My first trailer and plans for solar

If you plan on boondocking a lot, first get yourself a good 6V or 12V battery, preferably 2 of them. Then start adding the solar to keep them charged off grid. Do your research first so you don't waste your money on something that is not going to do what you want it to. Google "Roads Less Traveled" blog for some good basic information about batteries and solar. You can also google Handy Bob's blog for even more in depth info on solar and batteries. Good luck!

I am doing the SOLAR INSTALL in baby steps with my OFF-ROAD POPUP camper.

I upgraded the on-board OCNVERTER/CHARGER unit, added more battery capacity, and changed over the trailer high wattage incandescent automotive lights to LED lights.

Been camping off the power grid all over this area on the East side of the US with this setup using 255AH battery setup. We do just fine with all the things we want to run doing this. We planned out our battery consumption to drop down to their 50% charge state hopefully at 8AM each morning when we are usually allowed to run our 2KW generator. We then connect our 30A Shore Power cable directly to the 2KW generator 120VAC RECEPTACLE using a RV30-15A Long Adapter (WALMART). This powers up our smart mode on-board converter/charger unit and will re-charge our 50% charge state batteries to their 90% charge state in just over three hours of generator run time. Then we can do this all over again the next day/night run off the batteries.

The batteries here demand over 50A DC CURRENT when first starting their initial charge run when first hit with 14.4VDC from the converter. This is more DC CURRENT than a single solar panel will produce in high sun. The 120WATT SOlar Panels will only produce around 5-6AMPS DC when in high sun.

Now that we have pretty much got the system we want to have for camping off the power grid for long extended it is time for us to add solar panels to keep us from running the generator so much.

Solar Panels are NOT much good for you unless you can store their energy into the battery banks to use at night.

Our game plan is to always use the generator for the first hour of recharging batteries which get past the high current portion of the re-charge. When the batteries start demanding lower DC current as they are being charged up then we can shut down the generator and just let the solar panels finish off the re-charge cycle. May take all day but as long as we can get to the 90% charge state before the high sun goes away then it would work for us.

Have learned from day one we have to always start our day/night camping run with our batteries at the 90% charge state or more otherwise it gets dark on us around 10PM at night. Then we would have to wait until 8AM the next morning before we would be allowed to run our generator.

This is the way it work for us at least...

My game plan is to install enough solar panels to produce around 20AMPS of DC CURRENT during high sun each day. My generator will always be available to run in case there is not enough high sun during the day.

These are my SOLAR PANEL goals - I'm sure others have their own game plan haha...

Roy Ken

No worries, here's a link to a Renogy 100W starter kit.

As you've found, the controller with that kit is not the best. It should work out for just a single panel, though. 100W may get you by for a few days of use. Depends on how hard you hit the battery with use.

If you don't already have one, get a cheap hand held meter so when you're messing around with solar and batteries, you have a tool that will measure voltage and such. It will also serve to let you know how much charge is left in the battery.

Good luck with the solar power, it is the best for charging batteries.