Good solar panel brand?

By the way, I checked Sunelec.com today and found no 100 watt or higher panels in stock. Thought that was odd!

I'm searching to upgrade my system as well. I bought a 2007 TC with a 120 watt panel, blue sky 2000e controller and Magnum Me2012 inverter. It came with 2 Powervolt 12 volt batteries that are not deep cycle. My Tundra fridge is 12 volt only and uses about 73 ah a day. I use lights and other items very minimal. My 120 watt panel will not keep up. I'm planning to add another 120 watt panel and relocate a New Prostar 30 amp controller closer to the 4 new T105 Trojans. I hope this works.

harold1946 wrote:
I suggest you contact www.amsolar.com
They are located in Springfield Oregon and specialize in rv solar.
541-726-1091

I double this recommendation.This is where I got mineGood Luck

snoboy wrote:

stuckinthesand wrote:
Beofre this topic gets to big to be of any use I just want to say I use the 105 watt Grape solar panel from Costco. I've had it on 2 campers and it seems to work good. I use a PWM controller and wire it streight to the battery, I put a fuse in line so I can just pull it to shut it down. The panel costs about $130 bucks has a nice output guarantee and it's from Costco who will take back just about anything.

I like your thinking stuckinthesand. That panel looks perfect. What is the model and size controller your using?

Mike

I have a couple, the sunforce 60031 10 amp and the Morningstar Prostar 30amp PWM controllers seem to work for me, go them on Amazon, I simply looked for the ones that had decent reviews. Also used these forums and blogs to try and determine which ones are “out there in the field” getting used. The general rule of thumb I follow is to have 100 watts for every 100 amp hours of battery I’m charging. I even have one of these panels hung on my fence to keep all the batteries in my toys maintained.

I have never seen a post where a "name brand" or "higher priced" panel outperformed some low cost generic.

Shop primarily for cost per watt IMO.

100w Solar Cynergy $125
Or get two for $240 including the parallel connectors.

stuckinthesand wrote:
Beofre this topic gets to big to be of any use I just want to say I use the 105 watt Grape solar panel from Costco. I've had it on 2 campers and it seems to work good. I use a PWM controller and wire it streight to the battery, I put a fuse in line so I can just pull it to shut it down. The panel costs about $130 bucks has a nice output guarantee and it's from Costco who will take back just about anything.

I like your thinking stuckinthesand. That panel looks perfect. What is the model and size controller your using?

Mike

This is always a great topic and discussed often. Many of the forum members have taken the plunge and installed, searched and researched just what you are doing. There is a location for many of these earlier posts at this site;


Clicky


Once you get your solar panel, you might consider improving your capabilities by upgrading your batteries, or maybe do that first and forgo the expense of the solar, as well as take a serious look at your energy consumption and make some changes there too, LED lights, turning lights off sooner than you have and auxiliary heating sources that will minimize the biggest power drain, your furnace.

I love my solar, but it is not the economical way for most.

b

I suggest you contact www.amsolar.com
They are located in Springfield Oregon and specialize in rv solar.
541-726-1091

In my simple thinking I run into the characteristics of what you are getting... The 100WATT solar panel you are wanting is probably rated as 18VDC output @ 5.5AMPS to get its 100WATT panel rating.

For you to re-charge a battery you will need the provided solar controller to give you something in the 14.4VDC range. This will probably end up being 14.4VDC@4-5 AMPs that is physically going to your battery terminals coming from a 100WATT solar panel when it is in the high sun period of the day. With 5AMPS output you are only getting 72WATTS of usable DC power from your 100WATT panel.

You will have to decide that is this enough power power to keep your to GP24 batteries charged up for the one day/night run off the batteries.

My simple thinking is a normal smart mode charging unit will recharge your two GP24 batteries back to their 90% charge state in a three hour period. Your smart mode converter/charger will produce 14.4VDC to get this charge state going. The bad news is the two GP24 batteries will demand around 40AMPS of charge current for a short time period to get to the 90% charge state in the three hour period. This 40 AMPS of charge current has to come from the smart mode converter/charger. After about 20 minutes or so the two GP24 batteries will drop down to demanding 5-6 AMPS until they get to their 90% charge state.

Using your new 100WATT SOLAR Panel you will only get 14.4VDC@ 5AMPS to get this 90% charge state going. When the two GP24 batteries demand the 40AMPS charge current only 5AMPS will be available. Your two GP24 batteries will charge ok with the 5AMPS charging current but it will not get to the 90% battery charge state in a short three hour period. It will take "MUCH" longer and most likely you will run out of available SUNLIGHT during the one day SUN WINDOW which is probably around 6-8HOURS long for high SUN.

This will be your short comings using the smaller solar panels in my opinion.

I too am just trying to plan out a solar install and not finding my situation is as black and white as alot folks seem to pass along.

My saving grace is I have been running my battery system camping off the power power grid for the past five years or more so I know what to expect from my batteries. I only have enough room on my off-road POPUP for three solar panels and am thinking two 120/130WATT panels on one end and hopefully I can afford maybe a 220WATT panel on the rear end of my roof. I suspect I will only get 14.4VDC@25AMPS (or around 360WATTS) from the solar controller for these three panels to recharge my battery bank with. This is a long way from the stated 460WATTS worth of solar panels... The big question for me is this going to be enough charge to re-charge my three 255AH battery bank back up to the 90% charge state during the high SUN time period of 6-8Hours. Probably going to be close haha... My daily battery consumption is consistently 300WATTS when camping off the power grid.

My other problem is I only have a short window to know for sure I will get to the required 90% charge state on my three batteries. I have to know by 4:30 each day if this is going to happen so that I can go to PLAN B and recharge for three hours using my 2KW Generator for three hours if it doesn't happen. Not having a 90% battery charge state each evening to start my run off the batteries is NOT an option for me. My trailer will get dark on me around 10PM at night and I can't run my generator until 8AM the next morning due to generator run time restrictions here on East side of the US.

Just passing all of this along to add to your thinking process of what you might need to be successful charging your batteries with your solar panels.

Will require some planing

Be sure to check out MELLO MIKE'S TC setup with his solar panels.
Roy Ken

Beofre this topic gets to big to be of any use I just want to say I use the 105 watt Grape solar panel from Costco. I've had it on 2 campers and it seems to work good. I use a PWM controller and wire it streight to the battery, I put a fuse in line so I can just pull it to shut it down. The panel costs about $130 bucks has a nice output guarantee and it's from Costco who will take back just about anything.