Solar panels question

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Bigmau

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Joined
Dec 29, 2018
Posts
95
My 2018 Forest River Sunseeker has a port on the outside labeled as  Solar Panel ready. Does that means I can just plug in a solar panel and it will keep the batteries charges? How about a controller? would I need that or is it built in? All the manual says is that it is Solar Panel Ready with no further instructions.
 
Most likely it is just a wire run to your battery box area. You will have to do some digging for the other end of that connection.
 
Thanks for the reply. I have 2 12V deep cycle batteries (not including the chassi). Is a portable 100 W adequate or would I need bigger?  This would be to keep up the batteries while in storage. Are solar panel designed not to overcharge (cook) the batteries?
 
100 will do nicely with no problems. The reason it will work is when the charge in a battery rises the internal resistance also rises,, when the two balance your good.. It's a push against shove thing.>>>Dan



 
I would tend to say you need a solar controller of some type anytime you use a panel of over about 10 watts.
 
Give it a try.  Keep an eye on the water levels in the batteries - if it goes down the panel is overcharging the batteries and you need a controller to regulate the charge.

Don't let the water level drop below the plates, or the exposed portions will be permanently damaged and reduce the battery's capacity.
 
You know he will never get the full 100 watts, and depending on the "run" will have internal losses added to that,, plus the aforementioned internal resistance ..So the end result will  a low amperage input at the batteries.
 
I have a 100 watt panel with 4 marine  12 volt batteries. It came with no controller and if I was plugged in to shore power it would over charge the batteries. I added a controller to the solar panel problem solved.
My inverter charger would keep the batteries up, but couldn't stop the solar from overcharging.
 

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