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Me and Red View Drop Down
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Joined: 27 Jul 2019
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Posts: 2 		Direct Link To This Post Topic: Solar question
    Posted: 31 Jul 2019 at 9:04am
Hey there -

We are brand new owners of a 2014 179.  We have a sticker near the door that says Zamp Solar ready and a plug in on the bottom back side near the door.   Does this directly connect to battery for charging using a portable solar panel?  Does this work without a control panel installed in the camper?  What can run on the solar panel if this is plugged in (slide out) ?  Any help with this would be appreciated as there is little direction in the owners manual we received.  Thanks Ken and Leeanne.
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jul 2019 at 11:17am
That port is just a port connected to the battery. You will need a charge controller and a solar module to connect to it, you don't need a control panel in the trailer.    The Zamp port uses an SAE  plug but with the polarity reversed from normal (Zamp did that to try to get you to buy their solar kits). But you can buy any solar kit you want, just reverse the polarity of the output of the charge controller in the kit. Or you can connect a solar kit directly to the battery and not use the Zamp port. For safety, you should also add an inline fuse at the + terminal of the battery, either to the + wire going to the Zamp port or to your kit directly. A 15A fuse will be fine.

There are lots of choices in portable solar modules. If you get around a 100 watt kit (pretty common) you can run most most 12V things in the trailer as long as you're frugal in your energy use, the weather is sunny and the solar module isn't shaded at all. Get a long cable so you can place the solar module in a sunny location. You won't be able to run either the fan or the heater for long periods, and of course your ac appliances won't run. The slide is fine, it only runs for a few seconds so doesn't use much energy. 
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Tars Tarkas View Drop Down
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Posts: 1452 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 Jul 2019 at 6:53pm
Maybe I'm being too nerdy, and this  may not be perfectly true, but you can't run anything with solar.  Solar is to keep your battery charged.  Everything that runs on 12v will continue to work from the battery and will work longer because of the solar, but without a battery in the equation you won't be able to do much at all.

TT
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Posts: 45 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2019 at 1:09am
I don't think you would want to go camping without a battery.

12 volts is the same from a battery or solar panels.

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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2019 at 4:13am
Originally posted by Tars Tarkas

Maybe I'm being too nerdy, and this  may not be perfectly true, but you can't run anything with solar.  Solar is to keep your battery charged.  Everything that runs on 12v will continue to work from the battery and will work longer because of the solar, but without a battery in the equation you won't be able to do much at all.

TT

True enough for our purposes. There are direct solar powered fans and water pumps but they aren't really practical for camping. And at the risk of stating the obvious you aren't going to be able to run anything at night directly from a solar module.  Even the large grid tied solar systems don't work without somewhere to store the energy, in that case the utility company in effect stores it on their grid for you.

So when I said that a 100 watt solar module will run typical light duty loads in your trailer if you're careful, that means that it will maintain the charge of your battery during a multi day boondocking trip. I would still advise having a backup fuel based battery charging source available for cloudy weather, that might just be tow vehicle charging if its usually sunny where you camp. 
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Posts: 196 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2019 at 6:45am
Most of us are going to add another battery(or more) to our rigs when utilizing solar. A single 12v will not make it all night when running the furnace and may or may not when just running a 12v fan.

I would at the minimum add another 12v, or even better is to ditch the 12v and go with 2 6v golf cart type batteries. To charge 2 batteries a 100 watt panel would be adequate in full sun, but would struggle on overcast days.

Decide how much boondocking you are going to do, then size a solar system that can easily handle that load. For us, we want to be able to run the Fantastic fan in the bathroom to pull cool sir into the camper. Then we have aportable 12v fan that we direct on us while sleeping. On most nights, this is more than enough to keep us comfortable.

To do that, I removed the factory 12v battery, added a double battery box and 2- 6 volts. I then put a 160 watt panel on the roof with a Renogy charge controller(it's a smart charger).
After this trip, I will add at least another 100 watts of solar Wich will keep those batteries topped off easily.
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Posts: 5290 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 01 Aug 2019 at 7:07am
I do the same with my fans in warm weather.  That roughly triples the energy demand vs not running them, so 250-300 watts of solar is just about right if you want to run your fans like that indefinitely on a long boondock trip. 

But also consider that you can get through a day or two on just the dual batteries so if your boondocking periods are short you don't need that much solar for recharging. So for someone just starting on solar a 100-150 watt portable kit is a good way to go, its simple to install and use.  They can always add a roof mount or a second portable kit later. 
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Me and Red View Drop Down
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Posts: 2 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Aug 2019 at 9:50am
Thanks all!!!
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Posts: 37 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Aug 2019 at 10:07am
So does the 12v solar fan just plug into an outlet in the camper?
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Posts: 37 		Direct Link To This Post Posted: 02 Aug 2019 at 10:14am
I've noticed all of the 12v fans have cigarette lighter hookups
Dr. J.R. Chambers II
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