RV Solar Panels
I'm looking at adding solar panels on my Tiffin Phaeton. I have a residential refrigerator and while we don't dry camp very often, there are times. Does anyone have suggestions re: a good product ...
Forum Discussion
10forty2 wrote:
Curious...for those who dry camp a lot, are you using the solar panels to power the house instead of the house batteries? I would have thought the regular house batteries would run the coach and the solar panels would keep the batteries charged..similar to plugging in to shore power. If so, then why is some much wattage required for the solar panels? I admit to not being up on solar usage, nor do I dry camp, so I'm honestly asking in case I decide to do either!
It goes pretty much as you imagine. Generally, you set up your battery banks with enough batteries to handle your required daily load. Then you want to make sure that you can put enough amp hours back into the battery before the sun drops too far. The process of charging batteries is very lossy. That is there will be a voltage drop from the panels to the charger. The charger will lose a bit more converting the voltage to the correct voltage for the batteries, etc. The sun will also not hit the panels full on for the whole day and probably not at the exact angle etc, so you won't really get the full output of the panels either. So, you try to size the system such that in real life, you can keep your batteries charged (in winter when the day is short). It's a complicated topic with lots of choices to be made at all levels.
joe
