How much solar to stick on a 22-24 foot "C"?

The real story in that picture is the useless awning! We have the same problem, where if you lower it enough to do any good, you can't get the door open. My next RV will have the awning on one side and the door on the other!

Tried the whole extra piece of "awning" "screen" to hang down farther, but what a huge PITA to get it all rigged. Bungees and clamps gone mad! Instead of that little flap, they need to already come with the flap as a longer roll-down piece you can then hold to the ground with tent pegs. :(

24 foot class C on an e350 here. As has been said, more is better. 300w is a minimum and 600w would be perhaps ideal IMHO for our style of dry camping. Of course YMMV depending on camping style and furnace use.

Here in Sunny SoCal I run a 160w panel on the roof and deploy a 100w portable as well when needed. When the sun is good, 260w is enough to get me recharged after a night of furnace use. I can start the generator to supplement if the sun isn't cooperating for any reason. If I'm not using the furnace at night, the 160w panel alone is enough with plenty of sunshine. For us, it's the furnace that kills the battery faster than anything. No furnace and we can dry camp easily for months without using the generator on a 105ah battery if we had to.

Other things help of course. I converted to LED. I use a Buddy Heater before bed and anytime we are awake when it is really cold outside. We don't have or want a TV and all that goes with it like a DVD player etc. I try to park in the sun in the winter. We frequently use flashlights at night when playing family board games. Basically, the RV becomes a fancy tent. I do use the fridge and the water heater so it's a little better than a tent. ;)

One real plus for us since adding solar is that the battery is always charged and ready to do when we pick our RV up from storage.

I started with just the 100w portable panel and quickly realized that even with perfect sunshine, that the single 100w wasn't going to cut it. It helped, sure, but not much. As others said, I think 1.5w per Ah is a good number and that's with perfect conditions. I am at about 2.5w per Ah and that works well for us weekend warriors living where the sun always shines.

I'm planning to alternate between camping on undeveloped land I own now plus what I'm soon buying in another state. Perhaps winter on one place and summer on another. I may even in between, do some park camping, lol. My daughters and I are planning to make regular weekenders to livestock shows and fiberfests, so we need it to be flexible and easily deployed even if I'm in the throes of a crippling back attack. At these shows we may not have access to onsite connections.

I would like to know of an online site where it would be the best place to learn how to set up a solar panel array that could be used on these terms. I would also like it to be simple and easy to understand from the most basic level, as I'm good with changing light bulbs, cover plates, even running wires for and installing phone jacks and wiring an outlet or switching out a breaker switch but more than that and I need the basics to make sure I haven't got too many windows in my foundation of my learning curve. Where to begin steering into that curve?

I would like to arrange the setup so it is easy to reach to deploy or that is able to be deployed while traveling down the road. Has anyone done this?

weavingone wrote:
I would like to know of an online site where it would be the best place to learn how to set up a solar panel array that could be used on these terms.

The "terms" are a bit unclear. What state in winter, what state in summer, what do you need solar for (i.e. your energy habits), what this solar will be sitting on (i.e. trailer, van, shore home etc). And so on.

There is no need to learn solid state physics and how electrons are crawling there inside the solar panels on a sunny day. But, if learning DC and electricity in general will have to be done from the scratch, the amount of info to digest could be insurmountable, after certain age. Oddly, after you've figured out what you need (be it with or without understanding the basics), then driving screws and routing cables is all that there is to it :)

Also, there exist (overpriced and undersized) portable solar kits. They are TAD popular, and for a good reason - people can have "some" solar without having to learn or install much.

weavingone wrote:
I would like to know of an online site where it would be the best place to learn how to set up a solar panel array that could be used on these terms.

Here's a couple of sites with good info:

http://www.jackdanmayer.com/rv_electrical_and_solar.htm

https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/the-rv-battery-charging-puzzle-2/

I have three panels, one on the roof and two on the side of my coach that can be removed. Here's a link:

http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/26852212/gotomsg/26852711.cfm#26852711

I wouldn't recommend reading Handy Bob's blog unless you already have some understanding of things. You'll get lost in this rant - and besides, some info is dated.
Reading it after you've already learned some, is entertaining - if you like the satire genre :), though also boring and not too productive because you'll be reading about what you already know, i.e. that an average Joe Schmoe haven't heard about DC other than Washington DC.

I agree with the "Handy Bob" comment, total waste of time. Much better off to do your own research.

I've gleaned a tiny bit of knowledge from Bob's rant, - the fact that he was living completely offgrid with 350-something watt tilted array, no generator, and this wasn't in Az or Tx. Was kinda useful when planning my 500W flat install, - back then 500W was considered "big", very few people here had more than 400W to share the real-world experience.

This 350W number wasn't a crucial part but merely a confirmation that my planning wasn't way off. I already had the info and design tips needed for the project. Somebody totally new could've easily arrived to wrong conclusions and estimates, reading the same blog.

The author of this off-thread part of discussion should start with energy audit and goals prioritizing.

IMO you don't know what you need or want until you go camping a few times and learn what is possible. You start with what the rig came with and what you can do with that, then find ways to renovate. More trips away the more you discover you can renovate to do more.

So IMO you can't read up on what somebody does with his and get it right the first time. You should be able to build on what you started with. Now THAT can be the tricky part--to know enough to have a starting set-up that can be expanded, and not have to be tossed and replaced.

All assumes you will want to do more. Some folks take pride in doing with less--just weird. They should all go on a "Downed Pilot Training Course" instead of going Rving. Eat bugs and sleep in mud muddles. :)

X2

Almot wrote:
I wouldn't recommend reading Handy Bob's blog unless you already have some understanding of things. You'll get lost in this rant - and besides, some info is dated.
Reading it after you've already learned some, is entertaining - if you like the satire genre :), though also boring and not too productive because you'll be reading about what you already know, i.e. that an average Joe Schmoe haven't heard about DC other than Washington DC.