Hi guys I am looking to get solar set up for my travel trailer. It's a 2018 model and has a fairly efficient air conditioning unit built in to the ceiling/roof. I've watched YouTube videos showing how to use solar panels and a power inverter to power a window air conditioner, but what about when the air conditioner is built into the roof of your trailer? My trailer has a "solar ready" 10amp Furrion plug but I doubt that'll be enough to power the AC unit? Is there an adapter I could use to plug the power inverter directly into the 30amp power port on the outside of the trailer that I use to plugin at campgrounds? Thanks for any tips on powering this built-in AC unit using solar panels.

A air conditioner that draws 12A AC would require an inverter that draws 130A DC from the batteries and would require a large solar array, battery and inverter. Basically it's just not practical for a RV.Instead use a 2000W gen or larger for your 30A RV to run the A/C.

I run mine for short periods from two 206ah 12v lipo batteries. I have a 3000va victron inverter. The AC pulls 80-100 amps constantly. If your AC is a typical 12btu your going to need a lot of solar panels to pump 100 amps back into the battery. Or have a lot of batteries. I can usually last two to three hrs before depleting my batteries. Obviously the hotter it is, the less time I can do that.

I've been thinking about a mini-split for my next camper and possibly solar and batteries to run the AC overnight, but solar is still pretty expensive.I was wondering if it is feasible to have a battery bank and invertor WITHOUT a solar setup. I was wondering if I stayed in a traditional campground night 1, charged the battery bank, then stay at a dispersed campground night 2 and use the batteries to power the mini-split overnight. Then either run a generator for a couple hours during the day to recharge the battery bank or stay at a traditional campground the following day.I'm still in the early research stages, as I've never done solar or battery/invertor before. Curious what people's thoughts are on this.

If I could fit a mini-split in my 1140 AF I would have already. Just no good place to put one that will have a clear air path. You could just run from batteries, but they are pretty expensive too. Still Solar won't work at night so either way you need enough battery to carry you overnight. I have a 30 amp 12v-12v victron charger hooked to my truck that helps keep the batteries up while driving. We keep the AC on while moving and on all but the really hot days it will keep up fine with my solar. Last trip it was over 100 and I only made it about 5 hrs before I had to stop and fire up the generator. Drove the next hour with that on and was good for another few hrs. When its in the 80's, the truck and solar can keep up with the little cycling the ac does in days drive.

I'm no solar expert. But it is possible to run A/C off batteries.The cost is still relatively high but it is doable.It will require 4-6 Lipo batteries for starters.You then need a means to recharge those batteries which means covering your entire roof with solar panels. While in general price are dropping I priced a ac capable system at $6000.00 grand or so for a DIY install. Keep in mind a genset can be had for less than a grand! Also know a built in Onan 5550 genset is a 7000.00 factory option for units that have the built in option availabe.As to just installing batteries with no solar panels it is certainly doable.Only the end user can decide if it is practical. But if one night gets you through it maybe something to consider? Recharging batteries via genset instead of solar defeats the purpose of having expensive batteries if your going to run genset anyway. However if the no solar panel set up meets your needs it is doable.

Powering AC unit built into travel trailer with solar?

Grit_dog
Navigator
Aug 23, 2022
pianotuna wrote:
Here is how someone has done this:

"Jim Peterson Don Rose -- Good point -- the "cool room" is an 8'x 10' stand-alone building with an 8' ceiling = 640 cubic feet of interior volume but a significant portion of that volume (?18%?) is taken up by two 250 gallon water tanks. Each tank measures about 3'6" by 4' and I'm guessing the height of the square IBC tanks is about 4'? The original plan was to slope the roof/ceiling down at the 15 degrees needed to maximize "winter" solar power yield *and* minimize interior volume at the same time . . . but that's *not* how it got built. ??

The A/C is a Midea U-shaped mini-split (8,000 BTU) which was powered by a Renogy 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter. The larger Renogy 2,000 pure sine wave inverter has arrived and might even be installed by now. ?? We're up to 2,000 watts of solar panel and that will increase to 2,250 watts soon enough to offset the 33% loss of power we experienced on the super HOT summer days. This means we'll be massively over-paneled the rest of the year but these used solar panels we're using ($63 for 250 watts) keeps it cheap to over panel. ??

This potential for 188 amps of charge is controlled by three Renogy 100/40 charge controllers plus a 4th charge controller of comparable size (forgot the brand on that one ?? ). The inverter is fed from a bank of eight 6 volt deep cycle golf cart batteries. ?? We figure that any power yield above 160 amps will simply be "clipped" and essentially ignored as 160 amps will be w-a-y more than enough during the rest of the year (Sep thru May) when it's not so blazing hot there. :) '

Good grief….
Huntindog
Explorer
Aug 23, 2022
afidel wrote:
valhalla360 wrote:
time2roll wrote:
pianotuna wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:
No matter what "batteries" you use, they all need to be recharged as soon as possible, Lithiums are not immune to this and are not an exception if you want to get the most life for the money you spend.

I thought this was their main claim to fame???
Don't panic. The statement is not true for any practical use.

Storage at 30% to 70% is less wear than being used. No charge asap is needed.

This is consistent with my understanding.
- Lead Acid (which includes AGM & Gel) are happiest sitting at 100% charge.
- Lithium are happies at a mid level of charge. Taking it to 100% for a short period to get all the capacity is OK but leaving it sitting at 100% for long periods is not ideal.

100% is ok if done slowly. For greater longevity you want to keep them between ~20 and 80% state of charge. If you keep them in this middle 60% range you can get 4-500% of the cycle count out of them.
Battle Born says to store theirs at 100%. Do not float them though. 100% then disconnect them.
pianotuna
Nomad III
Aug 23, 2022
Here is how someone has done this:

"Jim Peterson Don Rose -- Good point -- the "cool room" is an 8'x 10' stand-alone building with an 8' ceiling = 640 cubic feet of interior volume but a significant portion of that volume (?18%?) is taken up by two 250 gallon water tanks. Each tank measures about 3'6" by 4' and I'm guessing the height of the square IBC tanks is about 4'? The original plan was to slope the roof/ceiling down at the 15 degrees needed to maximize "winter" solar power yield *and* minimize interior volume at the same time . . . but that's *not* how it got built. ??

The A/C is a Midea U-shaped mini-split (8,000 BTU) which was powered by a Renogy 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter. The larger Renogy 2,000 pure sine wave inverter has arrived and might even be installed by now. ?? We're up to 2,000 watts of solar panel and that will increase to 2,250 watts soon enough to offset the 33% loss of power we experienced on the super HOT summer days. This means we'll be massively over-paneled the rest of the year but these used solar panels we're using ($63 for 250 watts) keeps it cheap to over panel. ??

This potential for 188 amps of charge is controlled by three Renogy 100/40 charge controllers plus a 4th charge controller of comparable size (forgot the brand on that one ?? ). The inverter is fed from a bank of eight 6 volt deep cycle golf cart batteries. ?? We figure that any power yield above 160 amps will simply be "clipped" and essentially ignored as 160 amps will be w-a-y more than enough during the rest of the year (Sep thru May) when it's not so blazing hot there. :) '
msmith1_wa
Explorer
Aug 22, 2022
This might shed some light on what is needed.
afidel
Explorer II
Aug 20, 2022
valhalla360 wrote:
time2roll wrote:
pianotuna wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:
No matter what "batteries" you use, they all need to be recharged as soon as possible, Lithiums are not immune to this and are not an exception if you want to get the most life for the money you spend.

I thought this was their main claim to fame???
Don't panic. The statement is not true for any practical use.

Storage at 30% to 70% is less wear than being used. No charge asap is needed.

This is consistent with my understanding.
- Lead Acid (which includes AGM & Gel) are happiest sitting at 100% charge.
- Lithium are happies at a mid level of charge. Taking it to 100% for a short period to get all the capacity is OK but leaving it sitting at 100% for long periods is not ideal.

100% is ok if done slowly. For greater longevity you want to keep them between ~20 and 80% state of charge. If you keep them in this middle 60% range you can get 4-500% of the cycle count out of them.
valhalla360
Navigator
Aug 19, 2022
time2roll wrote:
pianotuna wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:
No matter what "batteries" you use, they all need to be recharged as soon as possible, Lithiums are not immune to this and are not an exception if you want to get the most life for the money you spend.

I thought this was their main claim to fame???
Don't panic. The statement is not true for any practical use.

Storage at 30% to 70% is less wear than being used. No charge asap is needed.

This is consistent with my understanding.
- Lead Acid (which includes AGM & Gel) are happiest sitting at 100% charge.
- Lithium are happies at a mid level of charge. Taking it to 100% for a short period to get all the capacity is OK but leaving it sitting at 100% for long periods is not ideal.
time2roll
Nomad
Aug 19, 2022
pianotuna wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:
No matter what "batteries" you use, they all need to be recharged as soon as possible, Lithiums are not immune to this and are not an exception if you want to get the most life for the money you spend.

I thought this was their main claim to fame???
Don't panic. The statement is not true for any practical use.

Storage at 30% to 70% is less wear than being used. No charge asap is needed.
Itinerant1
Explorer
Aug 19, 2022
Gdetrailer wrote:
pianotuna wrote:
Gdetrailer wrote:
No matter what "batteries" you use, they all need to be recharged as soon as possible, Lithiums are not immune to this and are not an exception if you want to get the most life for the money you spend.

I thought this was there main claim to fame???

Lithiums do a much better job than FLA, AGM or gel, but they are not 100% immune to some degradation if you continually allow them to sit in a partial discharge.

Some of the claim to fame is the not to charge to 100% in order to store them. Reality is you don't really control the charge, the BMS does that. Allow them to store at too low of a charge and you take a chance the BMS will disconnect (BMS has low voltage disconnect built in and most BMS once that is tripped are not able to be reconnected) and now you have an expensive door stop. The Lithium battery pack will have a bit more capacity built in, often about 10% more capacity, but you typically cannot use that capacity due to BMS. The BMS stops you from charging or discharging more than 90% of the battery, good quality BMS will prevent you from using more that extra capacity. Basically that extra capacity is reserved for the BMS and also not allow battery to fall out of normal and stable state of charge range.

I have had some small Lithium batteries swell after being stored in a partial discharge state (inactive for 6 months or more and were not charged until the BMS stopped charging before storing).

The bms is the safe guard for the battery or more likely the cells within the battery.

A properly setup system has the charging device set to stop charging before the bms needs to interact. That's like saying my emergency brakes stop my truck no need to use the brake pedal while operating the truck.

LVD is also part of the bms which does protect the cells/ battery what quality battery manufacturer doesn't allow charging to wake the bms up when it meets their parameters?

Why buy a lfp battery if you're just going to store it, stay with dead lead and buy another cheap replacement when you kill it.

Small lithium batteries are not large lfp batteries, while your experience in lithium maybe useful my 6.5+ years seems to differ slightly using lfp setup fulltime everyday.
spoon059
Explorer II
Aug 19, 2022
Huntindog wrote:
I have three 15K ACs. In Phoenix AZ, I would not want any less cooling capacity.

What mini split setup would I need?

Pretty sure you are mocking me ( ;) ) but I've talked to a couple people that have mini-splits in an RV, my parents have one in a multi-room addition they added to their house and I've read and watched a bunch of videos on them. The mini-splits are vastly more efficient than the roof top AC units in RVs. They aren't trying to blow cold air through inefficient and hot ceiling vent systems, they use a moving fan head to blow air throughout a space.

If your camper is big enough, or if you close doors, you may find that 2 mini-splits would work wonders in your camper. Looking at the cost of adding a second rooftop AC to a trailer (about $1200 MSRP), you can buy a DIY mini-split for about half that price.

From what I've experienced and read, the mini-split cools the space MUCH more efficiently, much more quickly, much more inexpensively and much more quietly.

Or, if you are happy with your 3 rooftop AC units, fantastic for you. Personnally I know that I can cool (and heat... its a heat pump) better, for less money, be more comfortable, hold a steady temperature, get much better dehumidification and do it for less money (initially and in energy used throughout its life time) using a mini-split than using rooftop ACs and propane furnace.
Huntindog
Explorer
Aug 19, 2022
I have three 15K ACs. In Phoenix AZ, I would not want any less cooling capacity.

What mini split setup would I need?

Forum Discussion

Powering AC unit built into travel trailer with solar?

About Travel Trailer Group

Related Content

New Travel trailer

Travel Trailer for Two

Travel Trailer Purchase

Buying a travel trailer

Lance Travel Trailer v. Grand Design Imagine Travel Trailer