Question about solar panels

I'm not sure how you can operate a trailer without its battery. And if it's dead, it's going to have to be replaced.

You don't hook solar panels directly to batteries, you need a controller. Yes, you can hook more batteries "in a series", but just make sure you end up with 12v.

Does your trailer NEED a battery to activate the brakes in case your TV separates from trailer? SERIOUS safety issue!

If your trailer has electric brakes you need a battery for the break-away switch

You pretty much need a battery to use solar. Yes you can have multiple batteries to have more reserve capacity. Yes connecting solar to the battery on the tongue is perfect. Plenty put four batteries on the tongue and charge with solar.

Yes you hook to the battery on the tongue. If you're talking a little panel that sits on the dashboard to keep the battery up on a parked car then yes go straight to the battery.

If you are using a more powerful panel then you need to go from the panel to a charge controller and then to the battery.

Since you are referring to a trailer you should always have a fully charged battery on the tongue. This is to operate the brakes through the emergency breakaway switch if the trailer ever separates from the tow vehicle while traveling.

Yes you can hook up additional batteries. But make sure they are hooked correctly. If 12v batteries you hook in parallel. If 6 volt batteries you hook in series for two and series parallel for more than 2.

Yes, you hook the solar either through a controller (prevent over-charging) or direct to batteries (usually small solar panels for trickle charge keeping your battery charge top. off).

Thanks for all the information!

I definitely plan to get a battery, more so now since the emergency brake function is pretty important.

Another thing that I wish I put in the original question is that I'm aware an inverter is needed to convert the dc power from the panels to ac. Do the travel trailer wires that connect to the battery have their own inverter or something? And where would I install that? I'd imagine that I'd have to fiddle with the wiring inside as leaving an inverter outside sounds like a bad idea to me

get a new battery before moving the trailer! your brakes need it.

get as many amp hours as you can afford @ 12 volts however you like and then charge it via the converter in your trailer (when plugged in) or via solar or generator through a charge controller into the batter bank. no need for a seporate bank.

Inverters are typically not included in travel trailers until you get up into really high end ones. As far as an inverter it really depends on what you plan to run from it. If you just want to charge cell phones or laptops and such you are better off putting in some dedicated 12V outlets.

Converting your 12V battery power up to 120v only to charge a 5v phone is a very inefficient process. Yes I did it for a while, but since I boondock almost exclusively I finally decided that the losses were too much. I now run several of these 12V outlets wired to my batteries and they work well. The ones I linked are a few dollars more than average. But they were the only ones I could find that did not have a constant LED light on them to keep me up at night. I just pulled power off the overhead lights and ran some 14g wires down to where the outlets were located. I have one on each side of the bed and will soon be adding a few to the kids bunk area.
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If you do need an inverter try to find a pure sine wave inverter. The really cheap ones you find online are typically modified sign wave and some electronics are not happy with them.

Brettmm92 wrote:
I'm aware an inverter is needed to convert the dc power from the panels to ac.

This statement indicates you're thinking of panels as devices that 'run things.' They don't, they charge batteries, then it's the power from the batteries through the inverter that runs things. Ok, picky picky, but it's really how it works. An analogy is you don't take your paycheck to the grocery store for a loaf of bread, you deposit it in your bank first, then draw from that.

Inverters should be as close to batteries as possible with fat wire to handle the largest expected load on them.