Portable solar panel fixed to a camper trailer.

Portable will be the way to go then. You can also follow the sun with the portable without having to move your van. So all good. 80w will only be a back up though ie you need around 140-160 and 100-200amp Hr of battery to run independent if you have about 80ltr of car fridge and a couple of lights. Cheers Tony

A portable bifold type panel seems the go for in camp battery charging - it can easily go where the sun is, at any time. Why would you need it on top of the camper, seeing the car's alternator can charge the camper's battery when you are mobile ?

Fold out sounds like a plan. You can plonk it on the roof if you want or place it on the ground. Whatever. If you have an inside out panel, you may need to think about a reflecting system to get the max output.

I have 2x75 watt panels hinge together and then I used two extender tent poles from Ray's which are each attached at one end to the panel. I also drive pegs into the ground through the tent poles attach hole which prevents the panel from blowing over on windy days. You will also need a long dual core cable at least 15m long. The longer the better because if you camp near trees you need to move the panel. I have three sets of cable made up with Anderson plugs so that my panels can be up to 20m away from my camper, and believe me I have used all three cables.

I think the best idea is to have the more stable method of a single solar panel mounted on top of the camper trailer by a method that will allow it to be simply removed when you need to set-up the camper trailer.

That way the Solar system is charging the batteries when your stopped at the various spots during the day, eg; shopping centers, lunch or travel breaks etc.

As mentioned above the alternator will charge the battery when driving, but then you don't drive continuously and you need the fridge running 24/7 so the solar panel will probably only assist to supply that power, because 80 watts will not supply enough power for the fridge and lighting etc for 24/7 use, two or maybe a larger panel will work better but as they say it has to fit where you want it to be when traveling.

Mainey . . .

Hi Findanomad

Go for portable.

Our previous van was a wind-out camper. We got a solar panel (80w i think, but now we are not sure as it may be smaller), made a stand out of lightweight pine timber, and put it out to face the sun when stopped in the afternoon. Even late, it brought the charge up quickly compared to the vehicle trickle charge. We'd then put it facing east ready for the dawn. If we stopped for a few hours or so during the day to do a walk, we could connect it and put it on the camper roof but only bothered if we knew we would be setting up camp late. Charging one deep cyclce battery, it kept our upright Engel caravan fridge going, plus a couple of fluro lights.


Motherhen

Findanomad,
some pics for you to ponder
any questions or particular points you don't fully understand .. just ask :-)

The rear panel just slips in/out along the channel under the protruding lugs.
In the top two pics you can see where the locks used to fit instead of the bolts, I never had to remove the rear panel so I just replaced the 2 x locks with bolts to remove any temptation.

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Image Could Not Be FoundMainey . . .