What size solar panel

Cowboy7307 · Senior Member

What size solar panel

D and D · Guru

You can't have enough solar I reckon so get the biggest panels you can afford and that will suit the way you'll use them (rooftop mount, portable fold up, etc). Mono crystalline is more efficient than poly crystalline and you should get a good quality MPPT regulator and keep you cable size up (no smaller than 6mm).

Dave

Peter_n_Margaret · Guru

What fridge?

Cheers,
Peter

SnowT · Guru

Peter_n_Margaret wrote:
What fridge?

Cheers,
Peter

Probably the best comment so far...

also like how long is a piece of string...

Some fridge's be they 12v or 240v can be extremely high power consumers.. so the size of the fridge and how it's run is a very vital question.. I have a samsung 240v Domestic[household] fridge of 215lt and it consumes 60-70w when it's running... over night it draws down about 15Ah of charge but then I'm running 24v and have heaps of solar to recharge REAL quick...

So, in short.. Depending on the load of the fridge I would say that you would need 400-600w of solar...

- Fridge is the killer load...

Juergen

Allany · Veteran Member

Try these people
lowenergydevelopments.com.au/
I have dealt with them 3 times now for panels

Allan

moamajohn · Guru

Agree with Allan I have been to this store and have purchased goods and given great advice to boot . John

Jaahn · Guru

Cowboy7307 wrote:
looking at putting solar onto van looking at something off ebay,
its only to do lights, fridge, and tv
the battery that is on van is a DC 12v 115 and it does every thing we want it to do, just have to find a way to charge it while camping ,and daylight is free
so what size panel should i be looking at getting
thank

Hi Cowboy7307, blankstare

Had a few answers so far but I will take this approach. You said that the battery does all you want. So it is 115AH and if you run it down to no more than 50% then you are using say 60 AH. So you need to be able to get that into the battery again every day. On a normal day that will take about a 200W panel to get it in by early afternoon. On a bad day lots more. confuse

There is also the decision about whether to roof mount them, where the efficiency is lower being flat so you need more, say 20%. Or have portable ones which are more work and ackward but can pickup more power, particularly it you need it. Get several smaller ones then to make them easier to handle.

My recommendation is to get at least twice what you need and that will probably cover it with only hmm some bad days needing a charge by the car or ?

Of course you need a regulator and a MPPT one is better than a simple one. Mount it close to the battery and use plugs if you have portable panels. Good size cables. 6 square mm not 6 mm diameter wires, note the difference. wink

I have bought my panels, several lots, for various jobs, off ebay not some high priced dealer. Same for the regulator and wire. Have not had any duds but I do know what I am doing. You can get panels for about $1-1.20 a watt, freighted to your door. Buy a more expensive regulator than the very cheap ones.

Jaahn

Cowboy7307 · Senior Member

Thanks for replies
About the Fridge i had a seniors moment ,i forgot we run that on gas