2025 Campsite Ultra solar upgrade questions

[Campsite Ultra 2025]

Morning all. So we recently purchased a brand new 2025 and want to see what we need for upgrading/adding to the current solar setup that it has. It has a Rich Solar 100 watt panel and controller (RS-PWM30P). The battery is a lead acid deep cycle. I'll get the specs from it this afternoon. I want to add my Renogy panels that I removed from the old trailer. They are 200 watts each. My thinking is to install them at the front and run the cables to the rear. The MC4 connectors are right at the inlet box so plugging in the 3 panels with the Y adapters should be fairly easy. I emailed Forest River for the roof framing diagram and to ask what gauge wire was ran. It looks like 12 gauge. Its aluminum framing so it shouldn't be an issue securing the panels. I'm still learning the solar setup but I don't have any problem with upgrading to an MPPT controller if needed. I appreciate any help and links (controllers, lithium batteries, etc) that you can provide. I'm pretty sure that running 500 watts of solar with the current battery is not a good idea LOL.

My dumbed down version to sum it up:

Currently has a 100 watt panel and 30 Amp controller.
I believe its a 12 gauge wire setup currently.

Want to add additional 400 watts by adding 2 each Renogy 200 watt panels
Do I need a different controller?
Do I need a different battery? Do I need 2?

 

[TacomaJoe]

Mixing panels not a good idea. I would keep the existing, get another MPPT and wire the 400W to it (series).

Battery capacity will let you know how long you can run, and is a function of your needs. What powers your refrigerator? Mine runs on LP so it wasn't an issue but I did find that with the furnace and some lights, I would run one battery down so I got a second one.

 

[Campsite Ultra 2025]

Mixing panels not a good idea. I would keep the existing, get another MPPT and wire the 400W to it (series).

Battery capacity will let you know how long you can run, and is a function of your needs. What powers your refrigerator? Mine runs on LP so it wasn't an issue but I did find that with the furnace and some lights, I would run one battery down so I got a second one.

Hello. Thanks for the reply. My fridge is 12 volts. The main reason for the solar upgrade is to run dehumidifying devices since there is no power where the trailer is stored. With the current setup, I plugged an an Eva-Dry 1100 into the bedside inverter to see how it does. The Eva-dry pulls 22 watts. I just did this yesterday so I have no idea how it did overnight running off of the battery and how much capacity and voltage it used.

 

[Aussieguy]

lead acid battery if you got 12v fridge and use any other big power item like the furnace
you won't last the night unless the gave you Golf Cart style deep cycles batteries
you would have had to pay extra

for good camping on solar and 12v fridge get a minimum of 200ah of usable battery capacity
lead acids only have 50-80% of usable power so if you got one of them cheap green batteries it will probably only be 50% of the stated amphours

people are switching to lifepo4 ... good prices and they have good charging capabilities for solar
I got 200ah of Lifepo4 battery about $400.00
740w of solar on my roof and a good 50amp MPPT controller $500.00 (includes hardware screws brackets and any wiring )

I have camped from Toledo Ohio ............ to the Everglades without connecting to shorepower to charge the batteries