Only realistic if thats a modern laptop with a battery life in the 6 to 10 hour range.. With my rather knackered 2x100 watt flexible Solbian panels, up to 6 to 8 amps out of the theoretical 12-16 amps panels flat on the roof. Enough to run my HP Envy X360 15 inch laptop.
I got a 1000w Pure Sine inverter (solar a future purchase) for just such a scenario. That led to being told, for safety reasons, the circuitry needs to go through a consumer unit. That then dropped me down a rabbit hole of various forum debates on the subject of earthing the RCD. So far i’m thinking the only way is with an earth rod. Fine in a field, not great on concrete. Don’t want to muddy the waters for you/them, but that’s where i’m at so far. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
i have a CTEK D250 and 80w solar panel on a 110amp/h leisure battery as it work well and optimums charging, it will maintain the alternator output at maximum until both battery’s are changed. I’m not a total vsr fan as they tend to only charge the leisure battery once the main battery gets to a certain state of charge. A normal relay with charge both battery’s as soon as the engines running.
It not only me, the failure rate is high and they either work or they don’t. If you’re lucky they’ll work and I believe @Day has recently bought the same panels and is happy with them. Mine never worked, but they are deceiving, I checked the open circuit voltage from each panel before I fitted them and both were (and still are) to spec 21,6v, what I didn’t check was the short circuit amps and by the time I was trouble shooting and found they were dud they were stuck on the roof. My advice, check both the Voc and Isc before you apply any adhesive.
That`s the reason i bought cheap , i never read reviews it just had a jolly looking ebay ad I got lucky but at that price , as i said earlier , i`d happily throw it away and buy a more efficient panel once i got my head around IF it would be useful to power the new Dometic compressor fridge 24/7 which it does easily - even on dull days . Don`t forget , if you park up and leave the van to go for a walk / a day on the beach / visit the inlaws it`s still banging in those amps , unlike hook up which was plan `B` . Pre-solar i had lovely week in Cornwall and even driving most days and only useing the fridge sparingly the `old`battery took a hammering on just the van split charger , luckily we had a few nights staying at friends remote houses so were able to run a cable and connect up a CTEK charger which brought the battery back overnight . This gave me the imputus to fit the solar and see what difference it made to `off grid` camping. Biggest trip with the solar was up to Scotty-land for a few nights then a slow 7 night bimble back to That London . Scotty-land was foul weather so we headed back to sunnier climes , never even considered the battery , just glanced at the readout and it was smiling so that`ll do . That`s in reasonable sunlight on a flat roof , not angled a the sun in anyway .
Unhappy people from Italy and Spain too. I’ve seen solar panels being covered in the middle of the day on campsites in the south and I think sunlight, or rather heat, kills them. They seem to be better the colder it is. I’ll wait for the panels to be more efficient, more reliable and more resistant to heat before I bother to replace them – and that’ll probably never happen.
Solbian - are those the more expensive ones Mike, just that boats now on a mooring without electric and need something to keep the batteries topped up
I think the problem with installations is that solar panels need to stay cool for efficiency. Sticking them flat on an insulated roof, they spend a lot of time getting too hot in the sun. They will still work but the maximum output flattens off instead of increasing as the sunlight gets brighter. In principle, as semiconductor devices they should operate almost up to the temperature where the solder melts, and recover but I believe quite a few develop cracking in connections due to thermal expansion when they get too hot. My Solbian SP100 panels get hot (list price £630 each, mine came out of a pile going into a skip) , lose efficiency but recover as they should. I have changed the installation and there is now a 15 mm air gap under the panels, they are supported on ribs on the roof. The panels are screwed down at the end of the strips and at the edges. There is a tube of Tiger Seal gluing them to the aluminium box section supports. I put rivnuts in the aluminium roof, sealed with neoprene gaskets. They have now been "peeled" off twice since original installation on a sea-going boat, where the connections corroded off, so I had to cut back into the plastic to get at the connections. I originally glued them to the roof, but this ended up in a disaster of green slime growing under the panel where the translucent plastic let through light. And the paint started flaking off the aluminium roof. My bus needs a good clean..
I’m just watching some blokes on the TV painting train track white to reflect the heat ‘cos the points got too hot in the sun - in Scotland. Why aren’t solar panels white?
They would be even better if shiny metal. But rail tracks go black with grease and dirt even more so by 2nd April, so absorb heat and light energy more effectively just like a matt black solar panel does.
I have to say my experience is much the same as @Lasty 200w and worked great last summer, I even made ice in the original absorbtion fridge and easily get 5 or 6 amps when the sun is out regularly getting over 8. The van has been in the shed for most of the winter but when I pulled it out the panels were working fine, I'll just have to wait and see how it goes. I did take @77 Westy s advice and tested the panels before i installed them.
Its only a matter of time.. India is on the way up, technologically, fast. We are complacent. But our Indian restaurants are quite good.
Cheers for the offer @77 Westy , but as this is for a customer, I had better use new stuff with a warranty
