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Old 11-14-2018, 12:16 PM   #21
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Originally Posted by CRJ View Post
This looks like a very easy way to hook up additional solar. Is there a large voltage drop due to the added length of small gage wires?
um, what is 'This' ? there's 19 prior messages in this thread, and no clue what you're referring to.

Quote:
I have a 2015, 21 with solar charging. The solar charge controller is above the refrigerator with the rest of the monitoring equipment. I’m in the PNW and generally there’s lots of trees blocking the onboard solar system.
What’s the best option to add supplemental portable solar:
1) Connect solar panels to the existing charge controller (it has the capacity) without using an additional controller. Or
2) Directly connect to the batteries with an additional charge controller which is part of the portable package.
if the additional panels have the same operating voltages, then wiring them to the same controller would work, but you want to use heavy gauge wires and keep that run as short as practical to minimize the voltage drop and power loss.

the bit about wire length and gauge is even more critical between the charge controller and the battery, although many charge controllers allow you to run a separate pair of wires as 'sense wires', which monitor the battery voltage without carrying any current, so they can be any skinny gauge you want.
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Old 11-14-2018, 01:38 PM   #22
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Our portable solar DIY for our 21' Escape which was fairly easy to complete consisted of adding a 2 inch electrical cable hatch to the battery compartment and installing the charge controller next to the batteries. Setup is simply passing the panel cables through the hatch and connecting them to one or both panels (depending on solar energy for the day). Camping photo taken at La Gringa, Baja California.
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Old 11-14-2018, 06:24 PM   #23
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Originally Posted by Cordon View Post
Our portable solar DIY for our 21' Escape which was fairly easy to complete consisted of adding a 2 inch electrical cable hatch to the battery compartment and installing the charge controller next to the batteries. Setup is simply passing the panel cables through the hatch and connecting them to one or both panels (depending on solar energy for the day). Camping photo taken at La Gringa, Baja California.
So your battery box appears to be located on the rear passenger SIDE, but I don't see a battery box vent on the side. Does it vent out the BACK? Perhaps under the right-rear taillight? And if so do you have the U-shape dinette? Our 2017 21' has the standard dinette, and our batter box is mounted in a similar location on the rear passenger side, but it vents out the side under the clearance light (see photo below). Just curious why the different vent location. By the way, watch out for bugs and ants crawling from the ground up your solar cable to enter your camper.
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Old 11-14-2018, 07:17 PM   #24
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Sorry about that

Clearly I don’t know how to use the forum correctly. I was trying to reply to message #3 which showed hooking up one’s portable solar panel to the trailer hookup.


Quote:
Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz View Post
um, what is 'This' ? there's 19 prior messages in this thread, and no clue what you're referring to.

Quote:
Originally Posted by CRJ View Post
This looks like a very easy way to hook up additional solar. Is there a large voltage drop due to the added length of small gage wires?
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Old 11-14-2018, 07:44 PM   #25
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Location: Kamloops, British Columbia
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Originally Posted by War Eagle View Post
So your battery box appears to be located on the rear passenger SIDE, but I don't see a battery box vent on the side. Does it vent out the BACK? Perhaps under the right-rear taillight? And if so do you have the U-shape dinette? Our 2017 21' has the standard dinette, and our batter box is mounted in a similar location on the rear passenger side, but it vents out the side under the clearance light (see photo below). Just curious why the different vent location. By the way, watch out for bugs and ants crawling from the ground up your solar cable to enter your camper.
Our battery box is on the passenger side and does vent out the back (under the rear tail light), not on the side. We also have the standard dinette.

Ants can definitely be troublesome. I have a foam disk that fits snuggly around the wire inside the cable hatch. We had an ant invasion in a previous trailer that took forever to get rid of.
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Old 11-14-2018, 10:13 PM   #26
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I would get one of the standard battery tender quick-disconnects and leave it somewhere convenient to reach. $5 This assumes you will never be running more than one charger at once.

If you want to do so (such as to charge via both solar panel simultaneously), it's preferable to push them all via one controller.

https://www.amazon.com/Battery-Tende.../dp/B000NCOKZQ
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