Solar Kit Installation

[Merlin]

The current issue of Trailer Life magazine (December 2019) has an interesting and extensive technical article on installing the latest solar equipment from Xantrex. The company is now making flexible peel and stick solar panels in 3 sizes and has versatile inverter/charger/converter equipment for RVs. They also have Lithium battery packs now for RVs. The article may be useful for ideas to anyone looking at solar or an upgrade to electrical equipment. 

[DavidM]

Peel and stick panels sound interesting, but that means you will get no air circulation behind the panels to keep them cool. The output of solar panels drops significantly the hotter they get. So for permanent installation I recommend fixed frame conventional panels mounted on your RV's roof with about a 1" air gap.

Edit:

I went back and looked at the specs for the Renogy flexible panels. They have a power/temperature coefficient of -0.4% per deg C. The base or nominal temperature is 45 deg C. That means if the temperature was 20 deg C higher, about as much as I would expect due to stick on rooftop mounting, then the power produced would be reduced by 8%. Not that big of a deal.

They do cost about 50% more than conventional panels or 60+% when you add the power loss due to stick on mounting.

If any of you geeks want to look at the data, the spec sheet is attached.

David

[Merlin]

I thought about the heat too. It gets hot up there, even without black color! Here's the link to Xantrex peel and stick solar panel data sheets. The specs look good, but the panels are spendy.

http://www.xantrex.com/documents/Solar/DS20190403_XantrexSolar_Max_Datasheet2019.pdf

[Chappy133]

Amazon Woot has solar panel kits on sale:  https://tools.woot.com/plus/acopower-solar-power-generators-and-accessories?utm_campaign=Daily%2bDigest%2b17%2b04%2b22&ref=eml&utm_source=Daily%2bDigest&utm_medium=email&utm_term=DD-Banner&utm_content=Subheader-B&ref_=pe_3185080_633253400

[marviouslious]

In general, rsv solar panels start working when there is light to convert them into energy. However, the amount of energy produced depends on the intensity and angle of incidence of solar radiation. In the early morning hours, at the beginning of energy production, the amount of energy produced is very small. For further details about the installation of solar system, visit here; https://www.bougerv.com/collections/solar-panels