Both have their own purpose and applications and both have different outcomes when hooking up solar panels of different wattage together.
How to wire 2 portable solar panel together.
Connecting in series means joining the positive terminal of a solar panel to the negative terminal of the next solar panel until eventually you are left with one free positive and one free negative terminal of the array which are to be connected to the input either of the inverter in case of a grid tied system without a battery backup or the charge controller in case of a grid tied system with a battery backup or off grid solar panel system.
When you connect two or more solar panels like this it becomes a pv source circuit.
Yes the results are virtually identical.
If we have two solar panels with same voltage and power the connection will be very simple.
If both panels are rated at the same maximum voltage then you ll get maximum output.
Connecting 2 130w folding solar panel sets together.
Parallel connection of two identical solar panels.
Connect the negatives to the negatives and positives to the positives.
To power a dual battery system you ll need to connect the panels in parallel.
When solar panels are wired in series the voltage of the panels adds together but the amperage remains the same.
Firstly lets take a look at connecting solar panels in series.
Solar panels are usually connected in series to obtain higher output voltage.
Solar panels are wired in series when you connect the positive terminal of one panel to the negative terminal of another.
In this first image there are 3 solar panels.
Two arrays two 10a charge controllers connect both in parallel to the same battery bank.
Connecting two solar panels in parallel.
There are two ways to wire up solar panels.
The white line is the negative connection all 3 panel negative wires are just simply tied together and to the wire that runs back to the negative connection on the charge controller.
Two arrays connect in parallel to one 20a charge controller run cable to battery bank.
If you look at the arrows along the white and red lines they are showing the direction of flow.