Solar panel

Slaw1967

Guest
Solar panel

Hi,
We had a 100 watt solar panel fitted on our new motorhome in January and all was good.
But when we needed it to perform at non umbilical cord events it seemed to be pretty poor
and not put much into battery.
I found myself having to run the engine to boost the battery.
I know it needs good sunlight but my friends Hymer charges his up
with no problems.
Another Hymer friend told me that it’s all to do with the regulator and they probably fitted a cheap regulator.
We have had two motorhomes before this one but no solar so can’t compare.
Has anyone had a similar problem or have any advice.
Thanks in advance
simon.
 
My solar regulator is a schaudt unit tapped into the electro block (mains unit) on my hymer ,tezza instructed me how to wire up ,it charges leisure battery’s (2)and drifts to main battery and does both great,can go off grid for days with no probs,do have led lights throughout,fridge on gas,and no invertor or Hair dryer electrical used .
 
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Mines a Hobby Optima Deluxe new in jan so all lights are led and I have no inverter so I would expect battery to
last and solar to keep up. We do charge phones etc.
 
Slaw1967;n5143 said:
Hi,
We had a 100 watt solar panel fitted on our new motorhome in January and all was good.
But when we needed it to perform at non umbilical cord events it seemed to be pretty poor
and not put much into battery.
I found myself having to run the engine to boost the battery.
I know it needs good sunlight but my friends Hymer charges his up
with no problems.
Another Hymer friend told me that it’s all to do with the regulator and they probably fitted a cheap regulator.
We have had two motorhomes before this one but no solar so can’t compare.
Has anyone had a similar problem or have any advice.
Thanks in advance
simon.
Click to expand...

You may be expecting too much from the solar panel at this time of year with shorter days and the sun low in the sky.Did the solar panel perform ok in the summer?
 
Phones can be recharged from portable power blocks and don't require a lot of power. I've found that the biggest drain on power when off grid is recharging tablets. On Phil's advice I've now got a golf cart battery to use for charging these and give the leisure battery an easier life.
 
Are you using blown air heating?
How many batteries do you have
I had a friend who is an electrician and solar installer and we did a calculation for interest and in winter our Winnebago would have needed 4kw of solar panels to charge the batteries to run what we estimated the use was !
 
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Hi all first ever post.
I have 2 X 100 watt solar power units. connected to 3 85Ahr leisure batts. Can be off of 240V (grid) for at least 2 weeks (in scotland last autumn) no problem. There is a setting on the charging unit which allows for the input voltage to be changed. Mine was set to 12.8V now set to 13.4V. This may be considered to be "over volyage". Others will advise if this is not correct. Not had any issues so far.
 
No this was in July at Silverstone so no blown hot air on. Got 1 x 100ah battery. We were at track from 8.30 to about 6 o’clock and the panel
had put about 1 bar back into the battery. It wasn’t sunny all day but there were quite a few hours of sunshine on and off.
 
Without knowing what batteries you have and exactly what charger it would be impossible for anyone to really advise you, but we used to bulk charge at 14.8 volts and float at 13.8' volts
 
Slaw1967;n5143 said:
Hi,
We had a 100 watt solar panel fitted on our new motorhome in January and all was good.
But when we needed it to perform at non umbilical cord events it seemed to be pretty poor
and not put much into battery.
I found myself having to run the engine to boost the battery.
I know it needs good sunlight but my friends Hymer charges his up
with no problems.
Another Hymer friend told me that it’s all to do with the regulator and they probably fitted a cheap regulator.
We have had two motorhomes before this one but no solar so can’t compare.
Has anyone had a similar problem or have any advice.
Thanks in advance
simon.
Click to expand...

A decent photo of your charge controller might help. Where do you keep you moho in winter? Is it out in the open all year round? Does your controller have any sort of readout on it so you can see if it is producing any energy? Where is your panel mounted? Is it clean? Is it connected? Is your battery working properly? Can you test its voltage? Lots of things you need to say to get any considered assistance really. A cheap controller is not necessarily the problem. You seem to be talking about 2 different batteries here as well. Your vehicle battery will be charged usually only by the vehicles alternator. Your leisure battery charged by the solar panel. Do you know if that's the case? Come back on after your investigations and see what help can be given with more detailed knowledge of the system you have.
 
Sounds very much to me like you dont have an MPPT controller or something is up. In July with a 100 watt panel you should have more than enough power by miles. Ours is 100w and in June, July and August the battery is fully charged by late morning. I run laptops, TV's lights etc like I am on hookup between those months and its always fully charged.

The MPPT controller of choice seems to be this one (or similar) http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MPPT-300W...r-regulator-LCD-battery-charger-/320756044451

Somethings not right with yours.
 
I have the same problem!
I'm wondering about at the quality of the PWM controller. In theory, PWM should be fine for 1 panel. Cheap Regulators from China .... suspect?
Other possibilities are perhaps
-battery condition,
-quality (thickness and copper content) of cables,
-Length of cables, he shorter the better
-a poor connection somewhere
-losses in Elektroblock or the connection to it.
 
Ditto, if all connected properly the battery is the weak point here, but if you have a meter, check the input cables to the controller, and also the output tothe battery, you may have lost a connection or perhaps a fuse has blown.
 
Slaw1967;n13348 said:
The motorhome was new in January so I don’t think it will be battery.
Click to expand...

Don't rule the batteries out as we have had 2 brand new motorhomes that both needed new batteries within weeks on one and months on the other.
 
And that's why electricians only use brand new.
There are far too many variables to check and consider if you didn't install the system.
New cables, soldered connections, crimped not screwed connections.
It wasn't until I worked with an electrician that I saw failed screwed connections that looked good to me.

 
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