Solar Panels

  • Thread starter Deleted member 71915
  • Start date

Deleted member 71915

Guest
its only about 5 weeks before our first trip in the camper, just a quickie, its got 2 90watt panels and as there was some sun today I switched them on they were putting in 2.7 does that sound right this time of year, and what to expect in the summer, thanks
 
Sounds about right, our 120 watt panel was producing a similar amount yesterday when we had a bit of sun.
I’ve seen it produce about 9 amps in the summer, not that I keep an eye on it regularly, but it’s plenty to keep our leisure batteries topped up
 
Yes You will be fine

We have
1 x 120Watt SP
1 x 85AH LB
Sometimes use EHU in April only
We use vehicle all the summer

LB never below 12.6 at night and back up to 13.4 or more more usually by 10am next day.
Mind you no TV but lots of other toys...EG charge laptop in the day with a 12V to 19V charger.
Let its own battery power it in the evening
 
Cannot understand what you mean by switching them on,there sup to be in cir all the time,mine holding batts at 13.7
 
I have 3 x 175w on the roof and yesterday in the sun I was getting 8.3A :king: . It was hard work putting them on but well worth it now I can see the difference between these and my 2 x 100w I used to have on :wacko:
 
Abiteachuck said:
its only about 5 weeks before our first trip in the camper, just a quickie, its got 2 90watt panels and as there was some sun today I switched them on they were putting in 2.7 does that sound right this time of year, and what to expect in the summer, thanks
Click to expand...
that sounds marvelous to me . , 10. Amps in summer in perfect conditions
 
Last edited:
We have 2 x 100w solar panels on the roof charging 3 x 100ah leisure batteries (could do with another panel BUT means shifting the roof box)
And we get 10 amps on a good sunny day...
But not a great deal in winter time (durite VSR picks up the slack)

In fairness the panels weren't top of the range ones by any means (I suspect the more expensive makes are better at collecting charge on bright winter days)
And I suspect the £20 pwm controller doesn't maximise charging...
But we never use hook up even on the rare occasions we stop on a site....
 
jeffmossy said:
I have 3 x 175w on the roof and yesterday in the sun I was getting 8.3A :king: . It was hard work putting them on but well worth it now I can see the difference between these and my 2 x 100w I used to have on :wacko:
Click to expand...
. That's not a solar set up ithats a power station.
 
mistericeman said:
We have 2 x 100w solar panels on the roof charging 3 x 100ah leisure batteries (could do with another panel BUT means shifting the roof box)
And we get 10 amps on a good sunny day...
But not a great deal in winter time (durite VSR picks up the slack)

In fairness the panels weren't top of the range ones by any means (I suspect the more expensive makes are better at collecting charge on bright winter days)
And I suspect the £20 pwm controller doesn't maximise charging...
But we never use hook up even on the rare occasions we stop on a site....
Click to expand...

i use 2 banks of 3x80wt panels . the first bank was secondhand bought in maroc 16 yrs ago . the second bank of 3 were new bp solar off ebay .
both run with cheap pwm regulators off ebay.
work great. in summer i power loads of things in my house by using a long lead off the inverter . saves a shilling .
normally in winter in spain or maroc etc runs 240v fridge and just about anything else i need . if very dark and rainy might switch fridge off in the night . but a couple of nice sunny days and away we go .
solar is a fantastic option and these days so cheap.
panels new were 400quid 16yrs ago ,now you see them on ebay for 70/80 quid .
i pasid 200quid each for my first panels . dont know their age but i bet its 20/25 years and still working . a bit slower than the newer ones i put on in 2011 . but still work .
 
got 2 90watt panels and as there was some sun today I switched them on they were putting in 2.7
Click to expand...

the first thing is that forget ever seeing 180W (15A) unless you are parked up at noon on the equator it aint going to happen (even at noon on the equator its unlikely!)

To get the stated wattage you have to angle the panels very carefully not only towards the sun (east -west) but also you have to angle it vertically according to your latitude.

I dont have panels on my M/h but do have them on my house when they were installed I was warned that the angle of my roof meant that I would lose about 10% . Most (all?) panels on M/homes are mounted horizontally and so only get anywhere near the correct angle at noon (and the further south you are the closer to the correct angle it will be)

I have 6kW worth on my roof at this time of year I get excited if I see 600W.
In the height of summer I might see 4.5kW (but not for very long)

So (after all that) with 180W worth of horizontal panels, in february, 2.7A is pretty good
 
trevskoda said:
Cannot understand what you mean by switching them on,there sup to be in cir all the time,mine holding batts at 13.7
Click to expand...

reason is I have a smart charger that charges both 110am lb plus the main batt, so I turned the solar panels off over the winter
 
hairydog said:
No, that definitely does not sound right. You should not need to switch solar panels on. They should be keeping the batteries topped up all the time.
At this time of year, the angle of the sun makes a huge difference. A panel flat on the roof will miss more sun than it catches. However, the whole point of panels on the roof is that they should be "fit and forget" so I don't think tilting ones are a good choice for fitting on a motorhome.
Having said that, having no hookup in my garden, I do have two 100w panels almost vertical, facing south, connected by a cable when the van is parked for a while. A day or so ago it was charging at a bit over 10A from them.
Click to expand...
,

thanks for the reply when I bought the camper the chap said he had the switch fitted as he also used a smart charger during the winter
 
Yep me to have 200w across two panels going into 180ah batts,2 amps some winter days if lucky,there as others say suposed to pump out about 14ah in summer but i would say 8/10ah if lucky unless its miday ,but fact is the keep batts up even in winter,the engine alt if i drive is by fare the best charger,any panels is better than no panels in my book.
 
FWIW, I am currently logging my Solar PV Setup. Got 4 months data to date (started end of September last year).
Adjusting the data to ignore time in Float (as could have thousands of Watts but if batteries full, nowhere for that harvesting to go so no power produced) and am seeing a very low average for January - just 2.5% of potential maximum.
However a factor in that is I am in Scotland, and parked directly North of a 3-Storey House with a large tree to the east so my shading is significant, plus this is the average across the entire daylight hour duration so includes from dawn to dusk (in January, "Daylight" lasted 7.9 Hours). The maximum peak harvesting during the day in January was actually 30% (the average daily peak was around 10%)
(lots of numbers, but I just like to analyze how things are working)


What to Expect in the summer?
On my previous Camper I had a pair of 100W Panels, flat mounted on the roof and each feeding into an input into the PI25/C MPPT Controller.
I took this photo on the 12th August at 12:40 near Harrogate, Yorkshire, where I was parked up for the weekend at a Festival:

T5 Solar Panels by David, on Flickr
So bringing in around 92% of maximum potential at the time of the photo.
There was a lot of clouds, but also pretty windy so the harvesting fluctated a lot as the clouds blocked the sun then cleared, but I do remember seeing slightly over 100W momentarily a couple of times when I was checking the meters.
 
I was doing some testing today on my PV (Solar) Setup to see if I could tilt a single panel in the array and have it increase the total harvesting.
The answer to that question is NO - at least with my set of 4 panels in a Series+Parallel configuration - but I did get some info which members with Solar Panels might find interesting...

This is with my van moved halfway off the driveway and kinda blocking next doors driveway (positioned to catch the sun while it was between the house and a large tree - so a 30 minute or so window at this time of year)
Screenshot_20180225-125624.png by David, on Flickr

And then moved back to my usual parking position around 30 minutes later
Screenshot_20180225-132218.png by David, on Flickr
(battery voltage is lower as I turned a 1kW heater on to make sure system wasn't in float mode which would skew the comparision)

So an 8-fold increase achieved if you can park in the sun rather than in the shade ...


(Unfortunately my whole driveway is in the shade about 95% of the time so I don't have that luxury, however I can still maintain enough charge to keep my 240V AC Fridge going even so :) )
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Users who viewed this discussion (Total:0)

Back
Top