RoyB wrote:
google says "First notice that solar panels produce electric power according to their size, efficiency and how much sunlight they receive. According to Wiki from 10 sq. ft you might receive from 100 to 200 watts because it depends on how much sunlight it receives, and on a daily basis the total power is much less than the rated wattage. so for 500 sq. ft. it could be from 5000 to 10 000 watts which is pretty good power energy."
I think you should think in terms of storing solar energy in a battery setup. The solar panels only work when there is daytime sun light. There may be days on end where the sun is behind clouds etc.. You need to store the energy from the solar panel in batteries so that you can use this energy to operate your appliances etc using inverters etc... It just doesn't make good sense to me to just connect a solar panel to a fridge and only operate it for a few hours during the day light time when the sun is out...
I would think the best soultion would be to beef up your battery banks to be able to run "ALL" of the 120VAC items you want to operate from an proper sized Inverter and all the 12VDC items you want to run direct connected to your 12VDC battery source. Then you would re-charge this battery bank each day by connecting your trailer shore power power cable to a 2KW Honda quiet type generator which would allow your on-board converter/charger to re-charge the batteries in a short three hour generator run time using smart-mode technology.
The solar panels would really enhance this operation by trickle charging your battery bank during the day light hours so you can continue running your 120VAc and 12VDC items when you want to. If you have enough solar panels you could skip a few days perhaps of having to run the generator.
To be successful I think you have to have the generator first then add solar power to the system to better sustain it...
This is my game plan at any rate... We are now very successful staying out off the power grids for days and weeks on end re-charging the batteries every day with the generator. Now we can improve on this big time by just adding solar panels to help keep the batteries re-charged. All I really want to install is around 120WATTS of solar panels on my OFF-ROAD POPUP.
just my thoughts
Roy Ken
I think our approach is similar but I'd like to see if I can tilt more towards solar than the generator - i.e. use the generator only if necessary and try to generate as much power I can using the solar setup...
