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.