Forum Discussion

Explorer

May 04, 2013

Newbie to solar question

I am thinking about building a some what protable solar recharge kit for my tt so I can do up to a week of boon docking. I know I need to do the total power worksheets. What I was wondeing is more or less which Charge controller to look at. I want to use 1 200 W pannel to start out with. I currently have all LED's for lights and at this time no TV or DVD's, but will be getting one in the future. Battery wise I have to GC2's. I do not have a gen set. I wanted to try and keep the cost down some what on this as to not spend as much as a generator would cost me. What are som of the brands to look for? Is a 25 or 30 amp controller also the ideal?

I willbe camping above 8000 ft most of the time and I french press my coffee.
Thanks
Matt

24 Replies

Majja13
Explorer
May 04, 2013
I have not picked a specific pannel yet, that is just a ball park. I am in the information gather phase. I am trying to learn as much as I can soak up, I think this is a very interesting subject to be honest.
time2roll
Nomad
May 04, 2013
Do you have a link to that 200w panel?
HiTech
Explorer
May 04, 2013
There are some very inexpensive Chinese solar controllers on eBay you can start with, depending on what batteries you have.

Be slightly careful. A high altitude you may get ABOVE the peak amp rating for the panel, requiring a slightly larger controller. 8000 feet give you a bonus in solar output when the sun is aimed right at the panel.

Jim
JiminDenver
Explorer II
May 04, 2013
What is the VOC of your panel. I am assuming above 24v meaning you may need a MPPT controller.

I use this one on a 230W panel clicky

Here is the thread I started on it.

clicky

It is less expensive and has fewer high end features but does the basic job well for half the cost of the next step up controller.

If you keep the panel/s to a 12v panel you can use a much less expensive PWM controller.