How to increase solar panel output amps

Um, crazy question. Why not just add more panels in parallel if you wish to increase your ampere output from the array?

Of course, if you are going to try to put 18 amperes into a 60AH battery, that is going to be a tad too much. So, you are going to need more AH of storage as well.

I had a low voltage 120 watt kycora panel, I tried both a pwm and mppt controllers on it, with either controller I never got more than 7 amps charging. Mppt needs high voltage panels or lots of panels connected together to work efficiently.

With a low voltage panel your limited to amps. An mppt controller wont have the excess voltage to give you extra amps. Even with a current booster you wont get more amps than the panel is able to produce and 150 watts will never produce 18 amps, even a 240 watt panel connected to mppt (which I have maxes out at 12 amps but I seen it go as high as 15 amps).

The correct way to do what you want is to replace your charge controller with an MPPT type of controller. In your case, it will not be cost effective to do so.... it would be cheaper to just buy another solar panel, as 'livingincebu' suggested.

Also, unless your battery is an AGM type battery (which can handle higher charge currents), you already have an adequate charging rate.

Regarding your question about boosting amps... you will never be able to exceed the output watts of your panel. And you will rarely, if ever, get the rated power from your panel. Your panel will produce up to 18 volts and up to 8 amps. 18 volts X 8 amps = 144 watts. That represents the max power possible. Typically, you get about 75% of that.

If you use an electronic device to increase the output current (amps) it will come at the expense of reducing the output voltage. There is no way to get volts X amps to equal more than the 150 watt rating of your panel.

As I mentioned, you could use an MPPT controller to decrease the the input voltage a bit so it better matches the battery voltage. That would give you a corresponding increase in amps to the battery, but it is usually not cost effective to do so in a system as small as yours.

--mapmaker

There are two boosters to increase I-V characteristic.
One of them is reflector (mirror, Al foil) and another - sun tracker.

The reflector increases the cell heat load and will require cooling - not practical

The tracker is expensive - better to just use a few more panels in the array

First a 1/5 Kw inverter with a 12 volt 60 AH battery and 150 panel is a huge mismatch and not compatible. Rule of thumb is Panel Wattage = Inverter wattage (or 1:1 ratio) for FLA batteries, and 1:2 ratio for AGM . A 150 watt panel, and a 150 to 300 watt inverter. You are @ 1:10 ratio. No wonder you are having problems

Panels, charge controller, battery, and load device (inverter in your case) all have to be matched up, and the key is the batteries. If using Flooded batteries the maximum current drain is C/8, and C/4 for AGM. So you have a 60 AH battery. That means based on the battery alone if it is FLA can only handle 7.5 amps x 12 volts = 90 watt inverter, or if AGM 180 watts. You have 1500 watts right?

For a 1500 watt inverter really requires 24 volt battery @ 24 volt 500 AH battery, with a 1500 watt panel and 60 amp MPPT controller.

Turn this around based on your 150 watt battery panel the maximum is a 10 amp PWM controller, 12 volt 60 AH FLA battery, and a 100 watt inverter. Or if you used a MPPT controller with a 150 watt panel can support up to a 12 volt 100 AH battery, 15 amp MPPT controller, and a 150 watt inverter.

I guess the urgency went away?

I'm doing a project, to get students to understand solar, but after trying to answer certain questions they had. I had to go looking for a better understanding, so here's the question we have hundreds and literally thousands of cheap solar lights we have taken apart for this project. We want to know if you add enough of these types of solar which doesn't put out very much power is it even possible to run an entire home. And how would you go about wiring them up to make bigger and stronger solar panels. If you answer with a satisfactory answer we will let you know about our secret little experiment, and I think if it's possible to add more solar to get more power even more amps then you're going to love what we're doing here with this new type of Technology made from the cheapest solar cells on the planet. Yes this is a mystery, what can you actually run with such a low powered solar cell and can you increase it to actually do something it was not intended to do, this is experiment to understand(Ex to U)

I'm doing a project, to get students to understand solar, but after trying to answer certain questions they had. I had to go looking for a better understanding, so here's the question we have hundreds and literally thousands of cheap solar lights we have taken apart for this project. We want to know if you add enough of these types of solar which doesn't put out very much power is it even possible to run an entire home. And how would you go about wiring them up to make bigger and stronger solar panels. If you answer with a satisfactory answer we will let you know about our secret little experiment, and I think if it's possible to add more solar to get more power even more amps then you're going to love what we're doing here with this new type of Technology made from the cheapest solar cells on the planet. Yes this is a mystery, what can you actually run with such a low powered solar cell and can you increase it to actually do something it was not intended to do, this is experiment to understand(Ex to U)

Firstly, I have no idea why you would post the same reply twice. Secondly, I don't care to know about your "secret littke experiment". It sounds as though most of us here have forgotten more than you will ever know about solar energy.

First thing I'm brand new to this message board, don't quite understand how it works so if I posted it twice it was an accident. Second thing you could have just simply said you didn't want to answer the question you didn't have to be so nasty about it to a newbie. Third of all I will report this to whatever Authority that governs these boards is this is the welcome newbies have to endure then it's not worth the effort I'll go elsewhere

If you understand the performance of solar cells it is possible to wire an unlimited number of them
in series-parallel combinations to increase energy collected. The general rules are that cells with
the same current rating may be efficient wired in series, and cells with similar voltage ratings may
be efficiently wired in parallel. There are practical considerations such as safe voltages and currents
with proper insulation and over current protection, wiring losses, weather tolerance, and shade.

Practical systems generally simplify the above problems by using the largest cells practical, half
a foot square today, packaged for an outdoor life of decades. Bruce Roe

Ex to U,
the key word is 'Practical'. What you are suggesting is like trying to replace a 5 hp lawnmower engine with five 1 hp engines. It can be done, but even if you already had the five 1 hp engines, it would be cheaper to buy a single 5 hp engine.

--mapmaker

Thank you, cheap is not what we're trying to do here, it's an experiment to see what can be done also a teaching tool for people to understand exactly what parallel and series actually mean. Most people won't tell you that solar cells are just smaller cells within themselves making one big huge cell. Understanding how you got the size sale in the first place is stuff that people normally overlooked when trying to understand solar cells, all the little details are important and what we are asking about. Keep in mind I always keep my promises so I'm sending you the beginning paper on this new technology that we are developing it looks promising, but we are still learning the basics which is hard to learn this my smaller details. Please take a look at what we're designing and leave a comment it doesn't matter if it's positive or negative, it only matters at the end of this experiment what we learn out of it.