Solar

[zeeman]

We r tossing around the idea of putting soloar power on our motorhome. We welcome and and all suggestions and coments...

[Lorna]

We have thought about it and considered and reconsidered the same thing. We have a bluebird school bus to convert into an RV. I feel the cost of solar PV systems are too high priced for what they do and what we need. We do not boondock for days on end. We need a good sized (quiet) diesel generator to run a freezer and refrigerators both over the road and as a back up in case the power goes out while in a campground (due to our business, we have to be able to power a self-contained mobile kitchen when needed). We have decided that we can use solar day/night vents in both the bus and the mobile kitchen (West Marine: Day/Night Plus Solar Vents Product Display and West Marine: Solar Mini Vent 1000 Product Display ) with a modified homebuilt solar heat collector DIY Solar Heating with the Heat Grabber to supplement heating requirements during the daytime. LP gas is our choice for heating water for both units. I'm still cruising thru my collection of MEN back issues (all on CD's) looking for things that will be usable (or easily modified) for a mobile lifestyle. My other goal is to get our power usage down as low as I can which means changing out light bulbs for more efficient ones, adding switches to things to turn them off after turning them off, insulation, etc. I once read that if you can reduce your energy usage by 50% you have the same impact as installing solar panels. Bear in mind that I said WE... this is from our point of view. There are folks here on this forum (and others) that use solar heavily and need it based on how they RV. There are many solar sites on the internet. Find them and read. Pick out what will work for you. Solar systems are not a thing that you install and then sit back never to touch again type setup. They do require some maintenance and some require a lot of maintenance.

You might want to start out small. There is an MEN article with lots of comments on "solar gagets" that you may find interesting
What Do you Think About Small Solar Gadgets?

[BAKEHYDE]

I installed 2 130 watt panels with a controller, inverter system with 4 6v batterys, we boondock for long periods of time, we have cut out generator use by 80%
love it

[Tincup]

We boondock 100% of the time and have 4 130W panels and 6 T-105 RE batteries. They run everything we need for our lifestyle including my ham radio transceiver. We do not have a micro wave and cook mostly in a sun oven or our gas grill. The only time the genny is run is when we run the vacuum.

Our idea of boondocking is to run NO generator but that's us, others believe the opposite and feel there is no problem running the generator. If your lifestyle requires you to be in a full hook up situation, then I would recommend not getting solar.

[Refuse1]

Ineresting info on RV solar from HandyBob...

Hello world from HandyBobSolar! « HandyBob's Blog

[Lewisclan]

we did it and love it so far

Solar Panels

[Spikester]

I have 400 Watts, with 2K inverter, if you boondock any appreciable amount you will not regret doing it, bad news is its expensive, good news is you can write off a portion of the installation cost on your Federal Income Taxes.

An excellent source for information and equipment is AM Solar.

Spike

[ralper]

I renovated my poorly operating system to Solar Bob's description of a good system and gained over 100%. Large wire #4 or #2 (best). A good quality controller right by batteries but not in the same compartment. Bulk charge up to 14.8 volts as per Trojan Batteries instructions for a fully charged battery. Anything less than this and the power stays up on the roof in the panels because it will not get to the batteries.

Ralph

[Gary - K7GLD]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tincup We boondock 100% of the time and have 4 130W panels and 6 T-105 RE batteries. They run everything we need for our lifestyle including my ham radio transceiver. We do not have a micro wave and cook mostly in a sun oven or our gas grill. The only time the genny is run is when we run the vacuum. Our idea of boondocking is to run NO generator but that's us, others believe the opposite and feel there is no problem running the generator. If your lifestyle requires you to be in a full hook up situation, then I would recommend not getting solar.

YUP - there's only my wife and I, and we boondock quite a bit - we have a SINGLE 60 watt GE panel, and run it on a 20 foot heavy cord so we can occasionally move it for best sun exposure. The best solar panel in the world is worthless, if you park under a tree for the cooler shade - and the roof-mounted panels are blocked from the sun!

Our single, puny panel and the 2 Interstate deep-cycle batteries consistently provide ALL the power we need for typical stays - of course, the Microwave or A/C require more power as from the 4KW Onan, or our smaller Honda 2000 - but that rate of added solar capability is pretty well outside of economical reason for most anyway...