solar to charge one battery...what n where to buy

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tanglemoose

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May 14, 2013
Posts
697
We have 150 watts on roof of our rv...  love it. Have friend who does a little camping.. only one battery, wants to charge battery for lights and run fridge ... nothing else. What small setup would you recommend... and where to buy...  do any box stores carry.. would like to just go get.. live in Billings, mt. Don't want to go to the RV place...

Ideas... suggestions..
Thanks
 
Your best bet may be to just phone around if you want to get something from the box stores.


If you don't mind waiting a week, Amazon is likely your best bet. Look for some of the Renogy kits. They seem to have a good name, and they come in varying sizes. For a single battery, a kit with a 100 watt panel may be all that is needed.  With that said, however, an energy audit is the only way to know for sure. You have to figure out how much power the fridge electronics and lights consume in a day. The solar system has to match or exceed that.
 
The elect/propane fridge only pulls about 0.2-0.3 amp when the propane burner is not lit. About 0.4-0.5 amp when cooling. So don't worry about the fridge. 

Go to Amazon and order a 100-120watt solar panel.  Buy some #10 stranded wire to run from the solar panel.  After the sun comes up prop the solar panel up facing the sun and attach the wires to the battery for a few hours.

Consider swapping out your 12V light bulbs for LED bulbs.  The incandescent bulbs pull about 1.2-1.5 amp per bulb. Many light fixtures have 2 bulbs.  12V florescent light fixtures pull about 3 amps.  LED bulbs pull about 0.2-0.3amp per bulb. 
 
Go to harbor freight.com they have a 100 watt solar panel kit with
the hookups to charge a single battery for 199.99.
 
Don't go too cheap on LED bulbs.  I bought a bunch last year and the individual LED's on the bulbs started burning up and off-gassing a super heavy smell that was giving me a headache after a few minutes of exposure.  I bought replacement fixtures.  Going to try and install them this weekend.
 
Hard to imagine what in an Led could be "off-gassing"  - there is no gas involved in an Led light.  Guess they were overheating and melting whatever backer they were mounted on?  An Led bulb is a miniature circuit board and some of the el cheapo ones have limited voltage regulation that does not cope well with the fairly broad range of 12v power in an RV, where "12v" is often anywhere from 11.0v-14.4v.
 
Gwbeech said:
Go to harbor freight.com they have a 100 watt solar panel kit with
the hookups to charge a single battery for 199.99.

No, don't go to Harbor Freight. That 100 watt kit is four heavy 25 watt panels that you'll need to carry around.

For the same price, or less, you can get a single 100 watt panel and controller from Amazon.
 
I have a Harbor Freight 45 watt system. It kept my battery charged this past week while camping at Shenandoah SP. Fridge ran off gas and only used LED?s, water pump and small DC fan. The problem with this solar system is it?s heavy and bulky. Will be looking at a 120-200 watt suitcase model for future trips.
 
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