Solar devices to keep chassis and house batteries fill

[skippy67]

We store our Newmar 4018 Dutch Star in a covered area where I could get some sun from the southern sky to keep batteries topped off. Even though I turn off both cut off switches, I the house batteries seem to have some sort of drawn and their level slowly drops. What brand of device do you use and where do you connect them. I have read that the positive and negative should be hooks up so the current enters one battery and flow through all the batteries before reaching the negative terminal. I have thought a small panel on the dash would catch the winter sun and keep the batteries charged. Is there a maximum length of wire that can be used? What have you done? I am not an electrician and would be grateful for any advice. Thanks in advance.

[Dutch Star Don]

A 100-200 watt system should be plenty to keep the batteries charged with everything turned off. You can buy a system as a kit or make your system. Either way, you need the panel(s) and a solar controller.

You might want to see if you can place the panels at the edge of your covered storage where they get good sun. When you leave on a trip, cover them or put them in a a dark area.

You could mount the controller in the coach, near the batteries, then run wires with a quick connect to the panel(s).

Here is a good place to get a reasonably priced system (below).

You may also want to think about portable solar that comes in a suitcase style or rolls up. This way you could take it with you and use it while camping.

https://www.windynation.com/-Polycrystalline-Solar-Kits

[amosnandy]

The first thing I would do is get an amp meter an turn everything off you would for storage. Then measure how much parasitic draw is on it.

Size your solar panels based on how many watts/amps you could collect back into the batteries in the time your panels would be in the sun.

As far as length you can run cables, your charge controller should be as close to the batteries as possible. The wires from the solar panels can be longer, as they carry more volts and less amps for the same amount of watts.