Solar Power use

[Blessing Cedar Creek]

All
My dealer did not show what my solar panel can run and how. I have a 2023 Cedar Creek 5.th wheel. I bought it new 2 months ago.
It was factory installed 1 panel.
Sorry rookie on solar.
Thanks
Chuck

 

[bikendan]

It would help if you posted what model number your Cedar Creek is.

Moved thread from the General Tech and Repair section to the Cedar Creek sub-forum since the OP's questions are specific to a Cedar Creek product.

 

[Blessing Cedar Creek]

311 RL

 

[emugel]

Your solar panel does not run anything. It charges your battery/batteries. Period.
How fast it does that depends on the wattage of the panel and the amount of amp hours your battery bank is.

What you can 'run' depends on whether you have an inverter and how large your battery bank is.
No inverter means only basic equipment will run off of the battery bank - - your 12 volt refrigerator; lights; vent fans; water pump; propane/carbon dioxide detector; etc..

An inverter supplies 110 volt power to some plugs. What you can 'run' will depend on the size of the inverter and your battery bank. Small appliances usually okay, depending on their power draw. Television almost always. Microwaves and air conditioning almost never.

 

[timfromma]

Solar panels are used to charge your batteries. If I had to guess, your single panel is probably 100W. If it’s like mine, it’s a 12V panel which means that under absolutely perfect conditions, your panel will produce about 8.3 amps (this is a best case perfect world amount) . Due to the angle of the sun, clouds and any other obstructions, the amount of current produced will be less. This current is then sent to a solar controller which will regulate and deliver the correct amount of voltage to charge your batteries properly.

 

[Blessing Cedar Creek]

What can I run off. the batteries. It. seemed only my lights and USB ports. My fridge is residential . Nothing. worked when our power was out during hurricane Beryl
I ran everything off a generator. Just not sure what a solar panel does for me

 

[Capacitor]

With a residential refer, your solar panel does nothing for you. Your inverter will use up whatever battery bank you have. Move from full hookups to full hook ups.

 

[tomkatb]

Much to learn.

Likely you rv will use 150 amp hours of battery per day.

Your solar panel is designed to maybe keep your battery charged over the winter. 15% of your daily needs.

This panel can produce up to 25 amp hours of battery charging per day on its best day. Less most of the time.

The standard dealer installed little car battery can provide 30-50 amp hours of battery per day unless on shore power. Thus you should expect a blackout every night. Unless you already upgraded.

It will be a surprise because likely you have no battery monitor. That led thing is to entertain the cat. Forth led is charging. Third led is 50-100% capacity. Second led is damaging the battery. The first led is a dead battery.

So you have to identify your style of camping. Go from electric outlet to outlet daily. Some overnighting at Harvest hosts. Or boondocking for a week.

Make the investments necessary.

Ask questions here. Salesmen have one priority. Mistakes are costly.

 

[Blessing Cedar Creek]

I have 2 batteries. Where would the inverter be?
sorry sure dumb questions I have a solar monitor inside the camper

 

[Blessing Cedar Creek]

With a residential refer, your solar panel does nothing for you. Your inverter will use up whatever battery bank you have. Move from full hookups to full hook ups.

Explain full hook ups to full hook ups means

 

[flyflotrtim]

I have 2 batteries. Where would the inverter be?
sorry sure dumb questions I have a solar monitor inside the camper

The Inverter is often behind the electrical panel. Unplug from AC electricitiy. Are there any lights on the microwave (or any outlets functional)? If yes, you have an inverter and it is on.

We boondock comfortably with 100watts of solar ( when we have good solar exposure) but have a propane fridge. We use lights and water pump but don't otherwise use any electricity while boondocking except for the phantom demands on the 12 v system.

If you want to boondock and use electricity like you do at home, you will need serious solar and battery upgrades or plan to run the generator most of the time. Lots of threads on the subject on this forum

 

[tomkatb]

The inverter could be anywhere.

On ours it was above the batteries on the shelf. 2018 CC Hathaway.

Connected to your battery is two sets of large wires. The biggest goes to the inverter. Due to 12 volt line loss the shorter the better.

Typically a 1000 watt inverter that is good for 8 amps ac. So, no coffee pot or other big users.

You should get information on it. Likely in the green bag of documents you should have.

Read the capacity of your batteries. Or get the make and model for yours. So you can see how much power you have. Also the type.

Obtain a voltmeter. Priceless for troubleshooting. Lead acid batteries are 0-12.6 volts. Readings must be taken on a battery not being charged. The batteries must not be used if voltage is under. 12 volts.

 

[JKLines70]

Basically, as others have said, solar panels and "charge" controller only charges the battery. So what's that do for ya is I believe your question.
On my CC with the way it was originally set up with AGM batteries and all the inverter would run is the refrigerator and of course any DC device in your CC. So all it really does is make it to where you could drive more hours in the day and keep our refrigerator cold. Which means if you have a two day trip planned to get to your destination, you are going to have to find a place with a shore power hookup ... particularly if it is hot and you want AC. An AGM battery drops battery voltage at about 50% charge so isn't much good below that. In addition, there typically isn't that much charging happening with your tow vehicle. First step for me we to replace two AGM with two lithium. With only that change and starting with fully charged batteries, I did a test in my driveway to see how long the refrigerator would keep running. It ran for almost three days before I had to plug into power. So now I know we can simply pull off at a rest area somewhere, pop out the bedroom slide and catch a few hours of sleep without having to find an RV park with power.
But that didn't solve the issue of AC overnight ... so now I've pretty well gutted the whole front end electrical system and installed 4 lithium batteries, a Victron II 120x2 3000 watt system and 4 solar panels. Now all of our CC has 120 volts unless I shut off breakers. So if it is hot out, my wife can turn on the AC in time to cool off the CC before we get to our destination. In addition, if the weather is bad, I don't have to worry about getting power set up right away. Or if we decide we want to boondocks for a day, we can do it. I'm planning on carrying a small portable generator for times we want to boondock for a longer period.

 

[timfromma]

Last year, I made a significant investment in batteries and charging system. I replaced my dealer batteries with (5) 100aH lithiums. I added 400W of solar panels to my roof with a solar controller, a 3000W inverter / charger, and a DC / DC charger to charge my batteries off my truck while driving. This weekend, I had my longest boondocking (no hookups) trip since my upgraded system was installed (4 days, 3 nights). I didn't use my AC or microwave, fridge was on propane, used propane water heater, and no TV use. I did use my Starlink satellite internet and a cpap at night. My solar panels didn't do much due to partial tree cover and cloudy skies. My batteries were drained down to 40% by the time I headed home.



If you aren't plugged into shore power or a generator, everything that requires power whether it be lights, water pump, fridge, or charging your phone will be a drain on your batteries.



You have to think of solar as just another way of helping charge your batteries and not the total solution unless you want to spend some money and upgrade.

 

[Comoco]

Chuck,
We have a 2022 Cedar Creek 345IK with the LG residential frig, a WFCO inverter and 4 12 volt (wet) batteries. The dealer installed the batteries.

Our WFCO inverter is in the front exterior storage compartment behind the curved, black panel on the off door side. This inverter must be powered on to supply "battery" power to the frig. Otherwise the frig will only run on 120 volt power (when hooked up to shore power).

Our WFCO inverter was supposed to come with a remote that has an on/off button. Unfortunately Cedar Creek does not install this remote - they couldn't tell me why. I called WFCO and they sent me a remote as a "Warranty item". This remote is actually hardwired to the inverter - I plugged it in and installed it in a convenient location for us. I use it instead of going in to front storage compartment. We turn the frig off while it is in storage.

Hope this explanation helps!

 

[Aussieguy]

One panel ... probably 200w
will keep the batteries charged up during storage

Fridge confirm it is 120v
if so, will probably use about 360-480watts when actually running the compressor which is about half the time...
12 hour x 360w = 4320w Fridge use over 12 hours
5 hours charging x 200w = 1000w produced by panels during perfect solar conditions
a single 200w panel probably won't keep up with the fridge usage.


Plus your dealer supplied battery(s) may not be the best choice too.

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Your first job is to determine what type of camping you want to do... this will determine what upgrades you need.

always go to campground that has 120v power? (shorepower)
or.... you want to camp off grid a lot ?

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At a minimum I would first look at the battery(s) that got installed
dealer supplied lead acid as stated are not the best and may not last long enough for you to drive between campgrounds.

You can get the fridge nice and cold the night before traveling and drive to the campground .... leave the fridge door closed as much as possible
Make sure your tow vehicle is supplying some 12v power to trailer ...
you might upgrade the wiring if you drive a lot each day or so so it charges better from alternator


Increase the battery capacity and you can at least last a day/overnight on battery
300 - 400ah of battery will last you a day of camping (excludes air conditioner use)


Your NEW trailer should be lithium compatible ... LIFEPO4 is safe and prices have come down a lot.
a 200ah battery can be had for under $500.00

There are lots of posts already about using Lifepo4 (lithium)
https://www.google.com/search?q=lifepo4+lithium&x=47&y=3&sitesearch=forestriverforums.com

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Take your time to decide what is best for you

where and how often do you camp and move to different campgrounds???

If you are paying for shorepower connection.... adding good solar and batteries may have a high upfront cost ... but you can easily get a fast return on investment if you camp off grid more...

 

[JKLines70]

Last year, I made a significant investment in batteries and charging system. I replaced my dealer batteries with (5) 100aH lithiums. I added 400W of solar panels to my roof with a solar controller, a 3000W inverter / charger, and a DC / DC charger to charge my batteries off my truck while driving.

Regarding your DC/DC charger, did you move the charge wires from the 7-pin to the DC/DC input or did you run separate wire all the way back to your truck alternator/battery? Just installed my DC/DC charger to provide isolation between lithium batteries and truck and just rerouted wires from truck to input of DC/DC charger.

Regarding your boon docking trip ... with 40% charge left on battery seems you could have spent another day or two at that rate.

 

[Blessing Cedar Creek]

Chuck,
We have a 2022 Cedar Creek 345IK with the LG residential frig, a WFCO inverter and 4 12 volt (wet) batteries. The dealer installed the batteries.

Our WFCO inverter is in the front exterior storage compartment behind the curved, black panel on the off door side. This inverter must be powered on to supply "battery" power to the frig. Otherwise the frig will only run on 120 volt power (when hooked up to shore power).

Our WFCO inverter was supposed to come with a remote that has an on/off button. Unfortunately Cedar Creek does not install this remote - they couldn't tell me why. I called WFCO and they sent me a remote as a "Warranty item". This remote is actually hardwired to the inverter - I plugged it in and installed it in a convenient location for us. I use it instead of going in to front storage compartment. We turn the frig off while it is in storage.

Hope this explanation helps!

Thank you so much. This answered all my questions!
Chuck V

 

[timfromma]

Regarding your DC/DC charger, did you move the charge wires from the 7-pin to the DC/DC input or did you run separate wire all the way back to your truck alternator/battery? Just installed my DC/DC charger to provide isolation between lithium batteries and truck and just rerouted wires from truck to input of DC/DC charger.

Regarding your boon docking trip ... with 40% charge left on battery seems you could have spent another day or two at that rate.

I ran a cable from one of my batteries through an inline breaker to my 7 pin connector. I lifted the 12V wire off and connected the new cable. I also ran a new cable from my DC DC charger to the end of my trailers pigtail.



My charger can sense the spike in voltage when my truck is running and will only initiate charging when my truck is running.

 

[JKLines70]

I ran a cable from one of my batteries through an inline breaker to my 7 pin connector. I lifted the 12V wire off and connected the new cable. I also ran a new cable from my DC DC charger to the end of my trailers pigtail.
My charger can sense the spike in voltage when my truck is running and will only initiate charging when my truck is running.

That's an interesting idea. I haven't had chance to see how "stock" charging will work through DC/DC charger. I do like this idea rather than having an extra ambilical cord.

As I said, I'm just completing the upgrade. I went out to RV to finish a couple more items I'm working on. Wife has been getting it ready for next trip so with the heat spell we are having she is running one AC 24/7. I looked at Victron control panel and saw perfect justification for why I did this upgrade. My AC and refrigerator is currently drawing 1851 watts. I have Victron set up to limit draw from house to 15 Amp to keep from tripping circuit breaker. I have RV on 20 amp breaker, but wanted to experiment. At 15 Amp limit, that should allow 1800 watt potential from house, but Victron is adding it's own safety margin by limiting draw to 1405 watts. My current single solar panel is providing 111 watts leaving a draw from the battery of 335 watts. Adding three more panels as planned will result in net charge instead of draw. Can't wait to get it out on next camping trip with a couple Harvest Host stops.