Zero experience with solar and need advice on which Solar system to purchase (Solar panel, controller, battery). I only want to power a single refrigerator, nothing else. Looking to purchase a Vitrifrigo C115i. Specs on this fridge is 45 watts, 3.78 amps. Was going to put solar panel on the roof of my camper. If you can think of another refrigerator (4-5 CF) that would be energy efficient, would be helpful too.
Powering only 1 refrigerator help...
- Thread starter Hunter72
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sunshine_eggo
Happy Breffast!
Based purely on the size, I would assume no more than 0.5kWh of daily consumption.
Any 12.8V 100Ah Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery will get you two days of pure battery operation.
300W of solar (flat on roof is not efficient, and you'll only produce about 40-50% of summer production in winter) should generate the 0.5kWh in winter.
Any 30A MPPT controller.
Any 12.8V 100Ah Lithium Iron Phosphate (LFP) battery will get you two days of pure battery operation.
300W of solar (flat on roof is not efficient, and you'll only produce about 40-50% of summer production in winter) should generate the 0.5kWh in winter.
Any 30A MPPT controller.
We boondock no more than 4 days at a time and then head for a campground with electricity. My wife watches a movie every night when we boondock, so I fire the generator up for 2-3 hours every night. Do you think I could get by with one 100 amp solar panel, a 200 amp lithium battery, and run the generator for a minimum of 2 hours every night to charge the battery, while boondocking? Or could I get by with no solar panel and charge the 200 amp lithium battery every night for 2 hours while the wife is watching her movie? Appreciate you taking the time to help me out!
Tomthumb62
Solar Wizard
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What does she watch a movie on? A big screen TV or a small laptop. Is internet required and how do you power that?
Most likely the energy usage is small for watching a movie, but for someone to give you a better answer, more details is needed.
Do you think you’d ever want to go full solar? We did that and it’s really nice to not have to listen to the generator anymore. We now only use the generator for emergencies or when we have multiple days of clouds and rain in the summer (it’s still warm so the fridge runs a lot). The peace and quiet is really nice. Plus our generator (Honda) requires oil changes every 20 hours of use, so at 2 hours a day, we’d have to change the oil every 10 days. I think many a generator dies an early death due to not frequent enough oil changes. Rigid solar panels last on average up to 25 years, and no oil changes!
Daddy Tanuki
Solar Wizard
i had 400 amp hours of AGM with 480 watts on the roof and ended up not ever needing to fire my generator up unoless we had 4 ot 5 days of zero solar as even when it rained i would generate enough watts to keep two Engel (sawafuji) coffin style freezer/fridges going one was 100 quarts the smaller one we used as a freezer was 60 quarts. we even occasionally ran an ac unit and still did pretty good.
no furnace, toilet is a cassette type with no macerator or pumps. everything in the camper is 12 volts except the microwave monitor and the a/c. we used laptop to feed monitor to watch movies from hard drive.
if you were to go lithium you could have 200 amp hours of lithium with the same results
no furnace, toilet is a cassette type with no macerator or pumps. everything in the camper is 12 volts except the microwave monitor and the a/c. we used laptop to feed monitor to watch movies from hard drive.
if you were to go lithium you could have 200 amp hours of lithium with the same results
Going to go with 200 watts of solar on the roof and a good controller/batteries for my setup thanks to the info you gentleman provided. I feel confident this set up will do the job. Still have room for more solar on the roof if need be. Thanks for your help!!
Tomthumb62
Solar Wizard
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- Sep 25, 2022
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Sounds like a plan. Whether it’s enough will depend a lot on where you live and if you get sun all day or have a lot of shade. Also depends on whether or not you intend to be able to tilt the panels or just go flat. You’ll get significantly more solar production if you tilt them. Most RVrs just go flat and use more panels because the cost and weight of tilt is too much.
If you can swing it, rigid panels are the way to go. If you must go with flexible ones, the only ones that are worth buying and affordable at the 100W Sunpower. In the States, they’re sold by sunpoweredyachts.com and you get a decent discount using code “rvwithtito”. About $160 each free shipping. We’ve had three of these and are impressive how much beefier they are over our other ones that are only slightly cheaper. But rigid is best for longevity. Don’t expect flexible ones to last more than 10-15 years, but it also depends upon where you intend to be (hot climates with poor installation will kill them quicker). Let me know if you intend to go the flex route and I’ll help you decide if it’s really a good option or not. This forum hates flex panels for good reasons, but ours have lasted over 5 years now but I think it’s in part where we travel and how they’re installed.
For us, our 7.4cf fridge, which I think is just under twice as big as the fridge you mentioned, uses 50-60W when the weather is cool (outside temp 50-60F). It uses 70-90W when weather is warmer (outside temp 80-95F). When we only had 200W of solar panels, it was enough power the fridge in the peak of summer. But in the early and late summer, it struggled. Now we have 400W of solar and that changed the game. We also have another 200W solar that unfolds to setup on the ground.
So if you think you might want to add more solar in the future, be sure to buy a charge controller that can accept additional solar input. Or be prepared to buy an additional charge controller when you do upgrade and have a space in your camper somewhere to install an another little box with wires coming and going. If I were to suggest a charge controller that would work for you now and be able to expand in the future, it’s the Victron Smartsolar 100/30. We paid $192 in September for it and Victron just dropped the price on these down to $128, free shipping. It’s a solid piece that you won’t ever regret buying. Much of the solar kits out there are pure junk. I wouldn’t recommend most of the kits out there.
schmism
Solar Addict
single fridge.... this is buy an off the shelf solar generator and plug it in and run some wire to your PV
Anker, Jackery, Ecoflow all offer 100ah units.
Anker, Jackery, Ecoflow all offer 100ah units.
