other vendor was more distributor centric than customer centric.