solar and battery.

I have solar and store my trailer off site at the storage yard. I remove the batteries, bring them home and put them on a battery minder for winter.

I used to carry the batteries in to the basement for the winter. They kept getting heavier so now I just disconnect them and check the voltage every month or two when I take the MH for a drive to exercise the tires. Same for the engine battery. I cover my solar panel with coreplast to protect it from raking snow off.

The solar maintains the batteries way better than I could at home. Plus I don't have to find a place to store them nor lug 250 lbs of batteries from the camper to the house. I can also turn on lights if I need to because the power is there.

X2

After a moderate snowfall, the sun melts the snow off my tilted panel in a day or two. I have no parasitic draws so if the solar system goes belly-up in between monitoring, no sweat. If a user disconnects the wire/fuse/breaker to the house loads, it would be the same situation.

The solar maintains the batteries way better than I could at home. Plus I don't have to find a place to store them nor lug 250 lbs of batteries from the camper to the house. I can also turn on lights if I need to because the power is there.

Looking at the log, the solar puts back about 7 Ah per day which equates to the 300 mA phantom load. At that rate if I got zero solar it would take a month to be down 50%. I generally check the trailer in storage every two weeks or so.

Looking at the log is interesting. I will see days that don't show much (1 or 2 Ah) solar charging due to overcast or clouds (or snow). The next time it's sunny, the solar cranks up and puts everything back. Or if the panels are snow covered when I arrive it's nice to see the amps jump up from zero to 10 or 15 as soon as I sweep them off.

I don't have solar, but if I did, I'd still remove the batteries. I put mine on a tender when not in use. Fully charged battery every time I need it.

I would fully charge and remove the cables. To me there seems to be less risk of something going wrong. If you forget to clear the panels will the house suck the batteries down to nothing? If something were to happen to the solar charging system would the batteries be sucked down to nothing? Seems disconnecting the cables is pretty low risk. You said you previously removed the battery, if so and you have it at home you could throw a charge on it in the middle of winter just to be sure. Extremely unlikely but having everything dead removes any fire risk also. You know.....mouse chews through wires, fire starts......

Hi,

I've not removed a battery for winter storage in the last 16 years because wind where I live sweeps the panels clear of snow. Only once in the 16 years did I need to clear them off.

I remove the battery for the winter on my solar.
If my engine battery was easy to remove, I'd do that one also.

Well if you live in a area that has more than 3" of snow on the ground most of the time (you do) and the panels will be covered with snow, they will not get to much power each day. Also your daily sun hours are reduced, and the angle is very low so you basically will not get much solar each day.

So I would remove the battery.

Fred.

How big is the battery bank and how much solar?

I leave my batteries installed year round and just sweep the snow off the panels.