<span class="highlight">Solar</span> panels

I am very happy with Bits Deals on Ebay for their deals for portable Solar Panels.


Cheers Kev

Hi Kev,

Thanks for your post, do you have any thoughts on these with wattage to run lights / fridge in caravan over night. We are looking at getting a heavy duty battery put into caravan and also car to run our waeco fridge while travelling.

Thanks

Pete & Bee

This is what I have been using on my little camper van

http://www.canningwalker.com/desert-lore/solar-powered-vw-caddy-panelvan

No shortage of power. No hassle. Sorted. Very happy.

You might be able to take some info from this set up.

Hi Pete and Bee,
Just got back this afternoon from a 5 week jaunt down to South Australia from the Port Macquarie region here in NSW. 6 thousand Ks or more in all.

While I did stay at a few caravan parks I mostly free camped, a mate was travelling with us. We are both equipped with solar panels and really have no need of gennies or 240 power.

I have 280 watts of solar panels and the mate has 160 watts.

Not one power problem was encountered by either of us, mainly because we are set up for 12 volt everything.

I would suggest a 200 watt panel from Bit Deals also, as Sir Kev suggests, and a good regulator Such as this Regulator.

Note that regulator is a PWM as opposed to an MPPT. but is still plenty good enouugh for the majority of us.

Mount the panel permanently on the roof of your van and never worry about power again, provided you have everything 12 volt, such as TV, water pump etc etc. as I do.

Cheers, Bruce.

Pete,

I'll second Kev's reccomendation of Bitdeals solar on Ebay. I'm using 3x 100W panels from them to service 2 x 140 A/H Powersonic AGM Batteries.

While I concur with what Bruce has said in that the considered use of solar power can alleviate many of your DC (12V) needs, you need to be considered in your approach. Just buying a battery and attaching a solar panel isn't going to cut it.

This blog by John and Val is a great resource and goes along way to explaining how things work in reality and just what your considerations need to be.

Electricity for camping

I'd also reccomend you consider a decent dc-dc charger for the battery/s such as a Redarc BCDC12/25. It has a built in MPPT solar controller as well as charging your batteries appropriately from the vehicle.

Cheers Mick

I recently dumped my 2 80W solar panels and replaced them with semi flexible ones off ebay.

They have the same output, but weigh about 2kg each instead of about 11kg each a saving of nearly 20kg, but best of all I stuck them to my camper with velcro and remove when parked in a shaded area. You easily can lift them between 2 fingers and they are 2mm thick ( except the terminal block which is about 15mm).

I have since got another 100W which I store under the bed of the camper, and would never go back to solid framed ones. Consider these before buying the framed ones, the price difference is almost zero now.

Hi Pete,
I have a 14.6 Windsor Rapid and have two BP Solar panels on the roof running through a Plasmatronics Dingo regulator down to two 110 amp hour deep cycle batts under the front bed, we run everything on 12 volt and did so for an entire year in 2010 without a problem, we just went down south with some friends and they had no solar so I helped him out with 1x100 AH deep Cyc batt and a folding 120 w panel with built in reg, it also performed well so it depends on what you really want to do and how much you want to spend, where are you located as I'm in Penrith NSW if you feel like having a look?

Regards
John.

Hi Pete we set up a solar system on our Millard 4 yrs ago, and it works a treat for what we want, cpac machine, lights and the ability to run the engle.
Our set up consisted of 100amp hour deep cycle battery (gell matt) a reulator and 2 65 watt solar panells.
Our set up is fixed to the van.
Hope this gives you some idears,
Bushy.