Solar Power

[JohnDotson]

I am thinking about buying a 45 watt solar panel kit for my 24' travel trailer, and I'm wondering how much benefit there really IS to having solar power. We typically camp without hookups, but have a generator.

Thanks!

[donn]

45 watts is basically nothing more than a trickle charger. Pretty much worthless except to maintain the batteries while the RV is in storage.

Now, to really get into a solar setup you will need at minimum 125 watts of panels, 250 would be better, and a lot of battery capacity. My personal setup is 250 watts of solar panels and 4 12 volt deep cycle batteries. They are now over 5 years old so will be replaced by 4 6 volt versions later this year. along with an inverter I can sit for a week at a time and only use the generator for maybe 6 hours in that week. We are pretty conservative except for watching some TV in the evening.

[scubieman]

It also depends how often you plan on running your generator. If each time you go to RV at night to kick in and relax for the end of the night. Then I would say solar is useless. But since you already have a generator I don't see you taking full advantage of solar panels.