After a year of RV’ing in our new to us RV Jambo, it became obvious that the onboard generator was too noisy to listen to while charging batteries and sitting in our campsite. The 68db noise level of the generator just became an irritant and really interfered with our enjoyment of the natural serenity of the places we visited. Now most of the time we could only run our generator for four hours a day, but that was enough to endure. When we were in an Alberta provincial campground we could run our Generator for as long as we wanted which was typically 6 hours a day in which to charge our batteries. Those six hours seemed like an eternity while we listened to the incessant hum of our generator. So this year I have decided to take the big leap into the solar realm again.
On my first RV the White Dolphin, I had solar panels that I had installed on the roof and gave me about 100 watts of power in which to charge batteries. With the new RV I have decided that trying to install solar panels on the roof would be difficult due to our interior ceiling. It is a single padded vinyl ceiling stretching from front to back of the RV with no access points. Trying to run wire from the roof through the ceiling and down the walls and through the floor to my Battery compartment just seems like too much to handle. Therefore I have decided to go with a portable solar panel array and route the wire to external connectors placed on the side wall of my battery compartment, and then run cable to the solar panels on the ground. Of course the wiring for the controller and monitor will be run between the battery compartments and into the coach through an already existing cable conduit.
This arrangement should be easy to setup and allow me some flexibility in which to align the solar panels to the optimum angle in which to catch the sun. The equipment that I am using to create this new solar system is as follows:
- Bogart Engineering solar controller SC-2030
- Bogart Engineering Tri-Metric Battery Monitor 2030-RV
- 500amp Shunt for battery monitor
- Dokio 200 watt portable Solar panel array
- 30' of 10 gauge cable to connect solar panels to solar charge controller.
Once I connect all of this up and configure it in the spring I should have an easy to use 200 watt solar array that should help to charge my batteries without the use of my generator. I am starting out small with 200 Watts and if all works well I will then add a second solar charger and another set of 200 watt panels to my array, giving me a total of 400 watts of charging power.
So why did I choose this equipment? Well the Dokio Solar panels were almost a no brainer. I liked the foldable water proof case that the monocrystalline panels were sewed into as well as the weight of the panels, 10.5lbs or 4.7KG. These were much lighter than the aluminum framed portable panels that I was originally looking at. Also these panels fold down into a much smaller foot print than the aluminum framed panels.
As for the solar controller this seemed like the right choice based on my purchase of the Tri-metric Battery Monitor 2030-RV. I bought the battery monitor so that I could better monitor the charge state and percentage of discharge as well as other important battery information that the 2030-RV monitor could provide. As I started to look at solar, the SC2030 Solar controller came up as the perfect companion to my 2030-RV monitor. Also Bogart states that by combining the two you will get improved charging and charge information that can make using the solar system easier and more rewarding from a geek like perspective. With that said in order to make the 2030-RV monitor work correctly with my electrical loads a 500 amp shunt was required based on my sizing of my maximum power output from my batteries through my inverter.
If all goes as expected once I connect all the dots with this new equipment I should have a much better battery monitoring system than the standard idiot lights on my RV’s control panel. Also I should now have a much quitter way to top off my batteries after the obligatory 2hrs in the morning and 2hrs at night generator time. My Hope is that using the generator for four hours a day will give me enough of a charge that the solar array will then top up my batteries without the noise of the generator. I guess time will tell over this year’s camping season whether my assumptions are correct, or if I was just out to lunch on this venture.
I will update this article later on in the 2019 camping season once I have some better data in which to compare and analyze my charging capabilities.
Happy Trails
The Glampurs