Solar generators

I see that this is an old thread but I'm going to reply with the setup I use. I have two 180w flexible solar panels mounted to the roof with endura bond tape. I also used the tape over the wires as I ran them along the seam of the roof down to the battery area. I used black 4" tape and ran one down the other side just to give the trailer a balanced look. I have two 100ah LiFePo4 batteries and a 30 amp charge controller.

Spent two weeks boondocking in southern Utah in April/May and never had to use the gas generator. Spent a month in MT and ID in July and only used the generator to run the microwave.

 No one should be surprised if they rarely see more that 5 or 6 amps out if a 100 watt solar module. 

That being said, I disagree with the suggesting that solar might not be tried and true. It is far more reliable than any other power source you could own. There's really nothing to go wrong, you just have to understand want it does and doesn't do. Set up your solar module facing south in a shade free location at a tilt angle of around your latitude minus 15 degrees  pretty much anywhere in North America in the summer months and you'll get on average at least 4 hours of equivalent full sun. So that's around 25-30 amp hours per day into your battery. That's enough for most folks boondocking if they're careful in their electricity use and don't expect to run air conditioners or microwaves or coffee pots or other heavy load ac appliances. 

If you get a string of rainy days, you'll either need a generator or a large enough battery to get you through the cloudy period. How big? Around 4 days autonomy. So if you're using 25 amp hours a day you'll need around 100 amp hours available capacity, or around 200 amp hours rated capacity if using lead acid, maybe 120-130 ah if using lithium. You should still set up you solar though, even on a cloudy day you can get 1 or 2 sun hours, so that's 6-14 amp hours, which could up to double your boondock time.   

Camping under trees with no sunny spot for your module?  Bring that generator or enough battery capacity to last you through your boondock period. 

 

I was just going to post some musings as we finished up a round of campground and dispersed camping in Northern New Mexico before winter arrives in the mountains. It has been about 8 months since we outfitted the 179 with an 1000W inverter, new group 24 DC batteries (2) and a GoPower 130 portable solar kit. My goal was to be able run our small coffee maker and charge phones and other devices without having to lug the generator around.

So far after roughly 7K miles of traveling including a loop up around the Pacific Northwest and back, I have to say that the setup met expectations. However, unless I get more battery capacity and more solar panels, my generator will always be in the back of my truck. While I have no statistics to measure, my gut tells me that the solar setup probably provided less than 10% of the power used while the generator supplied the rest. A lot of this is due to where we camp in the summer months, forested mountains where our panels rarely had access to direct sunlight and usually only supplied 5-7amps to the cause. So, in addition to having a generator (which weights about 35lbs), I also had 30+lbs of solar panel in the truck. No matter how you look at it, the value proposition isn't there. 

Where the panels do come in handy is when the 179 is in storage. I no longer have to remove the batteries as I just set up the panels and have the sun keep them topped for me.

We will now switch to our winter camping mode and head south to the deserts until April. With fewer trees and more access to clear sky, I hope the panels perform better but with a lower sun angle, I'm not holding my breath. All in all it was a fun experiment but I am not completely sold on solar and RVs yet.

FWIW, I originally was looking at Jackery solar generators. While they may not have met my use case, we sure have seen a lot of them this summer and fall.