Newbie with solar questions

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drish

Active member
Joined
Oct 8, 2019
Posts
26
I just bought my first RV, a 2001 Fleetwood Jamboree 24D Class C. I have no idea what I'm doing yet, please be gentle. :)

It's got a tiny 5W trickle charge solar panel on top of the A/C unit that lights up a little "solar monitor" red light inside the coach. Some questions about that:

  • Does this charge the house battery or the engine battery? (or both?)
  • Does it go into a charge controller? If so, where is it?
  • If no charge controller, what's the largest panel I can safely replace it with? (what voltage should it be? 18?)

Thanks!
 

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Fleetwood normally wired those to the vehicle (aka chassis) battery. 5W is such an insignificant amount, it needs no controller.  The wiring for a panel like that is tiny, so you can't increase the panel size much. Maybe to 10-12 watts, which is still trivial. The panel operates at 15-18v in the direct sun; 0V otherwise.
 
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