I want to add solar panels

[Tony1978]

Hi, I have a 2002 Lance 815 truck camper. It came with a factory installed solar panel which is about 1'x4'. I'm a boondocker and I'm constantly draining my one battery. The one panel doesn't seem to do much to recharge the battery. Is there an easy way to add additional panels? I'm not sure exactly how it would work, If I would just connect the new panels to the existing panel or if I would have to upgrade the regulator and run new wires. Any help would be appreciated.

[Snowman9000]

Mount your panels as far from any object as the object is tall. This includes the raised TV antenna. Otherwise you'll have to be careful how to orient your camper to not have any portion of the panels shaded. A tiny portion of shade on the panel will kill most of its output.

[Mello_Mike]

I installed three solar panels, for a total of 240 watts, on the roof of my truck camper. The full details can be found here:

Solar Panel Installation

Good luck!

[Dakzuki]

You can learn a lot on the web about solar. AM Solar's web site is a good start.

[doughere]

I have 2 60 watt panels fixed flat mounted on the roof of the RV; they are wired through a charge controller. I also have a 100 watt panel that is mounted on the side of the RV. The 100 watt panel is removable,and I connect it directly to the battery for charging (no controller). I have a 30 foot cable made up to put the panel in the sun; I intend to make another cable 50 feet long to better place the panel in sun (I used 10-2 SJ to make the cord). If you pay attention to the battery voltage, the 100 watt panel is not going to overcharge the battery.

I found the idea for the exterior mounting in this forum.

Regards,
Doug

[ewarnerusa]

Our previous TT came to us with a solar panel and charge controller already installed. I don't know the capacity, but it looked to me like the kits at the RV shop which I think are around 100W. It was enough to sustain us through many long weekends using the furnace and radio and a single G27 battery, never had a generator and never had a battery issue. Your panel seems a bit smaller based on your description, but still larger than the "maintainer" types. Do you know if it uses a charge controller? If you are a novice with solar, then maybe you could get more use out of what you have with some changes in habits. Solar needs direct line-of-sight to the sun, ANY shadows will knock the charge down to basically nothing (I'm referring to "small"/non-MPPT systems here). If there is a small shadow across the panel, then it is basically shut down. So you need to park in the direct sun (unfortunately). Lots of good reading, I'm sure others will chime in with good stuff.

It might also be worth checking on the health of your current battery.

This thread has a lot of installs for some ideas.

I educated myself a bit and built and installed a system on my own for our current TT. I'm using two 140W panels and a Morningstar Tristar PWM controller, 2x6V golf cart batteries.

[pianotuna]

Hi,

Here is a simple flow chart:

energy audit-->battery bank size-->budget-->solar system.

If there is room for only one battery then push the solar system to 150 watts per 100 amp-hours of storage.

I suggest reading the information at this link: http://rvroadtrip.us/library/solar_install.php

[JiminDenver]

The first thing is to identify what you have and confirm it is actually working. You can start by checking if there is any output before and after the charge controller. You may end up removing the panel to see if it still has a tag on its back side with the info.

A panel of that age and size isn't going to be a power house, more of a battery maintainer I suspect.

How much space do you have for panel/s? What kinds of things are you doing to drain your battery and how is it that you charge your battery now, before, during and after the trip?

Once you know what you have, how much room and how much power you need you can start planing. Panel prices have come down to the point that I wouldn't try to match up the old panel and start fresh. I would shoot for 120w and up depending on how much room you have.

I went the easy route and left my panel portable so that the trailer can be in the shade with the panel in the sun. You could get two smaller panels and hinge them for easier storage.

I do agree with Roy in that more battery is needed with solar. I can get a week off of my bank with the reduced output of the solar in cloudy weather. My original grp 27 is fine when we get sun for a few hours but will only last 3 days in bad weather.

Good luck and look forward to seeing you when you have more info.

[RoyB]

I elected to go the other route first for camping off the power grid... I beefed-up everything to run for the one day/night camping run and then re-charge batteries the next morning when allowed to run my generator.

Now that I am very successful doing this I want to start adding solar to help re-charge my batteries during the day when the sun is out. I want to have at least 120WATT panels or better yet maybe 240WATTS of solar panels to support my 255AHs battery setup. When i upgrade my batteries I will will probably go to the 450AH-500AH using the cheaper GC2 golf Cart batteries.

Using solar power to me has to a have good place to store all of this power. This being the trailer batteries it just makes good sense to me to be able to do both methods of storing power in the batteries. (generators and Solar)

What happens if you are camping for several days and no sun shine...

We are only successful with lots of planning...

Roy Ken

[EsoxLucius]

Call AM Solar, tell them what you have already and what you would like to do, and Greg, Dave or Roger will get you fixed up.