We’ve all seen these guys with one million watts of RV Photo voltaic panels on their roof, and 30 batteries within the stomach of their camper boasting how they’ll run each of their AC models and an air fryer whereas they watch TV of their rig. This text isn’t about a kind of techniques, I’m not that man.
My Spouse and I’ve been residing on the highway full time in our RV for a couple of yr now. Once we first obtained began we had extra kinks to work out of our system than we thought we did, and spent most of our time bleeding cash in gas and campground prices.
We tried our hand at Boondocking at a Harvest Hosts one evening, and at 2 a.m. the low battery alarm began going off. Hell we didn’t even make it in the future, we left our campground with full hookups at 9 a.m., obtained there at midday, and 14 hours had no juice left.
Effectively now we have to work out a option to maintain sufficient cost within the batteries in order that I’d be capable to sleep till dawn. We hadn’t executed ANY analysis in any respect on RV Photo voltaic, however then I got here throughout the 400 Watt RV Photo voltaic Package from Renogy.
It appeared to have every little thing we would have liked to throw some panels on the roof, and maintain our batteries charged sufficient to have the ability to use the lights within the kitchen and maintain our low battery alarm from going off, so we ordered it.
We ordered it from Amazon, and it confirmed up at my buddies home in 3 days, and it did include ALMOST every little thing we would have liked to finish the set up. The one issues it didn’t include was the roof sealant, and a go by means of for the wires to go from the roof down and into the RV, however we ordered these as properly, so now we had been able to go.
You possibly can watch my brief Set up video right here: Renogy RV Photo voltaic Package Set up
The RV Photo voltaic equipment from Renogy comes with 4 100 Watt Photo voltaic Panels, a 10 amp inline fuse, panel combiner plugs, cables to go from the roof to the cost controller, a 40 amp MPPT Cost Controller, a Battery fuse, a Bluetooth antennae so you’ll be able to monitor your energy manufacturing with an App in your telephone, and cables to go from the controller to your batteries.
The instructions for set up had been fairly straight ahead, besides how the panels themselves must be wired collectively on the roof. There are a number of choices for placing them collectively, and I’ll admit I did it ‘Improper’ the primary time. With photo voltaic panels you have got the choice of wiring them in Sequence, Parallel, and Sequence-Parallel.
Trying on the components readily available, and the included combiner plugs, I assumed they wanted to be wired in Parallel. Which is when all of the Constructive cables tie collectively, and all of the Detrimental cables tie collectively, then go right down to the Cost Controller. Whenever you wire them this fashion, all the Amperage from every Panel is added collectively, and on a full Solar day, will pop the ten amp fuse.
I replaced the fuse, and rewired them in Sequence, Constructive to Detrimental, Constructive to Detrimental, Constructive to Detrimental, Constructive to Detrimental, then right down to the Cost Controller and every little thing began working completely.
We had 200 amp hours of normal previous Deep Cycle Lead Acid batteries from the manufacturing facility, so we figured that must be sufficient storage to maintain us going. We’ve a residential fridge in our RV that runs off a 1,500 Watt Energy inverter that auto switches ON once we unplug the RV at a campground.
IF we ONLY use the 12 volt lighting, and depart the fridge operating like regular, the photo voltaic will cost our batteries in the course of the day on a decently Sunny website, and get us by means of the evening with no battery alarms. Realistically that’s all I used to be searching for, so it was doing what it wanted to do, and will get us off grid continuously sufficient that I WOULD spend the cash on it once more if we had been to do it once more.
Concerning that topic, of If we had it to do over once more, There are issues I might do otherwise, like altering out the batteries, and searching into learn how to dimension the system to get a sure variety of hours out of it. BUT…
Based mostly solely on, whether or not or not this method carried out as I imagined it could, Sure, it did.
The equipment got here with most every little thing wanted for the set up, It does cost the batteries in the course of the day, and the set up was straight ahead. If you’re searching for a simple RV Photo voltaic possibility, that may get you off grid for the weekend with out lots of sophisticated math, that is it. Simply be sure you get the roof sealant, and a go by means of, and it couldn’t damage to seize a spare fuse to throw in a junk drawer simply in case.
Keep tuned for my observe up article on evaluating our RV Photo voltaic vs Generator, and learn how to dimension an RV Photo voltaic System to get you thru a complete day of clouds and rain.
