RV Solar Panels

[Colbie_s_family]

I'm looking at adding solar panels on my Tiffin Phaeton. I have a residential refrigerator and while we don't dry camp very often, there are times.

Does anyone have suggestions re: a good product to buy and what I should expect to pay (just an estimate). I was considering Go Power Solar Panels and wondered if anyone had any opinions.

I also wondered if buying from vendors at RV rallys will result in a better price?

Thanks.

[lincolnmatthews]

Hi you probably have already purchased your solar system, I had the factory Go Power in my Lance camper. Did not like it at all! poor controller in my opinion. My latest Lance came solar ready I went with the Zamp System, I love it! Far superior controller again IMHO. Very well made components, I also have there 180 watt portable panels 1st class materials. Good luck

[Dale_Traveling]

leonardwulf wrote:
Hello, I also looking for panel. Find compare here: https://www.bestadvisor.com/flexible-solar-panels. What do u think? Can u advice which better?

I not sure what the advantage of a flexible panel might be other than roof mounting to an Airstream towable. My ridged panels have a much long warranty period, same power capacity, fewer mounting points and a lower price per watt.

Amazon WindyNation 100 watt panel

[leonardwulf]

Hello, I also looking for panel. Find compare here: https://www.bestadvisor.com/flexible-solar-panels. What do u think? Can u advice which better?

[Lwiddis]

"Curious...for those who dry camp a lot, are you using the solar panels to power the house instead of the house batteries?"

10forty2, I could demand it power things during sunlight (load plug-ins) but don't. Therefore, solar powers or helps power12 volt things on during charging then charges the batteries.

My, my! 10forty2, is a photographer with an eye that I can only wish I had.

[Searching_Ut]

10forty2 wrote:
Curious...for those who dry camp a lot, are you using the solar panels to power the house instead of the house batteries? I would have thought the regular house batteries would run the coach and the solar panels would keep the batteries charged..similar to plugging in to shore power. If so, then why is some much wattage required for the solar panels? I admit to not being up on solar usage, nor do I dry camp, so I'm honestly asking in case I decide to do either!

You kind of power both the house and house batteries. If power is being used, the power your solar produces will supply that fist, with any excess going to charge the batteries. It's all the same DC bus for most users.

Solar is one of those highly variable things, and energy usage can easily be much more than you expect. As for some reasons for needing a fair amount of solar:

Flat mounted panels don't harvest all that is available much of the time. I generally figure I'll get around 75 percent of rated output but it varies a lot with time of year. For a 100 watt panel I plan on 25ah a day captured, again varying widely with time of year. Trees, afternoon thunderstorms etc make a lot of difference. If I go to Southern Utah or Arizona I get a fair bit more, go North it tends to be a little less.

Residential refrigerators use a fair bit of power. When we were last shopping for our RV, most of the ones we were interested in either had 18cf Gas/elect units or 18cf residential units with energy star labels that showed an equivalency of about 95 amp hours of 12vdc use per day. If you figure your inverter efficiency at 85 percent that's around 105ah, or right about half the capacity of 2 golf cart batteries per day. Again, efficiency comes in to play with wet cell batteries only being about 85 percent efficient when charging, so you're looking at 400 to 500 watts of panels to keep up with the refrigerator. All of your other energy use is above and beyond this.

There are also things to consider such as having excess capacity so your can bulk charge as much as possible early in the day in order to try and get the batteries fully charged while the sun is still available, which is something more important to those, full timing, or camping for longer periods of time. You really need to get your batteries fully charged fairly often for maximum battery life.

Energy Audits, conditions you'll be camping in, and willingness/ability to do things like run the generator for a period in the morning for bulk charging are all considerations in figuring out what will work best for your situation.

[Joe_Rochelle]

10forty2 wrote:
Curious...for those who dry camp a lot, are you using the solar panels to power the house instead of the house batteries? I would have thought the regular house batteries would run the coach and the solar panels would keep the batteries charged..similar to plugging in to shore power. If so, then why is some much wattage required for the solar panels? I admit to not being up on solar usage, nor do I dry camp, so I'm honestly asking in case I decide to do either!

It goes pretty much as you imagine. Generally, you set up your battery banks with enough batteries to handle your required daily load. Then you want to make sure that you can put enough amp hours back into the battery before the sun drops too far. The process of charging batteries is very lossy. That is there will be a voltage drop from the panels to the charger. The charger will lose a bit more converting the voltage to the correct voltage for the batteries, etc. The sun will also not hit the panels full on for the whole day and probably not at the exact angle etc, so you won't really get the full output of the panels either. So, you try to size the system such that in real life, you can keep your batteries charged (in winter when the day is short). It's a complicated topic with lots of choices to be made at all levels.

joe

[MrWizard]

"I'm looking at adding solar panels on my Tiffin Phaeton"

It came with the fridge,
I'm quite sure it already has the inverter and the batteries

Only needs to add the solar ( for those few days of dry camping )

I'm also quite sure he has a built in generator he can use if needed

I like the champion line, but I'm quite sure he doesn't need to add a portable genset to his RV, not saying a portable won't save fuel costs, I just don't think that is a big concern in this case

[Blackdiamond]

Lwiddis wrote:
Oh. If you only dry camp once in a while then a small inverter generator with a good bank of batteries might be a better economic path....and I'm a solar supporter.

I agree with this, and/or just run the generator. The RIO is pretty pretty long (you would have to dry camp alot) on a system that will keep your batteries charged enough run your residential fridge and other normal items.

[10forty2]

Curious...for those who dry camp a lot, are you using the solar panels to power the house instead of the house batteries? I would have thought the regular house batteries would run the coach and the solar panels would keep the batteries charged..similar to plugging in to shore power. If so, then why is some much wattage required for the solar panels? I admit to not being up on solar usage, nor do I dry camp, so I'm honestly asking in case I decide to do either!

[crasster]

Also it will take pretty considerable solar to keep any "real" stuff going outside of lights & perhaps small fans. The fridge will take a lot of juice depending on its size. You'll need a small charge controller as well.

[Searching_Ut]

You can pick up a champion 2000 inverter generator for approximately $500. Even with solar you'll probably want a generator of some sort so as mentioned, it's probably a good option for part time off grid use.

As for solar cost, I can't say for installation as I did all mine myself, but for parts I'm almost right at $3000 dollars for 10 X 100 watt grape panels for a thousand watts total. Timetric 2030 controlling 2 SC2030 charge controllers, 600 watt and 2000 watt pure sine wave inverters with remotes, 2 auto transfer switches and an isolation relay for the converter, 2 home made combiner boxes, fuses, switches and wiring, and 4X6 volt 230 amp hour flooded golf cart batteries. I fabricated all the brackets myself, made the battery box out of a tote, and had some of the wiring and hardware on hand.

[Lwiddis]

Oh. If you only dry camp once in a while then a small inverter generator with a good bank of batteries might be a better economic path....and I'm a solar supporter.

[Colbie_s_family]

Sorry, I should have said that I need to have it installed. I would need to factor that into the cost.

[time2roll]

Long Beach? You can pick up great panels from SolarBLVD in Norco and save huge on shipping.

https://www.solarblvd.com/24-volt-solar-panels

Compare price per watt. These are big so get up and measure the space you have. Do not get too close to shade items such as A/C, vents, satellite, antenna etc.

Then choose how many and a controller to match the power and voltage.

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