Solar System
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Update
our original panels did not last so well and the warranty turned out to be useless we got 3 years out of them but they failed and this was blamed on micro cracking I have removed them and updated
to some new GIGS  technology panels, these are 75w each, the CIGS is apparently immune from cracking and even if part of the panel is damaged there a diodes to allow the panel to keep working
I have wired these in series as the by pass diodes seem to negate the effects (largely) of partial shadowing.
I also updated the solar controller for a Victron, which is excellent, it has a blue tooth connection and an excellent app showing the performance of the panels

Old Panel info :-
We have 2x 80 w panels permanently fixed to the roof - these are wired in parallel and have their own solar controller
I went for narrow panels so they could lay between the ribs on the roof - I choose flexible panels as I did not want to increase the height of the van at all, it was important to keep below 2.1 metres for car park / height restriction access, also they keep the roof weight down.
The panels we went for are here  I wanted a well specified kit for the roof as it would be exposed continually to the weather, so a durable system is required. (Specifications)

I wired in parallel so if one of the panels is in shade or fails I will still get usable power out of the second, if they were in series this is not the case.
when they failed they both dropped to around 50% of the rated voltage, this was the day before a long trip so I quickly wired them in series so we cold get something from them, this sort of worked for a whil and we did manage a couple of amps but it was clear we needed something better.
 
As solar panels give very little when the van is shaded I also have a 100w panel that can be positioned around the van and pointed at the sun, this panel has it's own controller.
This was a much cheaper flexible Ebay panel but does seem to work well, this has proved to be very useful when parked in the shade or needing to charge the batteries.
The system is designed so either controller can be connected to either panel to give some additional redundancy.
Solar controller
Solar is great but you only get power when the panels are in the sun, the power drops dramatically when a cloud floats in front of the sun or the panels are in the shade, in the middle of winter you can get almost nothing from the system.

I also have a split charging system - here

Controller manual

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