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Post Info TOPIC: Need advice - first time buying solar
Just wingin it


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Need advice - first time buying solar
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Hi everyone My hubby and I are going travelling soon and we need a bit of advice on solar. We have a camper trailer and want to buy a solar set up, but we have absolutely no idea about it....total solar virgins!!! Can anyone help with what we should get??? Thanks heaps Wendy

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Aus-Kiwi


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RE: Need advice - first time buying solarhravyc
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I have 3 seperate group panels . Wired in parallel ( sepearate) 6 wires to regulator .. Using a connector block then single heavy wire to reg . Donât be too concerned having too much solar for reg.. solar is never 100 % efficient ..

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T1 Terry


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Hi Wendy and welcome to the forum. Are you looking for permanent panels mounted on the roof or portable panels you can put out each day and move around to follow the sun?
Do you have a battery set up at the moment? Any type other than lithium requires a certain amount of solar to battery size to keep up with the internal battery losses and charging compared to used energy losses. Really complicated stuff that you don't really need to fully understand to use the system, just things you need to accept as the way it is and build a system that takes this stuff into account.


T1 Terry

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Jaahn


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Just wingin it wrote:

Hi everyone My hubby and I are going travelling soon and we need a bit of advice on solar. We have a camper trailer and want to buy a solar set up, but we have absolutely no idea about it....total solar virgins!!! Can anyone help with what we should get??? Thanks heaps Wendy

hi smilesmile

To give some good answers you will have to tell us more about what you expect. Do you have a Kombi like your avatar or a big 4WD or is the space and weight limited a bit. 

Do you just want, like a lot of others, a few lights, charge the phones and things, and perhaps a small TV. Fridge ? type? Easy enough to achieve. Or were you hoping for more than that. Needs more money. 

Staying at caravan parks , no need for solar, or freecamping, then yes !

Cheers Jaahn  



-- Edited by Jaahn on Monday 13th of August 2018 02:55:50 PM

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Tony Bev


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I am not a techi

Hi Wendy and hubby (Just winging it)

Welcome to the forum

In ordinary layman terms, the techies will require information from you, before they can recommend the solar system which will give you the best benefit
In none technical speak they would like to know, what you will be running on 12 volts

Things like
Do you have a 12 volt compressor fridge, or gas fridge
How many lights, and are they LED, or normal Incandescent type bulbs
Will you have, 12 volt TV, and or 12 volt radio, etc
Do you plan to use anything on 240 Volt using an inverter from your battery/s

They will then recommend battery/s large enough to run your 12 volt equipment

They will then recommend solar panel/s and regulators to keep the size of battery/s you have charged up

Hope that this information is helpful to you



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Warren-Pat_01


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Hello Wendy,
Again welcome to the forum - I trust like most of us here that you'll get the info & assistance that you seek. The use of the "Search" tab can be very helpful but you may find "oodles" of queries unless you filter it down a bit.

Actually Tony is fibbin' about being a non-techie - he does know a fair bit!

There is another forum (I got involved with them when I built our first camper trailer) - have a look at www.campertrailers.org/
They have a spreadsheet that you fill out giving the same sort of info that Tony & Jaahn have suggested.

You can have an expensive setup with all the bells & whistles (we saw a trailer that caught fire on the Plenty Highway two years ago - $8,000 worth of power equipt went up in smoke. They were lucky as the rest of the trailer was ok) or a simple system like I have that gives me adequate power when we go bush (my ancestry is Scottish).

On top of whatever you end up buying, the most useful item to have is a multimeter - if you don't know how to use it, ask a friend (or one of us). They need not be expensive (under $40). Jaycar Electronics have on one for $10 (www.jaycar.com.au/low-cost-digital-multimeter-dmm/p/QM1500).

All the best!


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Warren

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swamp


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hi
Need to no what your power users are .
compressor fridge
Led lights
Cpap machine
phone chargers

Then family or only 2 people ??
Do u go bush a lot ??
Do u go only for overnight trips or weeks at a time .??


160 watt portable onboard mppt solar to start with and plug into draw bar connector which leads to battery 1 x AGM type capacity either 100--120AH
This is bare to bones system enough to run small compressor fridge and LED lights only

160watt solar sets  is ok to lift and move easily ,,  200watts and up are awkward /cumbersome for many 

Then add
fixed roof top solar120-150w per panel prefer x2
Upgrade to a proper mppt solar controller with dc/dc charging [dc charge is charging van bat from car bat when driving ]
additional battery

Good starter package
4wd supa centre has 160 watt with onboard MPPT controller [panel with base controller is 200$ plus $100 for MPPT controller ]
There was a video on utube showing mppt boosted output around 11 amps. The Mppt gives a little boost to charging and needed on a small system to get the most out of it . 



-- Edited by swamp on Thursday 16th of August 2018 06:04:10 PM

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Jaahn


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Wendy did you get frightened off ??

You need to give some input for a conversation !

Jaahn



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