We’ve all seen these guys with one million watts of RV Solar panels on their roof, and 30 batteries within the stomach of their camper boasting how they’ll run each of their AC models and an air fryer whereas they watch TV of their rig. This article isn’t about a type of programs, I’m not that man.
My Wife and I’ve been dwelling on the highway full time in our RV for a couple of yr now. When we first acquired began we had extra kinks to work out of our system than we thought we did, and spent most of our time bleeding cash in gas and campground prices.
We tried our hand at Boondocking at a Harvest Hosts one night time, and at 2 a.m. the low battery alarm began going off. Hell we didn’t even make it someday, we left our campground with full hookups at 9 a.m., acquired there at midday, and 14 hours had no juice left.
Well now we have to determine a technique to hold sufficient cost within the batteries in order that I would have the ability to sleep till dawn. We hadn’t accomplished ANY analysis in any respect on RV Solar, however then I got here throughout the 400 Watt RV Solar Kit from Renogy.
It appeared to have all the things we wanted to throw some panels on the roof, and hold our batteries charged sufficient to have the ability to use the lights within the kitchen and hold our low battery alarm from going off, so we ordered it.
We ordered it from Amazon, and it confirmed up at my buddies home in 3 days, and it did include ALMOST all the things we wanted to finish the set up. The solely issues it didn’t include was the roof sealant, and a go via for the wires to go from the roof down and into the RV, however we ordered these as nicely, so now we have been able to go.
You can watch my quick Installation video right here: Renogy RV Solar Kit Install
The RV Solar package from Renogy comes with Four 100 Watt Solar Panels, a 10 amp inline fuse, panel combiner plugs, cables to go from the roof to the cost controller, a 40 amp MPPT Charge Controller, a Battery fuse, a Bluetooth antennae so you possibly can monitor your energy manufacturing with an App in your cellphone, and cables to go from the controller to your batteries.
The instructions for set up have been fairly straight ahead, besides how the panels themselves needs to be wired collectively on the roof. There are a couple of choices for placing them collectively, and I’ll admit I did it ‘Wrong’ the primary time. With photo voltaic panels you may have the choice of wiring them in Series, Parallel, and Series-Parallel.
Looking on the components available, and the included combiner plugs, I assumed they wanted to be wired in Parallel. Which is when all of the Positive cables tie collectively, and all of the Negative cables tie collectively, then go right down to the Charge Controller. When you wire them this fashion, the entire Amperage from every Panel is added collectively, and on a full Sun day, will pop the ten amp fuse.
I replaced the fuse, and rewired them in Series, Positive to Negative, Positive to Negative, Positive to Negative, Positive to Negative, then right down to the Charge Controller and all the things began working completely.
We had 200 amp hours of normal outdated Deep Cycle Lead Acid batteries from the manufacturing unit, so we figured that needs to be sufficient storage to maintain us going. We have a residential fridge in our RV that runs off a 1,500 Watt Power inverter that auto switches ON once we unplug the RV at a campground.
IF we ONLY use the 12 volt lighting, and depart the fridge working like regular, the photo voltaic will cost our batteries throughout the day on a decently Sunny web site, and get us via the night time with no battery alarms. Realistically that’s all I used to be searching for, so it was doing what it wanted to do, and will get us off grid regularly sufficient that I WOULD spend the cash on it once more if we have been to do it another time.
Touching on that topic, of If we had it to do over once more, There are issues I’d do in a different way, like altering out the batteries, and looking out into tips on how to dimension the system to get a sure variety of hours out of it. BUT…
Based solely on, whether or not or not this technique carried out as I imagined it could, Yes, it did.
The package got here with most all the things wanted for the set up, It does cost the batteries throughout the day, and the set up was straight ahead. If you might be searching for a straightforward RV Solar choice, that may get you off grid for the weekend with out a whole lot of difficult math, that is it. Just be sure you get the roof sealant, and a go via, and it couldn’t harm to seize a spare fuse to throw in a junk drawer simply in case.
Stay tuned for my comply with up article on evaluating our RV Solar vs Generator, and tips on how to dimension an RV Solar System to get you thru a complete day of clouds and rain.