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Old 04-20-2018, 02:37 PM   #1
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Solar charger

I’m looking for some advice for a portable solar charger to maintain the chassis battery over the winter.

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Old 04-20-2018, 02:59 PM   #2
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We had a thread going on in here about these just a little while ago.
(Certainly within the last two weeks...)
With a bit of digging: you should be able to find it..
Happy hunting!
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Old 04-20-2018, 03:26 PM   #3
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any solar panel with 60 to 100 amps should do nicely, especially those that come with a charge controller already included - just hook the wiring from the panels to the controller to the batteries
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Old 04-20-2018, 03:42 PM   #4
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I'm still trying to flip my smartphone and now have a MH pre-wired for solar. I'll look for this thread as to how you hook up solar to the pre-wired whatever.
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Old 04-20-2018, 05:29 PM   #5
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I use this one for the house batteries:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

This one for Chassis battery:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0...?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I lay them on the dash facing the sun.
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Old 04-20-2018, 07:44 PM   #6
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Are either of those large enough to maintain a residential fridge if that's all you are running on the house batteries?
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Old 04-20-2018, 07:52 PM   #7
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I can't imagine they would. The larger one is 15W and the smaller just 5W. they are intended to maintain the batteries. I never use them when boon docking.
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Old 04-20-2018, 07:58 PM   #8
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not up to snuff on solar...wonder what size you would need to maintain batteries if all you were doing is using fridge? We take MH to race track in Atlanta a week before and leave it there. I wouldn't want the genset firing on and off for a week just for fridge. Previous TT had the gas fridge which was perfect for that.
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Old 04-20-2018, 08:31 PM   #9
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We ran our residential fridge all day at NASCAR (the former PIR) using a 200watt Renogy Solar Suitcase last November. It was fine all day, but had to run gennie each night just before bed, and again upon waking, to recharge batteries. I don’t know what battery array you might need to keep from ever running the gennie even if you had ample solar to run the fridge all day and leave the batteries fully charged when the sun went down each day. Someone here probably knows the answer.
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Old 04-20-2018, 09:55 PM   #10
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I have dual 6V and so far they have stayed above 12.1V for more than 24 hours with the fridge empty but running. I also make heavy use of the dual Hondas and the Champion 3100 while at the track for the race weekend. I don't want to leave too elaborate of a system out there when away as it may grow legs. Is the "pre-wired" for panels on the roof?
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Old 04-20-2018, 10:34 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Eric27 View Post
I’m looking for some advice for a portable solar charger to maintain the chassis battery over the winter.
I have a 100 watt suitcase portable solar panel which I used all this winter to keep my batteries charged. However, I did not trust the cheapie solar controller that came with the panels to be smart enough to not damage the batteries while connected for weeks and months. I feared that all the cheapie would do is pump amps and mess up the batteries.

So I installed a “real” charger. I put in a Bogart SC-2030, chosen because I already had a Trimetric battery monitor that integrates with the SC-2030. The SC-2030/Trimetric combination allows me to monitor a lot of battery and solar data.

The batteries survived the winter with absolutely no problems (a pair of Interstate 6 volt deep cycle batteries). I checked the water level about once a month and only had to top them off once - even then it was a minimal amount of water.

I completed my permanent install of 200 watts of roof mounted panels this week, so the portable is now relegated to supplementary duty if needed while we are boondocking. I connected the new panels to the SC-2030 and kept my pig tail for the portable so all I have to do is plug it in when I needed (SAE plug connectors on the portable wiring.)
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Old 04-20-2018, 10:44 PM   #12
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I Googled "Solar Battery Charger", and all of this popped up:

https://www.google.com/search?q=sola...h=510&dpr=1.25

So if you were to refine the search: you could probably find something that would do a pretty good job!
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