Showing posts with label solar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solar. Show all posts

Friday, February 14, 2014

Solar Maximus! Optimizing the Sun When RV Boondocking

Unlike a campsite in an RV park, when you're wild camping (or if your prefer - boondocking, dry camping or RVing off the cord) in a remote location like Quartzsite, AZ, you can usually park your RV facing any direction you want to.

Here are some tips on how we get the most out of the sun when we're camping off the grid. These tips are especially useful for winter snowbirding, when nights are cool, days can be warm, and the sun never gets very high in the sky.

We hope these ideas help you make the most out of the sun when you're camping in the middle of nowhere.



We don't pretend to be experts on any particular RV topic, and mostly know about maintaining our own rig. But many systems are the same on different RVs. The advice we give works well for us, but be sure to consult a professional technician if you're unsure about working on your own RV.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

RV Solar Panel Installation Overview

As we spend a fair amount of time boondocking (camping without hook-ups), solar panels have given us the freedom to enjoy the peace & quiet of remote locations without running our generator too much.

Since we already installed our panels on the RV (back in 2005), this is an overview of our set-up, as opposed to a detailed tutorial.

We show the general layout and components of the system, including the panels themselves, the wiring and the solar controller. We also talk about the benefits of including a simple and inexpensive tilt kit, which allows tilting the solar panels up in the winter, when the sun is lower on the horizon.

Our first RV had two panels, which were permanently fastened flat to the roof, so they couldn't be tilted. We've learned a lot since then, and the new panels are tilt-able, and also use thicker 6-gauge wire to reduce loss along its length.

Here's an overview of our entire system.



We don't pretend to be experts on any particular RV topic, and mostly know about maintaining our own rig. But many systems are the same on different RVs. The advice we give works well for us, but be sure to consult a professional technician if you're unsure about working on your own RV.