Questions about solar

[BigMatB]

Hi Guys and Gals.

I'm looking into getting solar panels for our pride and joy. My wife needs to sleep with medical equipment and while our leisure battery will run it for a single night, it wont last any longer than that. This is fine if we're touring as it charges, but if we're staying put (small festivals/lots of stuff in walking distance) then its going to be a problem.

I'd want something with quite a high output to ensure the battery was as charged up as possible, and was wondering what everyone else has done.

Which kits/panels have other people used and fitted? How easy is it to get the output from the solar controller down to the leisure battery? Any pitfalls I need to know about before I start?

Cheers All

Mat.

[Muzorewa]

http://www.solarcampersolutions.co.uk/

[roosmith]

Second that. That's Dodgey's website, one of his kits is easy to install, very effective and takes the worry out of putting your own list of parts together and how reliable they are.

If the leisure battery is OK for a night, his kit will charge it back up during the day (we've never had a problem doing this while running fridge 24/7) and we're on the old 80w kit. He now supplies 100w I believe.

[BigMatB]

Thanks Both.

How easy is running the cables internally? Haven't stripped any of the interior panels yet have managed to avoid so far but I guess its coming!

Have picked up some LED lights to fit in the back anyway so will probably do both jobs together.

[Muzorewa]

No idea and I don't intend learning. Our Bongo is going to Dodgey's this weekend to have them fit the kit themselves

[roosmith]

Not too bad. I managed to get front to back on the drivers side above the windows, by loosening the clips at either end and pushing a stiff wire through. The worst bit was getting round the B pillar but again the panels just unclip. I came down the B pillar, took the step off, then back up under the dash.

I'm not a complete novice and it took me about 2 hours to do.

[mikexgough]

Easy fit....and you will never look back.... I haven't used hook up since I fitted my 100w kit.... I use 12v tv/sat tv /chargers for phones/led interior bulbs etc..... before solar.... 4 days parked up on a 110Ah Leisure Battery.... now... I never need to worry...

9 days in France recently... no worries and the solar split charge whacked the excess charge when the Leisure was full...to the Starter battery....

[g8dhe]

Got to add my praise on the kits as well. I drilled the roof to hide the cable and no problem in getting it inside (OK done it before for other cables) mine feeds into the system within the conversion, and used the remote meter facility.
We have now had it fitted for two weeks, one week at home and one week touring and the fridge has been on freeze all that time without a hiccup.
One thing you should check is just what is the demand of the equipment electrically, and do you need a fallback if it should fail for any reason?

[Dodgey]

Thanks for the compliments!

Matt - the cables are easy enough to run through the vehicle. You come in through a roof grommet, which you can get lucky with 1st try, or it can take 10 minutes. 8/10 times I get 1st try. The other two times I swear a little. You just need to be patient. It's really easy.

Once in the vehicle the cable run diufficulty ranges from 0-3 (out of 10) depending on how thorough you want to be, and if you have a conversion already.

With no conversion and an average desire to be thorough you just push the cable in the recess at the bottom of the windows, or go to the floor and tuck them up behind the plastic. If you have a side conversion it's actually often easier as you just run the wire behind it. If you pull Bongo panels away they generally just pop off and pop back on. (I provide double core wire with an extra thich outer insulation layer so you can be quite crude with the cable routing)

When you get to the back of the drivers seat the easiest way is to remove the centre console (two bug plastic wing nuts) and run it past the gear stick. Entry to the engine compartment is easy, through a choice of two grommets.

No one ever calls or emails me for help with cable routing. Other questions, sure, but never cable issues.

How many amps or watts is your medical kit (breather/aspirator? - just curious as I've experience these before, no prob if it's private info). You say you have run one for one night - what was the battery voltage the next day? (or did the kit just stop working?).

With whatever you are using at night, a 100w panel will have your battery full by 11am ish - unless you are really killing your battery - i.e. under 11 volts. If you are using it all overnight, there is no problem with 100watts of solar recharging it during the day. Even on a partly cloudy day it'll keep up, particularly as you are not using it in the day (charging phones etc is fairly inconsequential).

FYI - the only practical way to go over 100w on Bongos is to either cover the sunroof with a larger panel, install x2 100w panels but you'll really strain the motors as the 2nd panel has to go up front, or... install flat panels which weigh next to nothing. But, as said, 100w will get a battery back to full during the day no problem.

If it's life critical medical kit I'd install a second battery as insurance, or, make sure there is provision to run the kit off your starter battery as a backup. Better stuck than ill!

[BigMatB]

Hi All, thanks for the info.

I ordered my panels yesterday and should be with me Monday/Tuesday. Have to say that I emailed Dodgy about all this and he couldn't have been more helpful if he tried. I'm doing the fitting myself, but can say that Dodgy's printed instructions are really good, and the man himself is a star with a sense of humour!

As to the equipment I need to run, its a CPAP machine, which doesn't have a really high requirement. It pulls 65w max so at 12v about 5.5amps. Which on a 110AH battery should give me about 20 hours. So if the solar recharges the battery every day, then I should be fine over night. The rest of our electrics are minor, swapping all our lights to LED, keep the iPads/phones charged. So think we're pretty much set and ready to go.

We're planning on getting away week after next for a bit to give it a test, and then probably going to the new forest folk festival end of next month which will be the big test of it.

As ever thanks guys and I'll let you know how the fitting goes.

[Dodgey]

Ahh - it's you!

btw - you won't get your full 110Ah out of a battery, more like 80% of that - 88Ah = 16 hours (just the way it is with batteries), but I doubt you'll both be asleep for 16 hours!!

Then your Solar will fill the battery back up in the day time. As long as you don't have a fridge running too, you'll be ok. If the weather is miserable then it might be a different matter. Let us know how you get on.

I thought it might be a CPAP. I went travelling in Africa and one of our group had one for severe apnia - it was vital we had power wherever we slept.

[BigMatB]

Yeah CPAP is a real life saver, literally. That's the main reason we've moved over to a bongo rather than just a tent.

We decided rather than go for a fridge, to just pick up a 12v cool box, just to keep the essentials cool. Just some basics, milk and meat mainly. I can't do without my meat. Carnivore to the core. What we'll probably do on our next trip out is to pay for a pitch with electric hookup as a fall back, but try just running off the panels.

We can do,the math all day, but until we run it ok all night I'll be a little edgy. Will be interesting once I've got a permanent volt meter on there to see how fast it drops when everything's in use.

[the1andonly]

In the past we have run a C Pap on a leisure battery 110AH with only a 20w panel and poor weather not a good experiance after a week. I would reccommend a 2nd LB if you start using a cool box. We used 2, 1 in the penine folding camper 20w solar charge which was swapped for 2nd in car being charged on trips. Now have 100w on Bongo and no need for cpap any more. Voltage monitoring a must even cheap plug in the cigarete sockets. Ensure you have the ability to plug into the SB for emergencies. good preparation and back up plans and you should have no problems, good luck and good camping.

[BigMatB]

OK. Well I've had the solar kit off dodgy, got it all fitted, and had our first outing with it.

The kit itself turned up quickly, was well packaged, and had everything we needed for fitting.

Hardest part about fitting was finding the clips that fell off the interior panels when I removed them. The panel went straight on and mounted into fitting points that I didn't even know existed. The wiring went through the grommet at the back with no problem. Only decision I had to make was where I wanted the controller and the remote for it.

Using it - well there's not a lot to say really. It did the job it's supposed to. We were away for 4 days and didn't hookup once. We took the hookup gear with us just in case but didn't need it at all. The solar provided more than enough power. I do need to sort out something about our fridge though as it eats electricity! Turned out to require far more current than I expected, so what I did was run it through the day when there was plenty of sun, and unplugged it at night to be sure. Even on the brightest of days the leisure battery was draining with the fridge running, but think that's the fridges fault not the rest of the kit.

All in all, I could have probably got the bits a little cheaper and made my own brackets etc, but the kit that dodgy supplied was worth every penny and made fitting so easy I'd recommend it to anyone. Everything he sent was first rate, worked properly, arrived quickly and in one piece. His instructions were clear and when I remembered to put a screwdriver on top of the pages to stop them blowing away I had no issues at all!

I was tempted to buy the bits separately and make my own kit, but wouldn't have saved much and I'm very glad I got the all in one solution. It also helped that dodgy was a very easy guy to deal with and has been helpful at every turn.

Cheers everyone for pointing me in the right direction!

[Dodgey]

That's great feedback - thanks Matt. I'm delighted the medical kit is running fine.

You'll always lose the battle with cool boxes - they use more power than you think - they are constantly battling to reduce the temp below ambient and effectively never win, so they have to run all the time. A proper fridge gets to it's target temperature and then switches off until the temp rises again, so they use much less spower overall. The catch is that they are expensive (well, overpriced! - I assume this is down to the Danfoss monopoly on the 12v compressors, that and they are always for yachts, barges, and RVs)