Charging Batteries With Solar Panels

[acsimon]

Looking for info on charging batteries with portable solar panels. Have a small Flagstaff 21FB with two batteries. Are solar panels a viable option for recharging batteries if dry camping?

[RPAspey]

To answer your question...yes. There's many ways though to use solar for charging batteries. In fact, your question lends itself to you being asked questions: How much do you want to spend, permanent or temporary, how you intend to camp, location, etc. Do yourself a favor, and search this site, there's a lot of posts on this subject. I'll help as much as I can.

[Pipeman]

My solar system is portable. It's 165 watts and it charges two batteries. Just used for that purpose only. I just keep moving it around to keep it in the direct sun. Now, I also have a 4000 watt juice box to power up the 5er also. We dry camp probably 95% of the time. Our 1st outing will be next month and it will be for over a week in northern Michigan in the bush where there is nothing, nada, nil, zilch. If you want it you have to bring it.

[tedpas]

Originally Posted by Pipeman

My solar system is portable. It's 165 watts and it charges two batteries. Just used for that purpose only. I just keep moving it around to keep it in the direct sun. Now, I also have a 4000 watt juice box to power up the 5er also. We dry camp probably 95% of the time. Our 1st outing will be next month and it will be for over a week in northern Michigan in the bush where there is nothing, nada, nil, zilch. If you want it you have to bring it.

Hi Pipeman,
I'm picking up my Forest River A122BH in a couple days and so far have just invested in a Schumacher 2.4A solar charger to maintain the batteries when I have the trailer in storage. I'm hitting the road for about 8 weeks and will be looking into a portable system so more information on yours would be helpful. How many watts is your inverter and what guage wire and length have you got back to the batteries? Oh yes, and what group are the batteries?
Thanks,

[Pipeman]

Originally Posted by tedpas

Hi Pipeman,
I'm picking up my Forest River A122BH in a couple days and so far have just invested in a Schumacher 2.4A solar charger to maintain the batteries when I have the trailer in storage. I'm hitting the road for about 8 weeks and will be looking into a portable system so more information on yours would be helpful. How many watts is your inverter and what guage wire and length have you got back to the batteries? Oh yes, and what group are the batteries?
Thanks,

Good morning tedpas. Ok, here we go. I have a 165 watt portable solar array with a charge controller. It's just used to keep my batteries charged. I don't use an inverter for 110 volt appliances, I have a 4000 watts juice box(onan) genny for that. I have 2 megatron(interstate), marine/rv deep cycle batteries. They are 600CCA(cold cranking amps)/750MCA(marine cranking amps), group 27 I believe. My batteries come out of the trailer when in storage for the winter. I'm taking a guess to the length of wires at about 15ft maybe. Each panel can be plugged in separately or used as one array. It comes apart for storage and I have them plus the rack that comes apart, in a goalie hockey bag. The array sits on the ground not on the 5er. I looked on the site of the store I bought the array at and they don't have them anymore. It's 3 panels that sit on a metal frame. It goes together in a few minutes. Hopefully this helps you out a bit. Stay safe.

[Pipeman]

tedpas you might want to look at this guys site. On the left side is a lot of solar info. Jack and Danielle Mayer

[acsimon]

Pipeman:
When you are camping is your solar array always attached to your batteries? The alternative would be to hook the array up when the batteries obtain a certain discharge setting. I guess my real question is if the array is always hooked up will it be sufficient to keep your batteries topped off? We are dedicated National Park campers (usually no hookups available), and I need some way of recharging my batteries if our stays go beyond three days without relocating. My choices are a small generator or a solar array to keep my batteries charged.

[Pipeman]

acsimon, my panels are always attached to the batteries when we're dry camping. It has a charge controller to regulate the charge going to the batteries. The only stuff running off the batteries are the propane gas detector, the fridge(lights, fan etc) and any lights that we may turn on but they aren't on long. Last summer we dry camped in the Rockies for almost 3 weeks with the genny being used for the grandsons to watch kid movies on the dvd player when they were in with us. Most of the time we're outside and go in to eat, maybe and to go to bed so the 12volt stuff isn't getting used a whole lot. The solar panels keep up with the parasitic drain on the batteries. It will depend on how much you use the 12 volt stuff in you trailer whether or not the panels can keep up and how many watts the solar array is.

[Pipeman]

tedpas, I just read your title and my panels are in the 5er at the storage yard. I can't remember the name of them and the cost wasn't too bad as I remember because I bought them because they were more watts than the 145 watt unit I had already and cheaper than the originals.. I gave that unit to my oldest son.

[wyoman]

I have a friend who has a 250 watt solar panel system with an inverter. He says he's able to watch his 24" TV, playing the DVD for several hours in the evenings and has no trouble doing it. I'm looking at the same set up myself for my new Rockwood 2703ws. I'll be glad when it gets in so I can judge better how to run the wiring.

Good luck asimon.

[garbonz]

I have 2 80 watt ARCO (now BP) panels on roof racks on the truck roof and just keep the truck in the Sun. So the maximum I can expect to gain on a sunny day is about 50 amps. Typically that is enough for the incidental 12 volt stuff like lights, etc. I too use a generator for the 110 volt stuff. An inverter.just uses to much battery capacity unless you have a huge bank. I have 2 deka 6 volt batts with 210 AH capacity and that works fine