Solar, worth it in my case?

I am just now thinking about SOLAR PANELS for my off-road camping setup. I think you must go the baby steps way first to find out what you want to have with you when you are camping off the power grid and have enough installed batteries to support this.

The 120WATT SIZE PANELS only produce around 5-6AMPS DC current during high sun. With this in mind you will need to figure out how many panels you will need to properly re-charge your installed battery bank. 5-6AMPS DC Current is not alot of SUN POWER if you want to re-charge your batteries in a quick three hour charge time.

My on-board charging setup will need to produce 14.4VDC @ around 20AMPS per battery if I want the batteries to re-charge within a 3-hour time frame. The SOLAR PANELS will have to do the same thing. Of course you will have high sun for a good 5-6 hours or so a day so that will be enough to re-charge a couple of batteries to their float mode in the one day sun I would think. This is especially so being in the AZ High sun area to start with having more than 5-6 hours of high Sun..

You should realize that SOLAR is not the only answer and you really have to have a generator setup if you want to totally rely on keeping your batteries at their minimum of 90% charge state when you need to use them.

I am just now in SOLAR PANEL MODE thinking after camping off the power grids for the past few years with my 255AHs battery setup. I know exactly what to expect and when I need to do re-charge my batteries. They are still going good since being installed in 2008. I will most likely start out with two 120WATT PANELS on my POPUP ROOF and maybe add another 250WATT PANEL later on. That is about all the room I have on my POPUP ROOF.

The only real thing I have learned for my style of camping off the power grid is I MUST start each afternoon/evening with a good 90% charge state if I want to make it through the night. This all then gets re-charged again starting at 8AM the next morning. I may also have to run my generator for around one hour to get over high current BOOST MODE. Then I am hoping the SOLAR PANELS here on the East side of the US will take over and get me re-charged to at least to the 90% charge before I start using the batteries again that evening.

This requires a good monitor system to keep me in the know where my approximate battery Bank charge state is when nearing the loss of high sun. I can always go back to generator when allowed to run my generator at the camp site to get the battery bank where it needs to be at. I will not want to start my evening run off the batteries unless they are are at least at the 90% charge state.

These are my baby steps...

Roy Ken

I agree with Fiverwheel. But we have ours on a tripod that my husband built and we move them around on the ground. You might look into that. I've seen all kinds of homemade ideas at Quartzsite. some just lean theirs against the rig!!!!!! And we have a Honda 2000 and it's so quiet, walk away a little bit and you don't hear it. :)

The chances are that the real estate on your roof is no more or less obstructed by objects that any other. If your installer is well informed he will suggest a pattern for the panels that will be most efficient based upon your roofs particular anomalies.
The panels we have are laid flat on our roof and although at times would benefit perhaps by being tilted, they still function very well.
Contact AM Solar in Springfield Oregon and they will answer your questions fully.

I'm at a similar point myself but let me first ask you what type of generator you have. I have a Honda 3000 and it will charge my batteries on eco mode which is very quiet. I know this isn't what you asked for but I'm wondering what I'm going to run into with running my generator as it seems to be a viable option for now. Sorry to get off track but appreciate your comments.