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 items 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 street full time in our RV for a few yr now. After 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 gasoline 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 determine a technique to maintain sufficient cost within the batteries in order that I would be capable of 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 part 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 part we would have liked to finish the set up. The one issues it didn’t include was the roof sealant, and a cross via for the wires to go from the roof down and into the RV, however we ordered these as effectively, so now we have been able to go.
You’ll be able to watch my quick Set up video right here: Renogy RV Photo voltaic Package Set up
The RV Photo voltaic package 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 may monitor your energy manufacturing with an App in your cellphone, and cables to go from the controller to your batteries.
The instructions for set up have 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’ve the choice of wiring them in Sequence, Parallel, and Sequence-Parallel.
Trying on the elements available, and the included combiner plugs, I assumed they wanted to be wired in Parallel. Which is when all of the Optimistic cables tie collectively, and all of the Unfavorable cables tie collectively, then go right down to the Cost Controller. Whenever you wire them this manner, the entire 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, Optimistic to Unfavorable, Optimistic to Unfavorable, Optimistic to Unfavorable, Optimistic to Unfavorable, then right down to the Cost Controller and every part began working completely.
We had 200 amp hours of normal previous Deep Cycle Lead Acid batteries from the manufacturing unit, 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 go away the fridge operating like regular, the photo voltaic will cost our batteries throughout the day on a decently Sunny web site, and get us via the evening with no battery alarms. Realistically that’s all I used to be in search of, so it was doing what it wanted to do, and will get us off grid often sufficient that I WOULD spend the cash on it once more if we have been to do it over again.
Concerning that topic, of If we had it to do over once more, There are issues I’d do in a different way, like altering out the batteries, and looking out into the way 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 will, Sure, it did.
The package got here with most every part wanted for the set up, It does cost the batteries throughout the day, and the set up was straight ahead. In case you are in search of a straightforward RV Photo voltaic choice, that may get you off grid for the weekend with out loads of difficult math, that is it. Simply be sure to get the roof sealant, and a cross via, and it couldn’t harm to seize a spare fuse to throw in a junk drawer simply in case.
Keep tuned for my comply with up article on evaluating our RV Photo voltaic vs Generator, and the way to dimension an RV Photo voltaic System to get you thru a whole day of clouds and rain.