Thor Forums

[Chance]

Originally Posted by TurnerFam

......cut...... Solar simply helps to trickle charge your battery(s), nothing more, at least for the vast, vast majority of RV owners.
It's expensive relative to other options for power, or battery charging, and the sun does not always cooperate - usually at the very time you need it.

.....cut.....

I agree that many solar systems up to now have been little more than trickle chargers, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Because of cost, initial systems were typically 100 watts of solar panel in size/capacity, which in reality can’t power much if loads repeat daily. On the other hand, when discussing a system with over 1,000 watts of (nominal) panel capacity, that’s a lot more than any trickle charger.

Air conditioning remains the deal breaker for most RVers. For those who camp in cooler weather and are conservative with electric power, solar can handle a lot of the loads. If we think about all the guys who boondock and run a generator for no more than a couple of hours daily in order to charge their batteries, and who may be limited to about 60 Amps from converter, then we know they are getting by with 120 Amp-hours or less daily. And if that were the case, a solar system can deliver that much most days in order to cut on generator use. And obviously if a camper doesn’t mind running an existing generator to charge batteries, that’s an option that should cost less up front.