Solar Panels - Roof Mounted or Foldable?

Check out this load calculator https://www.parkedinparadise.com/solar-calculator/

They make it easy to size you PV panel and your battery.

 

If I was doing it over again from scratch, I would really be hard pressed not to just buy a Goal Zero "solar generator" or whatever they're called and one of their panels. It'd run the fridge and whatever else, and be a nice self contained package. Instead I've got a battery box, cables from front of my truck to back, 2 extra group 27 batteries, and the fuse block and battery isolator and all the sockets, it goes on and on. AND a big heavy (but awesome) NoCo dual bank battery charger. Almost forgot about that.

I never even use the truck to charge the house batteries. Between charging by plugging the charger into the house before leaving, and solar while camping I don't need the extra charging. About the only time I even flip the switch on the ML-ACR to connect the system to the truck battery is to jump start my truck (which I don't need to do anymore, since i finally replaced my truck battery with ANOTHER deep cycle, lol).

 

Very nice, do you have more information on your controller build?

 

I got my 100w panel from Costco (many available on Amazon), battery from HF and everything else (controller, cables, connectors, inverter) from Amazon.

HF kits are junk

 

This is a fantastic resource. Thanks!

 

Yeah its very useful for all sorts of stuff beyond just the load calc. It was definitely a good reference for me when I was building out my truck.

 

We’re going to do both. We currently have two Overland Solar 160 watt semi-flexible panels permanently mounted across the roof rack into a Redarc dcdc1225 charge controller. Power is stored in a Battleborn 100ah battery. Since we’re planning on driving only a couple of hours a day the system can also be charged from the alternator.


Because we’ll be traveling in a lot of hot areas we’ll be hunting for shade when parked so I’m looking for a lightweight flexible panel to set out in the sun. We mounted the flexible panels on Yakima roof tracks with aluminum supports along the edge. They sit above the roof, creating a air gap to cool both the camper and the panels.


Been looking at a Renogy 100 watt panel to move around the campsite; its cheap, $160 and weighs only 6 lbs or so.

 

I just put a solar system (a small one) into my 1st gen. Came out better than I could have hoped and is quite flexible in that it's easy to move around or use in various configurations. All under $400 with quality components.

Infinite Free Power - Adding Solar to the Tacoma

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