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busdriverbob's avatar
busdriverbob
Explorer
Jun 20, 2019

Solar Panel

I bought a new trailer Artic Wolf 305ML. It is pre wired for solar power. My question is do I just plug in a panel or do I need to buy a controller?
  • You need a controller. “Unfiltered” solar charging is not desirable. What’s the wire size on the plugin? That determines how much solar you can have. Let us know when you tire of portable panels. The best of solar isn’t “plug and play.” Do some reading.
  • Buy an MPPT controller with some room to expand your system in the future.
  • busdriverbob wrote:
    I bought a new trailer Artic Wolf 305ML. It is pre wired for solar power. My question is do I just plug in a panel or do I need to buy a controller?

    You can buy panel(s) with controllers attached.
  • You need a controller to manage the power you're collecting. It's worth the extra money to spring for an MPPT controller. You'll net more power and will be better able to see in real time what you're harvesting from the sun!
  • You need a controller. You also need to make sure you have the right kind of plug going from the controller to your RV. If they are dissimilar, you will need to buy an adapter. My last camper had a zamp solar port and my new camper has a furion port. I have a 200w zamp suitcase solar setup so I needed to buy the adapter and then I had to make sure the positive and negative were wired correctly on my RV. In my case, I had to switch the wires to work with the adapter correctly so I would also suggest you know which wires from the port in your camper goes to which terminal on your battery.