New to Solar? You Need a Regulator
If you want to safely use solar panels on your rig, they need to have a system to stop them from charging when your house batteries are full. At night, without a regulator system, the solar panels will turn into a "load" and actually cause your batteries to discharge.There are "self regulated" panels available, the trouble is, their output is so small it's hardly practical for an RVer. Commercially built solar panel regulators are like a visit to Starbucks. You can get plain (OK, with creme and sugar) or you can add everything in the way of bells and whistles. What do you get with your cappuccino? Some fancy regulators have built in meters that show battery voltage and charge current--that's a great bonus--and even those that track your battery "bank account" by showing how much power you've used, verses how much you've stored. Of course, the more you get, the more you pay.
A plain-brown-wrapper regulator that simply that stops charging when the battery is full, and restarts charging when the battery needs it is great if you're on a budget. Just make sure you always buy a regulator that has more capacity than you need now. Later if you expand your solar power "farm" on the roof, you won't need to invest in another regulator.
Labels: electronics, Solar, solar regulator
2 Comments:
Thanks for the information. However, after much research for my own needs, I selected the OutBack MX-60 controller for my RV system. It costs more than most controllers, but gives you many more alternatives. Solar, wind??
By Anonymous, at July 25, 2007 6:27 AM
Yes, that OutBack has "all the whistles and bells." It certainly looks like the ticket for a big solar array, say for folks living off the grid. Depending on your application, it looks like it probably is far more than the average RV solar install would need. As to wind, most RVers seem to swing toward one of the turbines produced by SW Wind Power, typically their "Air-X" unit, which has built-in regulation. We run our solar through a $100 solar regulator, and attach the output from our turbine directly to the battery banks. When we get a big charge from the turbine, the solar regulator typically cuts out the solar panels, probably because we have the "set point" on the wind genny a little higher than that of the solar regulator.
It's all one of those, "pays your money and takes your choice," deals. RD
By Russ and Tiña De Maris, at July 25, 2007 8:50 AM
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