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electrical:solar:frugal

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Making do with tiny solar setups

[this is a dump of a reddit post I made; will clean up later. fs]

This page is about making do with what you already have, not about what to buy if you are starting from scratch.

system sizing

Large solar installs are can be useful but are overkill (in size, output and expense) for many campers. Even 100w installs can work well, particularly in combination with alternator/"dual-battery" charging. 200w is the most common solar configuration on CRVL.

Reduce the size of your solar install (panels, batteries) by running your loads when the system has power to spare, not when it is trying to charge back up.

solar panels

used panels may be found on craiglist and similar. Since they are older they will usually be rated for somewhat less wattage (ie, state of the art a couple years ago) but will cost less and someone else has already paid the insane shipping fees.

us.v-cdn.net_6024911_uploads_attachments_1005_574.jpg Grade B panels are apparently fully functional, but cheaper because they are not pretty to look at. If they are on top of the van you won't be seeing them much anyhow.

if you have room for them, residential panels (like 60 cell, nominal 20v panels) typically are cheaper by the watt. 72 cell are even cheaper by the watt but don't fit on many builds due to their large size.

charge controllers

the Chinese “Tracer” MPPT charge controllers made by EpSolar/EpEver and rebranded by Renogy and others are surprisingly decent controllers and a great value. Is something like morningstar better (and prettier?) Probably, but they are 2x the cost and overkill for my purposes. And their remote monitors are 3x the cost, battery temp probes 5x the cost, etc. Software cable adapter is 3x the cost and is serial instead of the tracer's usb. The Tracer PC software for reporting and configuration is free and also surprisingly good. I've had both cheap and expensive controllers over the years and I chose a sub-$200 40a 4215BN for my current build.

batteries

FIXME

converter

FIXME

electrical/solar/frugal.1529195516.txt.gz · Last modified: 2020/10/11 19:48 (external edit)