First real trip out with solar panel

[ryanw821]

SoloPower SP1-85 85Watt flexible solar panel wired into MPPT Tracer 2210RN charge controller into an Interstate 80ah battery (came with the camper, do have plans for upgrade probably next season). Link to my install.
So far I am still just using the terrible battery gauge on the factory "monitor panel", I still need to get a proper ammeter or the LCD meter panel for my charge controller to get some real data, so this is a fairly poor unscientific test.

Anyways the results on our first real test of the system, 3 nights camped (with maybe an hour or so of direct sunlight around noon hour, shaded the rest of the day), and we did nothing to try and conserve power, vortex vent fan ran 24/7 (it was in the upper 80's, so it needed to), we charged our laptop and cell phones at least once a day, and 1 shower a day plus normal sink/toilet usage of the water pump. We would be down to the 1/3 mark on the battery after my morning shower, and by the end of the day we would be back up to full on the meter, though the charge controller never entered "float" mode, so I doubt we ever got a real FULL charge.
In contrast to our last 3 night trip with no solar panel, and similar usage we drained the battery so low that the meter said E and it had dropped so low that the "automatic" fridge was no longer running on LP, which I have to imagine means it got pretty dang low (likely battery damaging low), we ended up just packing up and leaving early that day since we had run out of power, and other than running the tow vehicle with the 7-pin tow cable, we had no way to recharge.

All in all I am super happy I invested the (fairly minimal in my opinion) money in this setup, it is performing even better than I had hoped for.

[Sondy132001]

chr$ wrote:
I Have three 130 Watt Kyocera panels, a Midnight Kid MPPT controller, and two 5 year old GC2-s. We've been out about 4 times now, ranging from desert to forest, and the batteries stay above 80% SOC with no attempt to save energy. I do have LED lighting.

At home, the TT stays unplugged unless we are running the fridge a couple of days before leaving for a trip. The KID treats my geriatric batteries very very well. I went from topping them up with water every 2-3 weeks to every 2-3 months when it just sits.

Happy with my System.

Take your time and check Craigslist regularly and you will find good quality panels for very cheap prices. I got my New old stock Kyoceras for 65 cents per watt.

not counting the batteries I already had, I think I am $650 into my whole system.

If only Tesla made a mini power wall for RV's...

It's coming sooner than you think 😉

[avoidcrowds]

I have put 100w on two different trailers. The first only had one 12v battery. We did multiple 7-night trips, and never were low on power. Have done winter camping, running heater on thermostat through the night, and have done two nights with no problem. Each afternoon, the batteries were topped-off.

For me, one 100w panel keeps me in power as long as I want. I have not camped in a rainforest, though, so that would change my experience quite a bit. Oregon, Washington, or New England with heavy tree cover, would likely reduce my battery life.

Just my experience over 5 years with solar.

[chr_]

I Have three 130 Watt Kyocera panels, a Midnight Kid MPPT controller, and two 5 year old GC2-s. We've been out about 4 times now, ranging from desert to forest, and the batteries stay above 80% SOC with no attempt to save energy. I do have LED lighting.

At home, the TT stays unplugged unless we are running the fridge a couple of days before leaving for a trip. The KID treats my geriatric batteries very very well. I went from topping them up with water every 2-3 weeks to every 2-3 months when it just sits.

Happy with my System.

Take your time and check Craigslist regularly and you will find good quality panels for very cheap prices. I got my New old stock Kyoceras for 65 cents per watt.

not counting the batteries I already had, I think I am $650 into my whole system.

If only Tesla made a mini power wall for RV's...

[msmith1_wa]

All that matters is that it meets your needs.

[rjsurfer]

Ryan

Welcome to the solar club !

Your first outing sounded great. Your doing the right thing in starting of small and getting the "feel" of solar. Don't worry about the Nay Sayers they will always find something wrong somewhere with your setup.

I too started off small, 2-6volt gc batteries and 200 watts in panels. Right now I'm at 4 gc batteries and 700 watts of solar and a 2000 watt inverter.

It's time for a bigger camper now, no more roof real estate 😄

Best of luck with future solar upgrades.

Ron W.

[azrving]

ryanw821 wrote:
I should note, I will post more when I get proper meters, and have some ACTUAL data to share.
This was just meant to be an anecdotal success story based off what my expectations were of the setup I chose, and how it appeared to work over a 3 night weekend trip.

This is the a good beginning. Now that you have the basics down, add 100 more watts and you will probably be good. Yes, the monitor is terrible at telling you anything about the battery.

People report various numbers but my rig sitting idle with the frig on gas, monitor, propane detector and radio off pulls about .6 amps. .6 x 24 hours = 14.4 amp hours. So with about 4.5 amps coming from an 80 watt panel it would take about 3 hours to replace just what I use at idle. It's also unlikely to see 4.5 amps after loses from 80 watts.

Everyone is different so any number can be argued but lets just say that it's going to be very common for a low end user to consume about 30ah per day. 30 ah/4amps=7.5 hours of good sun.

I'm also new to solar but if I threw a number out there for a low energy user to start out at I would say about 200 watts. 200w= about 11 amps but say 9 usable 30ah/9=3.3 hours with good sun. The good thing is that you will start getting charge when it's not full sun yet. You may even get some charge when it's overcast. It's not a lot but it's better than a negative draw.

I hated to run out of power and dw hated it more when I said no TV. I first set up an effective generator/battery charger and usually got by on an hour or so a day of run time. I now went to 520 watts solar and can put back 100 ah pretty easily. Full sun will always give me 24 or so amps. Never tilted.

[Muddydogs]

ryanw821 wrote:
I thought about doing a small cheap meter like that, but right now I am leaning towards the LCD Panel accessory that mates to my charge controller, it will show battery voltage plus solar charge current, which would be nice to know.

My solar controller shows the AMP's in, total AMP's and a couple other things. It was cool to look at the first few times out but after that I find I just care about the 12.? number as that is what is going to get me through the night and into the sun again. I'm getting so I can look at the battery voltage and know if the grandkid can watch a movie before bed or know what I need to set the heater thermostat on to make it through the night. In the end you are going to get what the sun gives you and can't do anything to bring in more AMP's except add more panels.

[rbpru]

I am at a bit of a loss here, why wouldn't your battery last longer if it was being charged part of the time by solar?

Or, are you giving the folks some real world information they can use if contemplating a solar addition?

[KD4UPL]

Rbertalotto wrote:
Something sounds strange here...80AH battery taken down to "1/3" and being nearly fully charged with an 80w panel....

Can someone that knows more than I do the math here......Just trying to understand this better.

Also, taking a battery down more than 50% causes irreversible damage...no?

Given the "meter" I wouldn't even attempt to do any math. The supposed 1/3 is not even close to a real measurement.

Discharging deeper than 50% is fine if it's done occasionally. The deeper you discharge a battery and the more you do it the shorter it's life. Technically every "cycle" of a battery, no matter how deep, reduces it's life. They are only good for so many cycles. More if they are shallow, less if they are deep.

[westend]

Isn't it nice to have something that actually works, makes no noise, and is basically hands-off after installation? Judging by the state of health of my batteries, solar will take care of charging batteries better than I could, manually.

I'd suggest to make one of your first accessory purchases, a hand held meter. They are inexpensive, will help with any electrical diagnostics, and save a lot of time and worry.

[ryanw821]

I should note, I will post more when I get proper meters, and have some ACTUAL data to share.
This was just meant to be an anecdotal success story based off what my expectations were of the setup I chose, and how it appeared to work over a 3 night weekend trip.

[ryanw821]

BubbaChris wrote:
I'm still in "gathering information" mode on solar, so don't mind me if this is a dumb question.

I want to know if when you were checking your battery charge at the end of the day, did you disconnect the solar panel or charger first?

I did not disconnect anything, but I checked my meter end of day after "solar" LED had gone out indicating charge controller was no longer charging.

[ryanw821]

Rbertalotto wrote:
Something sounds strange here...80AH battery taken down to "1/3" and being nearly fully charged with an 80w panel....

Can someone that knows more than I do the math here......Just trying to understand this better.

Also, taking a battery down more than 50% causes irreversible damage...no?

I am not claiming these tests were scientific, I even specifically said they are not, I am using the cheap crappy "micro monitor" panel in the RV, they are known to be terribly inaccurate. I assume my charge controller has a slightly smarter battery meter (though without the LCD accessory, all I have to go by is LED color) and it briefly dipped out of green into orange after my morning shower, never hit red.

And I am fully aware I have probably damaged my battery in the past, and maybe on this trip too depending on how accurate my inaccurate meters are, I don't really care about this battery, it's the cheap factory battery, I have plans to replace it anyways and add more monitoring, and be much more careful about how I treat it then.

[Rbertalotto]

Something sounds strange here...80AH battery taken down to "1/3" and being nearly fully charged with an 80w panel....

Can someone that knows more than I do the math here......Just trying to understand this better.

Also, taking a battery down more than 50% causes irreversible damage...no?