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help with solar electrics


chris and bev

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hi,

I have an autotrail with a 100 wat solar panel, this goes through the main control panel on the van.

 

where the batteries are positioned there are 2 connections, one at the moment is not used and one goes to 2 battery's in parallel, I intend adding another battery and connecting this to the second connector..

I am going to connect another 200 watt solar panel to the van with a separate controller, I am however not sure where I should connect the new solar panel without affecting the 100 wat panel connected to the van

I think I should connect the new panel through the controller to the main pair of batteries, although I am unsure if this will affect the auto trails panel.

 

sounds like I need lots of power but I need it as I wild camp most of the time and bev likes her electrical bits

any advice would be most welcome

 

chris

 

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If your Electric bits are a hair dryer, Micro wave whit diverted etc, i advise you to invest in a Lithium accumulator. Not called a lead battery. You can have them in diverse Ah ratings. Yes expensive but they last for 15 years. They can not explode and half of the weight. So you gain at the end life cycle. In case you go for solar use a good MPPT quality maximum power point tracking Box. And yes a lot of cable work. amp fuses, so it can be very hot somewhere.

 

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Re: lithium... https://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Wonder-if-they-will-catch-on-here/51044/

 

Re: OP... i have no idea what electronic components are in your autotrail but it might be worth digging into the manuals and wiring diagrams to see what your control panel can actually handle. 300W might be too much for the current design. If anything I'd be tempted to wire all solar panels through a common, decent controller and direct to batteries rather than two separate systems. But it depends...

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chris and bev - 2019-01-16 7:44 PM

 

hi,

I have an autotrail with a 100 wat solar panel, this goes through the main control panel on the van.

 

where the batteries are positioned there are 2 connections, one at the moment is not used and one goes to 2 battery's in parallel, I intend adding another battery and connecting this to the second connector..

I am going to connect another 200 watt solar panel to the van with a separate controller, I am however not sure where I should connect the new solar panel without affecting the 100 wat panel connected to the van

I think I should connect the new panel through the controller to the main pair of batteries, although I am unsure if this will affect the auto trails panel.

 

sounds like I need lots of power but I need it as I wild camp most of the time and bev likes her electrical bits

any advice would be most welcome

 

chris

 

Typically, but not always, the solar panel feeds direct into the Power Controller/Charger which has a built in Solar Reg.

Sometimes it does this via an external Solar Regulator, straight into the 'charging distribution' circuitry of the controller.

 

The Sarget EC328 is an example of a Power Controller with built in solar regulator that routes the Solar power to the battery banks.

The sargent EC500 is an example of a unit that takes a feed from an external Solar regulator. The EC328 style regulator is quite low efficiency and poor quality, making the EC500 approach a better option.

 

I would suggest that your choice of routing the new Solar Chargers output to the batteries direct is the best option.

 

 

However, it reads like your batteries are not wired as they should be, which will eventually cause issues.

 

Some of the Sargent kit has two battery cables for twin batteries. One cable set for habitation battery 1 and the second for habitation battery 2. The Starter battery is catered for by a third cable set.

 

Each cable set is thin cable and designed for only low current transfer, both draw and charging.

 

If you want to add a second battery to these units you buy the optionally (if not already fitted) 'harness set' from Aututrail/Sargent and wire the second battery into this.

 

The cables, the Copper tracks in the ECxxx and fuses for each cable set are not designed, or up to, supporting two big batteries, hence splitting them across two cable sets.

 

 

It is a weird way of connecting the habitation area batteries to the controller/Charger because you will rarely get a balanced battery bank, plus the cabling, connectors, fuse, Copper tracks are all so puny. Voltage drop is almost always a major issue.

 

 

I would suggest you look carefully at your set-up to see the best way of achieving support for three batteries, because it was only ever designed to support two batteries, and generally doesn't do that in a very efficient manner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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