Recommendations regarding Solar Power
We are new to RVing and considering roof-mount Solar system both to keep the batteries topped off but also to run the A/C or uWave. I'm thinking about a 200 Watt system. I am concerned about where...
Forum Discussion
Gonzo42, what exactly you mean by "topped of"?
To keep the battery from self-discharging while in storage, you only need a tiny panel ~5W per 100 AH battery.
To bring the battery back to full charge after you've been using it all day (or night), you need a solar big enough to harvest this amount of energy. To tell exactly how big, we need to know how much energy you are using in 24 hours.
If you want to go for 2 separate panels for 2 separate batts, I wouldn't worry about starter batt because it is being kept full - more or less - by alternator when truck is running. So a small 5w or 10w panel that you can throw on the hood or on the roof, will do the job.
The panel for a coach battery is a different story. A/C will not run on solar, forget about it. Everything else - will, but as I wrote before, the size depends on what you are going to run and on your location. To give you an idea, in a sunny place 120-160W panel will run everything but 120V devices bigger than LED TV. It won't harvest enough energy to run MW (or just barely), or a toaster, or a big vacuum. People thinking that a compact 700W microwave draws 700W, are in for a big disappointment because manufacturers only specify "cooking power", and never tell you that 700W MW would draw 1,100 or 1,200W.
To keep the battery from self-discharging while in storage, you only need a tiny panel ~5W per 100 AH battery.
To bring the battery back to full charge after you've been using it all day (or night), you need a solar big enough to harvest this amount of energy. To tell exactly how big, we need to know how much energy you are using in 24 hours.
If you want to go for 2 separate panels for 2 separate batts, I wouldn't worry about starter batt because it is being kept full - more or less - by alternator when truck is running. So a small 5w or 10w panel that you can throw on the hood or on the roof, will do the job.
The panel for a coach battery is a different story. A/C will not run on solar, forget about it. Everything else - will, but as I wrote before, the size depends on what you are going to run and on your location. To give you an idea, in a sunny place 120-160W panel will run everything but 120V devices bigger than LED TV. It won't harvest enough energy to run MW (or just barely), or a toaster, or a big vacuum. People thinking that a compact 700W microwave draws 700W, are in for a big disappointment because manufacturers only specify "cooking power", and never tell you that 700W MW would draw 1,100 or 1,200W.
