Portable Solar Panels

For those of us with Travel Trailers, where space may be at a premium, a plug and play 120W foldable kit that has the controller mounted on the stand, away from the panel, makes heat less of an issue.

At least with buying a kit, newbies such as myself are getting our toes wet in solar, and maybe we learn as we go.

The point is to find something that works for you. Not all of us have EE degrees, or perhaps we'd rather tie flies or fish while on a camping trip, instead of worrying about electric.

120W solar panel kit

I designed the polar solar mount above from an 8 ft polar mounted satellite dish, didn't cost anything but some scrap metal. And it already handled some winds that I wasn't sure my awning could handle.
I'm doing w/ 200 watts what its going to take 400 watts to do flat roof mounted. But I do have to be around to move the mount every hour or 2 to keep up w/ the sun. This not for everyone for sure, but I think its trick :)

You can buy twin lead 10 ga cable off ebay for .36 a foot.

This discussion is like if somebody on the Honda race cars forum posted a link to Honda Civic because some place sells it 20-30% cheaper than others. So what :) ...

The price is good, as the kits go. I would not buy it, and most people here probably wouldn't either. New guys occasionally asking about "45W portable charger" for $200, might be interested, but by the time they come here and ask, this thread will be long forgotten.

I use jumper cables to reach the portable panels set out on the ground. I have short lengths of #8 from the controller "array" terminals and from the panel junction boxes. To set up, I just use the clamps on the jumper cables.

I can add a second or third set of cables if I need longer. (like steal the 12ft set of #6 I keep in the truck)

I don't get any real voltage drop that matters with such heavy gauge wires either, which is nice.

http://www.princessauto.com/pal/en/Booster-Cables/20-ft-2-Gauge-Booster-Cables/8443723.p

Only thing is the red colour on the cable has turned pink from lying in the sun. :)

gemsworld wrote:
The kit comes with a cable that is only 35 inches long. I wonder how much a 20 to 30 foot cable would cost.

I paid $32 shipped for a set of 25 ft cords off of ebay.

A portable "kit" - this one or any other - includes, in addition to the panel, just a controller and cable. Some also add a simple rack like on the photo above, and then the price goes up by few hundred bucks :)

12A controller costs $50 - a good one. 160W panel - hard to tell, not too many places sell them. Sunelec mentioned above, only sells in big quantities, individual panels they sell 280W the smallest. I would think around $200 for 160W, plus controller, plus cable - comes to a little over $250.

Placement of a controller behind the panel is wrong, not only it's hot there, but it also is far from the battery. For this reason alone I would not buy this kit. OTH, standalone controller is more pain to deal with, in a portable setup. I tend to think that a perfect portable kit is impossible. You may have a "portable" - just don't expect much.

The kit comes with a cable that is only 35 inches long. I wonder how much a 20 to 30 foot cable would cost.

Golden_HVAC wrote:
For a kit, that is a pretty reasonable price. I have seen $399 kits with only a 50 watt panel.

You can buy a 100 - 150 watt solar panel from this place, and look for a 12 volt nominal volt panel, and use a PWM controller. Then mount it to the roof, and practically forget it is up there. You can expand the system as needed too! And attached, it is much less likely to be forgotten or stolen.

SunElec.com

Fred.

Or you can get twice the amps per day by thinking about the portable one and moving it with the sun as your flat mounted panel that you forgot about stops producing. :B

This is definitely not for me but there are some people that have been interested in this. The price is a lot better than others I've seen.

Rich

Usually I am the first person advising against kits. So for they are WAY over priced and produce too little power to be truly useful. Here you can get a 65 or 79w panel, cheap CC and some wires for $400 and for the same money you can have a 230w system like I use.

This kit hopefully shows a trend towards more usable product for a more reasonable price. Not everyone wishes to become a solar engineer just to d o some dry camping. When I discuss our set up with others, their eye glaze over quickly. They don't understand what I'm saying and see a plug and play kit as the answer. They don't care if it is perfect, just that it's easy. The guy that makes the 65w kits here openly admits he preys on the stupid and lazy.

I like your contraption. How much wind can it handle?