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 methods, I’m not that man.
My Spouse and I’ve been dwelling on the street full time in our RV for a few 12 months now.
We tried our hand at Boondocking at a Harvest Hosts one night time, and at 2 a.m. the low battery alarm began going off. Hell we didn’t even make it sooner or later, we left our campground with full hookups at 9 a.m., obtained there at midday, and 14 hours had no juice left.
Properly now we have to determine a option to preserve sufficient cost within the batteries in order that I would have the ability to sleep till dawn. We hadn’t carried out 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 all the things we would have liked to throw some panels on the roof, and preserve our batteries charged sufficient to have the ability to use the lights within the kitchen and preserve 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 all the things we would have liked to finish the set up. The one issues it didn’t include was the roof sealant, and a move by way of for the wires to go from the roof down and into the RV, however we ordered these as effectively, so now we had been able to go.
You possibly can watch my quick 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 cellphone, 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 ought to be wired collectively on the roof. There are a couple of choices for placing them collectively, and I’ll admit I did it ‘Improper’ the primary time. With photo voltaic panels you’ve got the choice of wiring them in Sequence, Parallel, and Sequence-Parallel.
Trying on the components 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 Destructive cables tie collectively, then go all the way down to the Cost Controller. If you wire them this manner, 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, Optimistic to Destructive, Optimistic to Destructive, Optimistic to Destructive, Optimistic to Destructive, then all the way down to the Cost Controller and all the things began working completely.
We had 200 amp hours of standard outdated Deep Cycle Lead Acid batteries from the manufacturing unit, so we figured that ought to be sufficient storage to maintain us going. Now we have 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 working like regular, the photo voltaic will cost our batteries throughout the day on a decently Sunny website, and get us by way of the night time 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 regularly sufficient that I WOULD spend the cash on it once more if we had been to do it once more.
Referring to that topic, of If we had it to do over once more, There are issues I’d do in another way, like altering out the batteries, and looking out into learn how to measurement 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 equipment got here with most all the things wanted for the set up, It does cost the batteries throughout the day, and the set up was straight ahead. In case you are searching for a simple RV Photo voltaic choice, that may get you off grid for the weekend with out a number of difficult math, that is it. Simply be sure you get the roof sealant, and a move by way of, 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 learn how to measurement an RV Photo voltaic System to get you thru a complete day of clouds and rain.
