Battery and Solar woes
Long read, so grab a coffee... Rockwood Mini-Lite 2306. We’ve had this generic 100W flexible solar panel which has served us well for several years now. I hate drilling holes in the roof of my RV to...
Forum Discussion
Qwazert wrote:
You've obviously hit the nail on the head.
My problem is that I didn't think that adding "better" batteries would create a problem....if I knew then, what I know now....
Looks like some more panels are in my future.
to give you an examble I am running a 24v 325watt split cell panel on my camper with a MPPT controler that supported two 6V batteries like you have, and it works great (this year I upgraded to LFP batteries though).
On my 5th wheel I am running three 160 watt 12V panels on a PWM controler servising four 6V batteries. while th 5th wheel works great and I never have to worry about plugging in, unless I want to run the bar fridge, the margaretaville and the ice machine :B the 480 watts of solare on it doesnt give me as many charging amps as the 325 watt panel on the mppt controler, and thats just a factor of the efficiency of the panel and the way a mppt controler works.
In the camper in vancouver at the end of june, I was getting 1.2amps of charging at 6:20am and by 8am I had 8 amps. on a good day I see 22-24 amps for the peak hours.
one of the biggest things is to get a programable controler so you can set it up to match your batteries, every manufacture has slightly different peramiters they want. and I always say get the biggest panel you can reasonable aford. my 325 watt on the camper cost me 200 bucks which is very reasonable. the 5th wheel is getting the 160's upgraded to three 350watt or larger. I also say to find a 24V split cell design as they are way more efficient in low light so where we live it benifits us a lot. and last your controler. when I buy a trailer/5th or what ever, before it leaves the lot the WFCO is taken out and replaced by a progressive dynamics charger. to many issues with WFCO as other have said, I have had three of them fail on me in 5 units I have owned. the last two didnt fail because they were taken out and replaced before I took the units haha.
oh and don't worry about having solar and show power at the same time, I alway do when im at home.
any questions feel free to ask or PM me if you don't want to ask in public I am sure any of us would be happy to help.
Steve
