Shadow Cruiser S185 FBR Solar Install/Upgrade
We've owned our Shadow Cruiser S185 FBR for about 2 years now. It is a small travel trailer (~18.5') but is light enough to be towed by my Toyota 4Runner and big enough to fit my family. With that ...
Forum Discussion
Hello -Oz-. Good to see another Montanan on here. I like your solar setup, great job. My opinion is similar to westend's, that is a lot of hardware for a 100 watt system! But you've got a great foundation for expansion.
I'm of the "mount 'em fixed and flat on the roof" mindset, no input required and always charging during daylight. Parking the trailer in the sun has not been as much of an inconvenience as it may seem, it does get hot during the day but we're usually not inside the trailer at that time anyway. I used to fret about not having a nice monitoring system or contemplate purchasing the $100+ remote monitoring panel for my solar charge controller, but now I'm perfectly comfortable with a glance at my digital voltmeter that I've wired up. I know what charging state things are in based on the voltage reading and that is enough info. When I get really curious I just turn my laptop on and interface with the charge controller via RS-232 cable and I have access to everything going on with the solar. I'm running a Morningstar Tristar PWM controller.
I'm of the "mount 'em fixed and flat on the roof" mindset, no input required and always charging during daylight. Parking the trailer in the sun has not been as much of an inconvenience as it may seem, it does get hot during the day but we're usually not inside the trailer at that time anyway. I used to fret about not having a nice monitoring system or contemplate purchasing the $100+ remote monitoring panel for my solar charge controller, but now I'm perfectly comfortable with a glance at my digital voltmeter that I've wired up. I know what charging state things are in based on the voltage reading and that is enough info. When I get really curious I just turn my laptop on and interface with the charge controller via RS-232 cable and I have access to everything going on with the solar. I'm running a Morningstar Tristar PWM controller.
