Solar Powered Products

I love camping out in the wilderness, and we have a 23 foot camper trailer that we use a lot every summer. We don’t need a lot of power, and the two deep cycle batteries on the front last about 3 days so most of the time we get along just fine.

On extended trips, the batteries start to run low. What I used to do was fire up the ‘ole gasoline powered generator and let it run for a couple hours to charge the system back up. The generator runs good, but it has a couple characteristics that I don’t appreciate so much. It is loud, and it uses a lot of fuel.

When you go out into the wilderness to get away from it all, the last thing you want to hear is a noisy engine blaring away. I don’t like it and other campers don’t like it either. I have to listen to the generator noiseof other campers too, and I would much rather listen to the birds chirping. And fuel; well, who likes to waste money on it and pollute the environment even more?

The solution is a solar setup to recharge your deep cycle batteries. So without further ado, here is my quick lesson on rv solar panels for beginners.

One of the key components is obviously the actual solar panels. They sit on the roof of the camper if they are permanently mounted, or on a stand beside it in the case of portable ones. Most rv dealerships either have or can order these, and will install them for you if that is the route you would like to take. You can also look online to see if you can get them cheaper. There are a few sites that show detailed instructions of how to install the whole system into your recreational vehicle.

The rv solar panels come in several different sizes, such as  80 and 120 watts, and 2′ x 3′ or 2′ x 4′ dimensions. They are made of arrays of photo-voltaic cells in a rigid grid, and you can link as many as you need to in series to increase your capacity.

Next, you need several deep cycle batteries. Most rv’s and camper trailers already have one or two of these. You need to figure out how much storage capacity you will need. Your rv dealer can usually help here as well. A couple of online calculaters can give you a pretty good idea of what you would need.

The last pieces you will need are a charge controller and an inverter. The charge controller keeps the batteries from being overcharged if there is too much electricity being produced from the camper solar panels. The inverter is needed to convert DC power to AC if you plan on running 110 V appliances such as a microwave. If yu don’t need 110V power, then this part can be left out.

As I mentioned before, it is possible to take a do it yourself approach and install all of these components yourself. The rv dealer can also do it for you, if you don’t have the time, the inclination or the know-how.

And that is the basic rundown of rv solar panels for beginners.