Solar panel for a camper

[H380]

I'm looking at getting a solar panel charger for our 25 ft trailer ..we never run air conditioning and lights seldom . Will this 100.watt one from Canadian serve our needs .. the longest we ever go is 5 days and it would mainly be running the fridge and occasionally the furnace at night.

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[jpohlic]

I had a 120w solar panel on a truck camper with 2-12v batteries and the only time I ever came close to running out of battery power was during a 4 day hunting trip in -20 weather. That was running the fridge full time as well as the furnace almost non stop when the sun was down. Otherwise we never had an issue with running the fridge and occasionally the furnace. We had swapped out all the lights to LED's which can make a big difference.

If you have a good battery you should be ok with that panel, but the solar charge controller that comes with it will be really cheap. I have a 40w coleman panel on my ice shack and the controller crapped out after 4 years. I replaced it with a Renogy and am very happy with that.

[sewerrat]

I installed a 100 watt Noma from Canadian tire on my previous camper, I installed it on the roof, bought the Z brackets mounts for the panel on Amazon.
Came with a controller and was super easy to install.
We were never without power.

[Mountain Guy]

Ya should be fine if you have decent sun. What you running for batteries?
I run a coleman 80W portable panel and it keeps my batteries good enough to run everything.. But I do have 2000w honda for back up just in case.
Sunny and warm your good for a long time if you have a 2- battery system.
If it's cold and cloudy and your running the furnace often the panel probably won't keep up the charge.

[Coiloil37]

Your question needs far more information than provided to give a useful answer.

How many amp hours are your batteries? Lithium or deep cycle? How much draw per hour from the various appliances you want to run? How much direct sunlight do you think your going to see?


IMO That’s a lot of money for a very pedestrian panel. What controller is coming with it? Is it pwm or mppt?

I run a 200 watt panel with a mppt controller. I also use a watt meter inline so I can watch its output and on a decent day I see about 15 amp hours per hour of charge. If I had a pwm controller I would see about half of that output. My whole setup cost me under $200 but we live in different countries and for the most part, solar is much cheaper here because it’s far more common.

You do the math for that 100 watt panel. Combine a 100 watt panel with a pwm controller and you’ll be lucky to get 4 amp hours per hour of direct sun from it.

[H380]

All good comments , appreciated,sounds like.maybe underpowered ...anyone else ?

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[Redneck 7]

I have the same panel on my camper, camp all summer for work and never had to charge my batteries once. I was in my camper from May to September and never was without power. I put on that panel, two group 27 deep cycle batteries, and a moto master 450w inverter. Charge my phone, run my blender, and run my lights with no issues.

I guess it matters if you use your fridge on the battery, or extra electronics. Probably wouldn't hurt to get 2 batteries. But if you have a generator to run ac and power during the day. I'm sure you'll be able to run lights and such at night.

[H380]

Originally Posted by Redneck 7

I have the same panel on my camper, camp all summer for work and never had to charge my batteries once. I was in my camper from May to September and never was without power. I put on that panel, two group 27 deep cycle batteries, and a moto master 450w inverter. Charge my phone, run my blender, and run my lights with no issues.



I guess it matters if you use your fridge on the battery, or extra electronics. Probably wouldn't hurt to get 2 batteries. But if you have a generator to run ac and power during the day. I'm sure you'll be able to run lights and such at night.

I run 2 batteries and never use the air .. Basically, just the fridge and occasionally the furnace will kick in at night tho we are summer campers.

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[CanuckShooter]

Originally Posted by H380

I run 2 batteries and never use the air .. Basically, just the fridge and occasionally the furnace will kick in at night tho we are summer campers.

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The fridge doesn't draw much does it? Unless you're running it on 12v?

We run 2 6V batteries and just charge them with the truck if they get low, but we don't have a furnace that uses power. All our lights are LED and the fridge is a 3 way and we run it on propane.

[dennis wood]

No if furnace has to run and it helps if full sun I did it for two weeks sitting in nice sunny site all so use digital lights a couple battery lanterns save the use of 12volt lights I have that same panel on our campper

[Stinky Buffalo]

I made do (for relatively short periods) with a 40W panel. I would set it up facing the sun. Same deal as most on here; I just need to keep the fridge controls powered up (and run it off propane), and I have LED lights throughout. The radio is unplugged too.

So the big loads are the furnace fan, ceiling (Fantastic) fan, and the water pump. Coupled with twin 6V batteries, it works really well.

My 6V batteries are pretty much done this year, so am considering getting a 12V lithium one as a replacement. I'll have to review the specs on my charge controller, though. I had upgraded it a while back but I am not sure if it can handle lithium batteries.

[Mr Conservation]

That is what I run on my 20 foot Jayco trailer. Usually only run the lights off the battery, as I run the fridge on propane.

The controller that came with it crapped out after about a year, but Canadian Tire gave me a replacement free of charge (as shown on the picture).

I did purchase a wiring extension off of Amazon, so that I could position the panel where it caught the most sun light during the day.

I m thinking of replacing the 12 volt battery with two six volt batteries - apparently you get a better charge that lasts longer.

Mr Conservation

[Arrowhead]

I measured a bunch of the normal loads on my trailer to assess what panel size I would need for my set up. Yes it's a geeky thing to do but I wanted to make sure I was covered.

My fridge when on propane still uses 1A of continuous 12V power from the batteries. That alone is 24 amp hours per day.

My 12V furnace fan uses 6 amps when running. That's 144 amp hours per day if running continuously. If you factor in that it's intermittent, say running only 25% of the time, that's 36 amp hours per day. This is a huge load for a 12V battery system.

A few LED lights on intermittently throughout the day is say another 4 amp hours per day.

Water pump is another high draw device (5 amps on mine) but in reality, it's not on for a large percentage of the day. It maybe works out to a total of 2 amp hours per day.

Adding all of the above in this simplified analysis we're talking about 66 amp hours per day on a 12 V system in the winter when using the furnace.

How much do you really get out of a solar panel? Not much, bigger is better. In all the testing I've done I've only ever seen my solar panels put out 100% of their rating once and that was under very unique circumstances. If they are dirty, snow covered, shady, bird droppings, etc their performance falls heavily. My rule of thumb is that on a good sunny day with a clean panel you may only achieve 80% of the panel rating for an equivalent of 4 hours per day. So on a 100W solar panel on a good day in a fixed position you may only see 25 amp hours per day of charging capacity if you have sun. If you chase the sun (move the panel every so often to be facing the sun throughout the day) you'll get a little more.

Use a MPPT charge controller (don't bother with PWM charge controllers). the cheap solar panel kits like the kind you get from Canadian Tire only come with the cheap PWM controllers.

A single generic 12V deep cycle battery like those sold at Costco has the claimed storage of say 120 amp hours, but that's if you run them right down to near zero. It is never a good idea to run any lead acid battery down much past 50% as this damages the battery over time. Deep cycle batteries have more tolerance on deep discharges but it's still good practice to limit the depth of discharge if you can.

[Big Grey Wolf]

Arrowhead, what an excellent crash course on solar panels for trailers, well done.

[Mountain Guy]

Originally Posted by H380

I run 2 batteries and never use the air .. Basically, just the fridge and occasionally the furnace will kick in at night tho we are summer campers.

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Ya don't over think it.
You'll probably be fine. As long as you have good batteries. If your trailer is fairly new it probably has LED bulbs. If not, you can save some juice by changing to them.
Limit the furnace use. When we're dry camping I only run the furnace when we get up for 5-10 minutes. Bring some extra bedding if thats what it takes to not have to run it thru the night. Letting it cycle thru the night will be the death of your battery power. The cold temps ( thus the furnace running ) will help drain your batteries. And then they will be drained to the point where getting them back up to good operating voltage/condition will be tough for the solar panel to bring back.
Key is to keep the batteries at 50% or better.
Keeping an eye on your battery indicator helps guide your usage too.

There...more to think about..lol

[Stinky Buffalo]

One thing to remember is that some refrigerators have an internal heating element - sometimes referred to as a humidity or frost element.

Often there's a little switch (often labeled "climate control") on the refrigerator to turn it on or off. You can save some battery energy by making sure it's turned off.

In our case, we pretty much leave it off since we don't have high humidity where we usually camp.

[traderal]

I've used 4 of those on my motor home along with 9, 12V batteries. Biggest problem is you have to be in the sun and not in the nicely shaded spots. Solar panels achieve highest efficiency when tracking the sun and not just lying flat on an RV roof.