Unique Solar Question

RoyB wrote:
My way of thinking is you would want to beef up your battery setup to run a large INVERTER SETUP that in-turn will run all of the 120VAC ITEMS you want to run. The purpose of the SOLAR PANEL would be to re-charge the large battery bank during the high sun day. It would take a real large solar setup to run directly from the panels for these large 120VAC items.

The basics for solar panels is you only get about six hours of 5-6AMPS DC CURRENT when a typical 120WATT SOLAR PANEL is in high sun. It will take many 120WATT SOLAR PANELS to maintain several high AH batteries to do this for you.

Then you also have to worry about when the HIGH SUN is not going to be available for you to use. During these times you will want a 2KW Honda Generator to run your on-board CONVERTER/CHARGER setup for three hours a day using smart mode charging techniques to keep the batteries charged-up so you can use them when needed.

I would think the first thing to do is get your batteries setup to run a large 120VAC OUTPUT Inverter setup then start looking into SOLAR PANELS to keep the BATTERIES re-charged so you can use the batteries at all times day or night.

Is this what you are thinking about doing????

I DO NOT THINK you can achieve what you are saying with SOLAR PANELS alone.

Just my thoughts
Roy Ken

NOTE: AS I was typing this up I see more info about the subj has showed up: Just relaying on some of my thoughts here...

Hi Roy,

Thanks for your input. I have some experience with solar setups already. My last RV was run on solar 97% of the time. I used a genny for the A/C and microwave though. That may be what I end up doing with this one as well but it sure would be nice to not run the genny if I had shore power near by. I just don't want the shore power supplying power to all my other appliances as well because then my solar dollars are wasted. I will be charged for all that power I use and will get no credit for the solar power I generate. It is my understanding that these rv parks are not equipped with roll back meter to give you credit for the power you generate like residential homes are.

I'm thinking the best method here would be to wire a separate breaker panel and 50 amp plug for the A/C and leave the stock one in place. That way if I ever want to change the wiring back to original I can just rewire it back to the original panel.