Solar panel battery problems
I purchased a basic Windynation solar panel kit and installed it on my 26ft trailer this spring. It came with a basic controller with LED light showing if the current coming from the panel is good and...
Forum Discussion
Solar panels do not produce a lot of DC CURRENT. A typical 120WATT SOLAR PANEL will only produce 5-6AMPS DC CURRENT. This is probably pretty close to your PARASITIC DRAIN of your specific RV UNIT.
It takes 14.4VDC with the capacity of 20AMPD DC current to charge a single RV 12VDC Battery to its 90% charge state in a three hour time period.
One must always need to have a working multimeter around to keep tabs on what is happening around your batteries... When you are charging the batteries with solar panels you should see either 14.4VDC across the battery terminals at beginning of the charge period and this then will drop back to 13.6VDC until the battery reaches 90% charge state.
A typical battery that is fully charged when read in its sitting state should read 12.6-7VDC across the terminals...
The SOLAR REGULATOR should work just like your on-board converter/charger unit when charging your batteries...
Sounds like the batteries were fully charged on the first day and you was not putting back enough solar power to overcome the draws the batteries was seeing. If you only have one typical 100watt to 120Watts solar panel you will only be producing 5-6AMPS DC current as long as the panels are aligned in the high sun. Once the battery starts going down in capacity this is not enough DC CURRENT to do you much good except for keeping the battery topped off...
The solar panels are NOT much good for you unless you store the solar energy in the battery banks where you can use after the sun goes down...
Just my thoughts
Roy Ken
It takes 14.4VDC with the capacity of 20AMPD DC current to charge a single RV 12VDC Battery to its 90% charge state in a three hour time period.
One must always need to have a working multimeter around to keep tabs on what is happening around your batteries... When you are charging the batteries with solar panels you should see either 14.4VDC across the battery terminals at beginning of the charge period and this then will drop back to 13.6VDC until the battery reaches 90% charge state.
A typical battery that is fully charged when read in its sitting state should read 12.6-7VDC across the terminals...
The SOLAR REGULATOR should work just like your on-board converter/charger unit when charging your batteries...
Sounds like the batteries were fully charged on the first day and you was not putting back enough solar power to overcome the draws the batteries was seeing. If you only have one typical 100watt to 120Watts solar panel you will only be producing 5-6AMPS DC current as long as the panels are aligned in the high sun. Once the battery starts going down in capacity this is not enough DC CURRENT to do you much good except for keeping the battery topped off...
The solar panels are NOT much good for you unless you store the solar energy in the battery banks where you can use after the sun goes down...
Just my thoughts
Roy Ken
