watty55 Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 Our (wife and i) own a relatively new Motor Home that has a sonar panel fitted as standard, the panel is a Vechline unit but we are not sure of its output. The brochure gives info for five different sizes and the only way to ascertain which one would be to actually measure the panel, although at present this isn't possible due to the MH being in storage, our guess is that it could be either a 100w or 120w unit. We wanted to see how effective the panel was and also how the MH would fare without it but it appears that the panel is wired directly in to the vehicle' s electrical system with no apparent switch. Our first trip this year without an electrical hookup will be the Newbury MH show in May arriving on Friday morning, once parked the MH won't be moving until Monday morning, so the advice we seek is, a) Will the MH run on its own power for three days? ( Fridge, cooker and heating on gas. Pump, lights, TV, charging a phone, tablet and e bike on electric) b) How much will the weather play in all this? C) Could we be possibly ringing the RAC for a jump start Monday morning@ d) Or is all this down to "How long is a piece of string"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colin Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 The starter and leisure batteries should be separated once the van is parked, this means unless there is some fault you will always be able to start the engine. You should be ok for most things power wise at that time of year with solar, the only thiings which might cause a problem would be charging e bikes, but if you have charged them before leaving home would they need charging again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plwsm2000 Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 To get an idea of how much power you can expect to get out of solar panels, try the Photovoltaic Geographical Information System at http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php. This is an online calculator where you put in your approximate location, the size of your panel (0.1KW in your case) and the angle it points towards the sun (0degrees if mounted on a flat roof). It then gives you an estimate of the daily power you can expect to recover from the panels. Newbury in May with a 100W panel gives around 380W per day (average for the month). Obviously the weather plays a big part in this and over the course of three days, it could be wildly out as you can easily get a 20:1 difference between a very sunny day and a dull day. Staying for longer periods makes it more accurate. I have solar panels on my roof at home and the numbers it gives are about 10% lower than what I have actually generated over the last 5 years and so is reasonably accurate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 I will leave it to others to comment on how the power is likely to last, but would suggest you consider double checking that there is not a fuse located up near the ceiling where the cables enter the Motorhome? There should be one there for both electrical safety and to ensure you can isolate the Solar Panel from the system when maintenance is required, for example when changing the batteries? If the Solar Panel is putting charge into the regulator when the batteries are suddenly disconnected, all that power suddenly has no where to go, sometimes building up in the regulator burning it out. Without a safety fuse, power may continue to feed the 'burnout' potentially resulting in a fire. If there is a fuse fitted, then all you need to do to 'Turn Solar off' is just remove the fuse to stop the Solar panel sending power to the regulator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
747 Posted February 26, 2017 Share Posted February 26, 2017 In May you will have plenty of power from the panel. Unless you get 3 days of Fog or torrential rain. We are never on a hookup and manage most of the year with a 100 watt panel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charles Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 aandncaravan - 2017-02-26 9:53 PM If the Solar Panel is putting charge into the regulator when the batteries are suddenly disconnected, all that power suddenly has no where to go, sometimes building up in the regulator burning it out. Without a safety fuse, power may continue to feed the 'burnout' potentially resulting in a fire. You mean open circuit voltage, power (measured in watts) has nothing to do with it. It must be a very cheap and nasty regulator if 19volts are going to damage it, I think mine is ok up to 50 odd if I remember rightly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 Charles, I think it is generally acknowledge there are cheap and nasty regulators out there. A lot of them. It is also acknowledged that Schaudt, who have more mains chargers and Solar regulators in Motorhomes around the World than any other manufacturer. In their documentation for the LR 1218 Solar Regulator it states - " 5 Electrical connection : Disconnect connector ”Plus Solar module(Panel)” on the solar charge regulator before changing or removing the battery. In addition to our first post above there is also a risk that if the Solar regulator is supplying power to the batteries and the battery clamps are removed, the sudden loss of the 'battery load' might result in a short term damaging spike into the 12v of the vehicle. Just because your Panel only puts out 19v doesn't mean they all do, 22v is more common. If that unregulated 'spike' hits the Fridge Controller or heating controller the vehicle owner is looking at bills up to £500. Some setups have voltages higher than 55v in series connected arrays, which night devastate your Solar regulator. I wonder how an Insurance assessor would react to the fire that might then start from someone ignoring our advice after reading your Post suggesting it is unnecessary practise? Putting a fuse in the cabling from a Solar Array just after it enters the vehicle is sensible practise. Surely the Solar Panel is a power source? Four Solar Panels on the roof in Summer is BIG power source. If the Solar reg or wiring shorts there is a fire risk. UK Regulations say that any device connected to a power source should be protected by a fuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
watty55 Posted February 27, 2017 Author Share Posted February 27, 2017 aandncaravan - 2017-02-26 9:53 PM I will leave it to others to comment on how the power is likely to last, but would suggest you consider double checking that there is not a fuse located up near the ceiling where the cables enter the Motorhome? There should be one there for both electrical safety and to ensure you can isolate the Solar Panel from the system when maintenance is required, for example when changing the batteries? If the Solar Panel is putting charge into the regulator when the batteries are suddenly disconnected, all that power suddenly has no where to go, sometimes building up in the regulator burning it out. Without a safety fuse, power may continue to feed the 'burnout' potentially resulting in a fire. If there is a fuse fitted, then all you need to do to 'Turn Solar off' is just remove the fuse to stop the Solar panel sending power to the regulator. I am not too keen on poking around the vehicle looking for a fuse, but have since noticed in the fuse box brochure (Nordelettronica) there is a 20amp fuse connected to the vehicle battery to power both the solar panel and the fridge. Also a 20A/10A fuse connected directly to the service battery to power the Webasto(20A) Combi and solar panel(10A), due to me not being very electrically literate, i shall leave the fuse box well alone and just see how things turn out on our weekend away. But thank you for your input. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aandncaravan Posted February 27, 2017 Share Posted February 27, 2017 Those are the fuses protecting the regulator from the relevant batteries. Suggest you do not remove those while the Solar panel is sending power to the regulator as that has the same effect as disconnecting the batteries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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