Opinion on portable/fixed solar panel for our rv?

One idea you could do is to have both a fixed and a portable setup. I'm looking at doing this with my next RV, so I have some type of charging always with the rig, as well as a portable setup connected to a different charge controller for faster charging when boondocking.

I have a set of portable panels that I am converting to a permanent mount right now. I have had them for over a year.. We do mostly 3 day weekend trips with two week long trips each year. We spend about 45 days in the camper each year so we camp a lot.

I thought that the ability to put the panels into a sunny area would be useful but I never did it, not once.

If you set up at night as we often do, figuring out how the sun falls in a semi-shady area is hard.

We found that we almost never camped in a shady area with a good sun area nearby. If the campsite was shady, usually the whole campground was shady. Moving the panels didn't help.

If you are going to put the panels a distance from the trailer you will need a lot of very expensive thick copper wire.

People can trip over the wire.

You can't put the panels too far from your trailer without putting them in someone else's campsite.

Are conditions really that different only a few feet away? Usually not.

Laziness is also involved. I camp to relax. If I don't have a good solar location I'll use the generator or just drain the batteries for a few days. I have enough juice to do that.

Hi Almot,


The Amorphous do work better--but I'd not recommend them. My roof could support 1000 watts of poly panels in the same space as my 256 watts of amorphous.

Almot wrote:
Peter - Amorphous Unisolar panels could be what you need for shade campsites. If Don Pianotuna is telling the truth, which he usually is, in low-light conditions they work better than mono- or poly-crystalline panels. Those in the link are not just amorphous, but also flexible, so the guy just glued them to the roof, no holes to drill. Amorphous are less efficient per sq.ft than crystalline panels, so you'd better get more of them. There are amorphous panels in rigid form as well.

Don

I've always envied the amps you report in low light, watt vs watt yours is much better than my 230w poly. Foot print vs foot print however I think the poly could match those numbers and have the advantage of putting out 4x the power (60a+) in good light.