Do you know what makes an Adventure Kings Solar Panel one of the best value solar panels on the Australian market?

There are Many reasons to choose Adventure Kings over other brands, but one of the main reasons you should choose an Adventure Kings panel is the absolute effectiveness of the refined monocrystalline solar cell.

But what does mono crystalline mean? And what are the advantages over cheaper Polycrystalline panels?

MONO CRYSTALLINE

Whilst poly crystalline and monocrystalline panels both use the same science for absorbing the suns rays and converting it to DC power.  As the name suggests Monocrystalline has a much more uniform structure and because of this single crystal construction the quality and consistency of the power produced is factors better than an equivalent sized polycrystalline panel.

The down side to a typical mono vs poly solar panel is the cost of production, generally due to the requirements of much larger platters of higher-grade silicone, the monocrystalline panels have the trade off, of generally being more expensive.

This higher price is not the case when looking at the range of Adventure Kings Solar Panels, although they are priced near one of the most affordable solar panel systems on the market, they offer some of the features usually only reserved for high end solar panel systems such as including their own PWM solar regulators and even being available in both folding “suitcase” style panels such as the Adventure Kings 160W Solar Panel and the Adventure Kings 250W Solar Panel as well as the Folding “Blanket” style panels such as the Adventure Kings 120W Folding Solar Blanket which takes advantage of a completely modular multi panel layout which folds small enough to hide under your 4WD passenger seat!

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PWM VS MPPT SOLAR REGULATION!

All Adventure Kings Solar Panels are equipped with high quality smart voltage regulators, but why would you need a voltage regulator? With the efficiency of our solar panels improving regularly, our high-powered monocrystalline panels are capable of outputting over 20v of DC power, you could connect this directly to your 12v battery system, however the result would be a battery that is more cooked than your eggs on Sunday morning!

To prevent over charging from causing irreversible battery damage, a solar voltage regulator comes in extremely handy, it measures your vehicles battery voltage, as well as the input voltage coming from your solar panel and modifies the voltage to optimise the charging capability of your system.

With this sorted you need to make the decision between one of two main types of solar regulator, those being PWM (Pulse Width Modulator) and MPPT (Multi Point Power Tracking) these systems achieve the same goal.. but how?

A PWM solar controller slowly adjusts the amount of power the battery receives and as it gets closer and closer to fully charged, moderates the amount of power to keep the battery charge “floating” which means you can run your devices and the system will automatically adjust to suit the demands you are putting on it, and effectively reducing the stress put on your battery system!

PWM has the advantage of being extremely common in electronics, as the PWM voltage regulators are used in everything from digital devices to automotive and industrial applications, this means that the technology is on the affordable end of the scale even though it is one of the more efficient ways to regulate voltage, this is why it is included as standard with many of the Adventure Kings Solar Panel Systems.

As a suitable alternative to PWM is the newer technology MPPT Solar Controllers take advantage of  higher voltage between the panel and the controller, and less amperage, resulting in less power loss over the length of the conductor and subsequently converting it to much higher amperage going into the battery.

The benefits of running an MPPT controller on your Solar Panel is its ability to maintain a healthy charging current even when the weather is overcast, the MPPT can make your solar panel up to 30% more efficient, all thanks to the reduced resistance between the solar panel and the regulator.

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DIRTY PANELS MIGHT AS WELL BE PACKED AWAY!

No matter whether you are running the biggest solar panel in town, or you are looking for an ultra-compact setup a solar panel covered in dust dirt and rain spots is practically shooting yourself in the foot.

By giving your solar panel a wipe down with a damp cloth you allow the maximum amount of light transmission to your solar panel and enable the maximum charge through the day!

Dirty panels are a problem for more than just campers, this was also a problem even on the mars rover, where a dust storm covered the panels and left the rover stranded, after a secondary wind storm, the panels were cleaned of the dust that coated them, and the rover could recharge its batteries and come back online, saving the mission!

So don’t hesitate, get online or drop into some of the Adventure Kings Dealers or 4WD Supacentre stores, and get your hands on one of Australia’s favorite portable solar power systems for much less than you would imagine!