Anyone else built a basic 12v solar setup for under £200? Share your parts list

I finally got a small system running on my workshop last month and managed to keep it under £150 all in. Started with a 100W panel I found on eBay for £45, paired it with a cheap PWM controller from Amazon (the Victron BlueSolar 75/15, about £35), and wired it up to a second-hand 100Ah AGM battery I got off Facebook Marketplace for £40. Runs my LED strips, a small radio, and charges my phone no bother.

The main thing I skimped on was cable — used some old twin-core I had kicking about — and I know that's not ideal but the runs are short and I fused everything properly. Total spend came to around £145 once I'd added a blade fuse holder and some ring terminals from Toolstation. Not pretty but it works.

What I'm curious about is whether anyone has managed to squeeze an MPPT controller into a budget build at this kind of price point. The Victron 75/15 PWM was cheap enough but I keep reading that MPPT makes a real difference in winter when the light is rubbish. Has anyone used one of those generic SRNE or EPsolar MPPT units and actually trusted it long-term, or is it false economy at the cheap end?

Really interested to see how @CraftyWelder's workshop setup performs over winter — that's where the cheap PWM controllers tend to struggle with low light.

Just finished pricing up something similar for my garden office. Went slightly over budget at around £220, but I swapped the PWM for a basic Victron MPPT 75/15 (picked one up secondhand on eBay for £55). The efficiency difference seemed worth the extra outlay given how little direct sun I get.

Quick question for anyone who's done this — did you bother with a proper battery monitor or just wing it? I've got a 100Ah Fogstar Drift LiFePO4 on order and I'm wondering whether a Victron BMV-712 is overkill for a single-battery setup, or whether the Bluetooth monitoring is genuinely useful day-to-day in a garden office situation?

Great thread! I've got a similar setup running my shed – 100W panel, but I splurged slightly on an EPEVER 10A MPPT controller (around £35 on Amazon) rather than PWM. Honestly worth the extra tenner if you can stretch the budget, especially through these grey winter months when every bit of efficiency counts.

My battery is a 100Ah leisure battery from Halfords that I caught on sale for £65 – been solid so far. Total came to about £185 including some decent 6mm² cable and a fused connection block.

@Liz1979 raises a fair point about winter performance – I'd be curious whether @CraftyWelder notices the PWM struggling on overcast days. In low-light conditions the difference between PWM and MPPT becomes really noticeable. What loads are you running off it?

Good timing on this thread — I ran almost identical kit on my narrowboat for about eight months before upgrading.

One thing worth flagging: a cheap PWM controller will clip your panel's output quite aggressively in winter when the sun is already weak. @CraftyWelder might find November onwards disappointing if that controller is a no-name unit.

My budget turning point was finding Fogstar cells for a DIY 12V lithium pack — genuinely transformed what a modest panel could actually do rather than constantly wrestling with a soggy lead-acid.

Parts that gave me the best bang per pound:

• Renogy 100W panel (caught a sale, £52)
• EPEVER Tracer 1210AN — worth the extra £15 over mystery-brand units
• Second-hand leisure battery from a caravan dealer to start

The controller is where I'd never scrimp again. Everything else you can recover from.

@SolarJo narrowboat solar club, say less — running a 100W Renogy panel on my boat right now and the real hidden cost nobody mentions is decent cable and proper MC4 connectors, which'll eat your budget faster than the panel itself if you're not careful.

Really nice to see a budget build thread – these are always useful for folks just getting started.

One thing I'd add that nobody's mentioned yet: don't overlook the cable sizing. I see so many budget builds where people scrimp on wire gauge and then wonder why they're losing a chunk of their capacity to resistance losses before it even reaches the battery. For a 100W panel you want at least 4mm² cable on the panel-to-controller run, especially if it's a longer distance.

Also worth budgeting a few quid for proper MC4 connectors rather than splicing bare wires – @CraftyWelder you'd know better than most about the fire risk there given you're running this in a workshop full of flammables!

A decent inline fuse close to the battery is non-negotiable too. Cheap insurance against a very bad day.