Solar Panel for Caravan

[Simond S]

You need to leave an air gap when fitting for the cooling of the panel. You can connect multiples but I use a singe 100w panel and it keeps two leisure batteries topped up nicely.

[Obiwonkeyblokey]

I wouldn't mind a quick fix jobbie for our motorhome just to keep things topped up when there's no power. Ideally something we can just fold out on the roof and connect via the 12v lighter socket to trickle charge the batteries.

any recommendations please/

thanks in advance.

[Watchman]

You need to work out how much power you use over time vs how much a solar panel can recharge.

A 100W panel will only provide you with 100W while the sun shines, so if you're using 100W 24-hours a day, you may need 2x 100W panels to take advantage of the sun while it's out AND enough battery capacity to keep you running through the night.

In practice, a 110Ah battery will keep most people going through the night (bearing in mind you're not actually awake and using the juice all night), if not a few days (modern caravans don't use much power) so a single 100W panel ought to be enough to keep one battery topped-up. In fact, it'd probably keep 2x 110Ah batteries topped up.

The fold-out ones I've looked at aren't great though, in terms of output power. This one looks like a nice package but only outputs 40W (again, inly when the sun shines):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Photonic-Universe-folding-...