solar power

if you have a solar panel just connect it to the auxilary battery as your isolator should preserve the power in the starting battery (ie with your set up only the auxilary powers the engel and therefore is the only battery to require charging).

Hi Mike,

As Pepper2 says, your battery management system should disconnect the auxilliary battery from the cranking battery when the engine isn't running, so you only need to charge the aux battery to keep up with household requirements.

For modest energy demand - just the fridge, a few LED lights, charging cameras, phones, torches, to cope with 2 or 3 days without running the engine you'll probably need about 120W of solar panels. That assumes that you will move them a few times a day to roughly follow the sun. You'll also need 100 Ah of battery storage. (More battery and more solar is always better.)

You will need a solar controller to connect the panel/s to your battery. This should preferably be mounted close to the battery rather than close to the panels, and all wiring should be done using heavy (8 B &S is good) twin cable. Ideally the controller should be an MPPT type to deliver maximum energy to your battery/s.

Suggest you'll find Electricity for Camping a useful read.

Cheers

John

I recently purchased a 140 watt folding solar panel which included a 15amp MPPT controller which I understand is the best type available. I have a 100AH 2nd battery. I tested it last week during 4 days camping. I run an Engel Fridge set at 1.5 and some LED lights and a 600watt inverter (.75amps) for a CPAP machine(for sleep apnia) which draws 1.75amps runnimg fot 8 hours per night.
On the day of arrival at the camp site 2pm the Aux batt was at 12.80v on the morning of day 4 the batt was at 12 .38 about 60% SOC. One day was part cloud the other 3 clear sunny days. I was more than satisfied with that.

regards.......................jeff

Thanks everyone for your help. Looks like an easy solution to our power needs, as long as we have sun!
Cheers Mike

Bit Deals on Ebay have 120W and 140W folding panels with MPPT reg for $170/$215 respectively and free postage.
Ive ordered a 120W so will be interested to see what its like.
I believe a fair few off here have bought from Bitdeals with as good result after searching here.