Solar Panel ???

Hi Hilli

The equation involves how many hours of sunlight on average where you
are , size of battery and how long.

It will come out in range 40-80w

A few sites have calculators - like this one under solar system builder

www.renewablestore.com.au/

Robin Miller

There are so many variables such as - what is the current draw of the fridge? Do you intend to run it as a fridge or freezer? What will the ambient temperature be? How much sun do you get? All of these are important factors.

Roughly speaking you could find out the wattage of the fridge - there is often a plaque on it somewhere that will tell you what it is. Divide this by the voltage of your supply (12V, 13V, 13.6V, whatever) and that will give you the current draw of the fridge. Simply put, your solar panel needs to exceed this.

Of course this disregards usage when the sun ain't shining, so you'll need a suitable battery. Then you need to be able to run the fridge during the day, and recharge what was taken from the battery overnight.

This becomes more complex, because you need to know the duty cycle of the fridge or have some kind of solar regulator that informs you of the Amp/hour figure for the fridge for a typical 24 hr period. Whatever the Amp/hour figure is for a day is what the panel you get needs to be able to achieve. For example, say your fridge load was 2 A/H for 24 hours, then you need to replace a minimum of 48 Amps during the time your solar panel is active. If your panel is, say, capable of 7.5 Amp output, you would need between 6 and 7 hours of full sun to replace the energy used by the fridge.

A 7.5 Amp panel is a pretty big sucker and 6 to 7 hours of full sun per day is not easily achieved, so you might need two 5 Amp panels.

As I said, too many variables to give a simple answer. We use two 9 Amp panels (theoretically they should be 10 Amp, but we never achieve that figure), to run two fridges. One is constantly on freeze and the other is used as a fridge. We mostly travel to sunny places (don't believe in cold), so we just get by. Even with this setup, the batteries are grateful for a good "top up" when we get to caravan parks.

I reckon you need up to 120 w of panel. ie 1 x 120w or 2 x 60w.

I run 2 x 80 solar panels to run 70ltr Trailblazer. They reckon 120amps is what you need. my Trailblazer users 5amps when running. I get 3 days out of a n70 battery with out the solar panels.

I purchased one of these about 3 months ago - brilliant - just hook it up to my battery as soon as I make camp - lock it to the car with a security cable - and forget about it until it is time to pack it up and head home again
Solar Panel 80W

HILLI,
I've got an 80 lt Trailblaza and one 80 W solar panel. As stated previously you would probably need 2x80 W. At the moment i use a genny to make up the shortfall.
(Trailblaza in freeze mode most of the time.)
Cheers,
Bros.