Will this solar system suffice?

raztec wrote:
I've got a Northstar Laredo SC hard side truck camper which I'd like to put solar panels on and was wondering if this system will suffice.

Thanks for your input.

1. I currently have one 12v Interstate regular deep cycle battery. I'm ok with just keeping that. My budget is somewhat limited at the moment, but I'd like to have the option of adding a second battery later or upgrading to an AGM if you guys think that's necessary.

2. I'd like to be able to get off the grid for at least 10 days at a time, mostly in warmer climates with sunshine. The only appliances I would use are the furnace, lights, stereo and inverter to charge my camera or computer or cell phone. I won't be using a TV or A/C or microwave or much else. The fridge will of course run on propane.

3. I'm thinking 150-300W is the most I'll need. Perhaps:

a) A 160W panel from amsolar? Amsolar

b) Alternatively, the 150W panel from wegosolar. wegosolar

Or, I could have two installed if you think that's best in the long run

4. For charger and inverter I'm considering the Morningstar. Seems like they will be able to handle more batteries or panels should I choose to add them later:

a) Morningstar PS-30M charger: http://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/prostar/

b) Morningstar Inverter SI-300-115V-UL http://www.morningstarcorp.com/products/suresine/

5. As for wires, the companies and installers that I'm talking to say 10g should be enough, but everything I read says I should go with 6g at least. What do you guys think?

Thanks for any input you guys can provide before I go ahead and bite the bullet on this setup.

Cheers

Roof real estate is the main thing, but our TC has a big space up front that allows for a single 24v panel. This is a way better deal than buying 12v panels locally.

The wegosolar 150w panel is very very expensive (recently gone up due to the new tariff) but her 24v panels are reasonable when you can pick them up no shipping cost.

You can do vastly better with , eg, the wegosolar 260w panel (made by Canadian Solar AFAIK) and the Eco-Worthy 20a MPPT controller to run it (available from Eco-W website for about $102 US last time I looked.)

That is what we have for our TC (we swap the solar out of the 5er to use in the TC since it is all portable the way we have it) Got the single 255w panel run by the Eco-W and it provides bags of solar for the least money unless you buy in the States with no shipping when you are down there.

We carry two big T-1275s in the truck camper and last time out I also put two 6s in the truck bed forward of the back wheel and ran wires up from them hanging over the bed rail before sliding the camper in. I was then able to link the two 6s around outside and in to the two big 12s as one battery bank of over 500AH :) I could have put two more batteries in the other side for a total of six batteries if I needed to.

This all ran a 2000w inverter on whole house for the 120v 3.2 fridge, Microwave, toaster, kettle, TV, etc with the solar keeping up even with that 120v fridge when off grid for 5 days of "mixed sun and cloud" and the batteries were still about 75% full at the end.

So IMO for the same budget you are looking at for getting 150w you can have 260w and not have to expand later when you discover solar will let you do whatever you like off grid! :)