Solar power on tent trailer

[Wiz]

Hey guys.

Lookin at buyin a used tent trailer. Planning on going back country and to areas with no electicity.

What is a good sized solar panel that would power the trailer for a few days? What is involved in hookin it up?

Thanks for the advice.

Jeff

[Piker]

I would just stick with propane if you have that option. It depends on how much power you will be using. It takes a pretty big panel to keep a couple of batteries up to power. I had a tent trailer years ago that was all propane including lights and a 20 lb. bottle would last all weekend. Piker

[bat119]

What are your power requirements ?

Your appliances run off the battery the panel charges the battery.

[Suzukisam]

Use pro pain for cooking or camp fire. Switch all light bulbs to led Buy your panels from Canadian tire when they are 65% off. Put 60 -80 Watts of pannels on roof. Run wires to one regulator that can handle 7.5 amps and the 2out leads pos and beg to your battery and your good to go. Mine runs my furnace all week in November while hunting. Never ran out of power. Don’t screw them to roof or use silicone. Use a product called. ( right stuff ) is available at auto parts supply stores. They will never come off

[88thunderbird]

We used to have a small truck camper . Bought a small solar panel at can tire
To trickle power to camper battery . Worked good . However our electrical consumtion was small . Charge the girls phones , watch lcd tv . charge devices etc. Also the camper was older and we switched out all the inside/outside light bulbs with led lights at princessauto/ Ebay.

[birdee]

costco has the coleman 100w mono on for $150
ct is $350 .dont buy the pos pwm charge controller from coleman
go to a solar store and buy a better quality one. there is a fellow
here in edmonton just off 75 st and about 80 ave.
get the 6v golf cart batteries from costco they are johnston controls
you will be able to go a lot longer and they are a true deep cycle battery
not a hybrid starting battery that is put in them , and will take alot more
charge and recharge cycles without dying.
I will be upgrading the trailer i just bought to the batteries and for now 2
100w mono panels with a 40amp mppt charge controller for future expansion.
to mount i will be using the 3m vhb tape. the lights have all been upgraded to led.

[Arty]

Originally Posted by Wiz

Hey guys.

Lookin at buyin a used tent trailer. Planning on going back country and to areas with no electicity.

What is a good sized solar panel that would power the trailer for a few days? What is involved in hookin it up?

Thanks for the advice.

Jeff

For off-grid in this country I'd go with something that could produce a more concentrated power stream than solar. Especially as a lot of off-grid areas are heavily treed which might block out direct sunlight and reduce panel efficiency, and as a tent trailer setup might restrict space to pack around a decent-sized solar array, and as you might want charging ability during dark hours too. So that means either wind or water or both. Small wind-powered 3-phase rectified generators are a dime a dozen now, but you could build your own with a 3-phase motor too.

A 3-phase motor on a caged propeller shaft thrown into a fast stream or river could produce a lot of charging power in a hurry; common examples of those are small localized permanent power generation stations in B.C. installed at small seasonal waterfalls and such. Making a small portable version of that based on, say a motorcycle alternator, would be interesting.

Then you could use that to feed a 24-Volt buffer battery system, inverting it to 120 VAC single-phase to power all sorts of common appliances.

[bobcatguy]

I used solar power for camping for over 20 years. I had a 125 watt panel and with 2 decent batteries [12 volt] I could camp anywhere for as long as I wanted and never be without power. That includes
late hunting season when the temps. can drop to -25 overnight. Only thing I didn't run was a microwave and the air conditioner.

[Arrowhead]

I use a 165W solar panel and it does the job well as long as you have it in direct sunlight. It's big enough to make up for rain days too when you go a day or two without any charging.

I did not mount my panel to the trailer so that I could move it to sunny areas and "chase the sun". I have 40ft leads that allow me to move the panel around to areas without shade.

If there is any shade on the solar panel, even if the shade only covers one of the cells you are completely wasting your time. The entire panel needs to be in direct sunlight.

Buy a MPPT charge controller from a solar store. The cheap PWM charge controllers you get with solar kits are garbage.