I had my fifth-wheel in for service and they kept it for over 8 weeks (another story). There was no electricity hooked up, so the batteries ran out. My question is this. If I had, say a 150 Watt solar panel on the roof, and there was no use of the items except for the ones such as the parasitic types, would the batteries have gone "out". I have no knowledge of solar equipment, obviously.

Yes, a 150W solar panel will keep your batteries charged (as long as it has sunlight on it).

That depends on what the parasitic loads are and weather conditions. Then again if they didn't need those systems running, you could have charged the batteries and disconnected them.

You can gain knowledge of solar by reading posts about it on here.

150 watts will put 50-80 amp hours a day into the batteries. With the fridge off, you are needing 10-20 amp hours a day for the typical parasitic loads - propane detector, radio memory, some smoke detectors, TV antenna amp. Turn everything you can off - an inverter in standby can pull an amp or more an hour (the larger ones).

What size btry bank do you have?

will solar keep the batteries charged | Good Sam Community

13 Replies

MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Aug 09, 2015
First
Install a genuine battery cutoff switch. Many eamples with photos on these pages.

Create a label
DIRECT SHORT! DO NOT OPERATE!
Label to be pasted near the new switch. It's the truth and scares the hell out of 89 IQ types.
JiminDenver
Explorer II
Aug 09, 2015
wrong thread oops
JiminDenver
Explorer II
Aug 09, 2015
The last time I took our trailer in to the dealer, they told me to disconnect the battery.
Muddydogs
Explorer
Aug 09, 2015
After reading on here about dead batteries when leaving RV's at dealers I unhooked my solar system and removed the batteries and propane tanks when I left my rig at the dealer 3 weeks ago. Figure if they need power they can find a battery but I am not going to let them wreck my batterys.
RJsfishin
Explorer
Aug 08, 2015
A 100 watt panel will do it. Or if it didn't, I'd fix it !
TurnThePage
Explorer
Aug 08, 2015
I have 150 watts of solar and very rarely ever charge my batteries any other way. My converter has been shut off for over a year now. I don't even know if it works.
MrWizard
Moderator
Aug 08, 2015
short answer .. yes it can

long answer.. will it ?
depends on the loads and the weather and what happens with the service people, lights left on etc..
for 8 weeks i will assume it was out side in the sun and since it was 'summer time' should have got enough avg Sunny days to have kept the batteries charged
2oldman
Explorer II
Aug 08, 2015
If you don't know what an amp-hour is, read here:

This is RV electric 101. 12v side of life.
Crazy_Ray
Explorer
Aug 08, 2015
What size btry bank do you have?
christopherglen
Explorer
Aug 08, 2015
150 watts will put 50-80 amp hours a day into the batteries. With the fridge off, you are needing 10-20 amp hours a day for the typical parasitic loads - propane detector, radio memory, some smoke detectors, TV antenna amp. Turn everything you can off - an inverter in standby can pull an amp or more an hour (the larger ones).