Small Solar Setup

[South Jersey Boy]

We are spending the winter in Florida far away from my 17 KW diesel generator. We live in a senior park and outside devices are a NO-NO! We lost power twice so far and I would like to have at least some lights and perhaps a small TV, computer and radio. I thought of using a couple of solar panels on the back wall coupled to 2 deep cycle batteries and a small inverter for limited usage. Anyone tried something like this?

Sout Jersey Boy (far away from home)

[tech]

Is there any chance of getting the solar panels outside in the sunlight? Many windows here in the South have low-e coatings that block much of the sunlight from passing through.

Also, for higher efficiency, look for lights (notably LED), tv, and radio that can run directly off of 12 volts - you won't have the losses associated with using an inverter.

[Lowdown3]

Mount them ON your RV. Maybe a tip up type mount??

If they want to restrict you from having solar power, maybe it's better to look for another park?

Here's video of one of our AE systems, this one a small system we had at our hunting camp for a long time.

The Kyocera 120 watt panel has been discontinued, the closest is now a 135 watt panel and you can find them for around $375. now. The Trace 1512 inverter is a real AE inverter/charger, not one of these car type "inverters" everyone is selling for $90. The nice thing about that for what your doing is that is has AC input places also. Most people use these for a generator input, but you can also use them as an input from the grid (commercial power).

See the abuse the panel will take? A real solar panel designed for AE is going to be able to take some abuse. These are not the fragile as glass, BS China Freight panels people settle for without truly looking at the COSTS of them. Didn't say PRICE, said COST.

$2.77 per watt for a QUALITY panel that will take abuse, that has a 25 year warranty (Kyocera) or $3. or more a watt for a China Freight fragile as glass rickety panel with no warranty- oh yeah, they will offer you a "2 year warranty" for only an extra $30.00 And no the little project box "charge controller" that comes with the harbor frieght set adds NOTHING to the value of the set.

So "begin with the end in mind" and buy quality stuff from the beginning. Later when you want to expand your system, you will have quality components that will integrate nicely into a larger system, versus some broken junk from China.

[South Jersey Boy]

Panels could be mounted on the back wall of the unit. I think that 4 LED lights and the computer would be all that I would need to power. News and music are online.

South Jersey Boy

[1Admin]

Jersey boy- how do you get water then?

[Klayton]

Jersey boy- how do you get water then?

The old RV my grandparents had was a manual pump for the water.
All RV parks have a water filling and grey water dumping station, MOST have a sewage dumping station as well.

[South Jersey Boy]

1Admin:

Unfortunately we are on city water! I have a Berkey water filter and am storing some water down here. The city water does funny things to my anatomy. With the Berkey, it is

not a problem.

South Jersey Boy

[Lowdown3]

Well that saves the power issue of pumping water then!!!

1 Kyocera 135 watt panel would probably cover you nicely for the small amount of power your mentioning. Obviously it would be nice to have a couple more and/or a genset to charge batts on days of inclement weather though...