General Boards > Sources for Suppliers, Parts and Maintenance Materials
Solar Panel Upgrade
Norm Green:
I agree with Joel. We stopped by A&M Solar last month and they added three additional panels to our Coach. They were very helpful and friendly and above all, very knowledgeable. Recommend highly.
Gerald Farris:
Brent.
The comments about the controller and wiring size are right, they will both need to be upgraded if you go to larger panels. Have you considered leaving your factory panels alone and just adding a another system to the coach in order to get the solar panel capacity that you want?
Gerald
Brent Hohlweg:
Hi everyone,
Thanks for the great info and pointing me to AM Solar and HandyBob's solar site http://handybobsolar.wordpress.com
I will consider upgrading my batteries. Looking at Crown's or Lifelines.
Gerald... I never thought of adding more panels and just leaving the current ones. First thoughts were that the original two panels only produce at max 7amps, that they were inefficient and I could get close to 500-600 watts in the same space with newer panels. Open to all ideas though. Did you keep yours?
Does anyone have any links to controllers they bought for this upgrade?
Warm Regards Brent
Gerald Farris:
Brent,
I still have the 150 watt (two 75 watt panels) factory panels on my coach. I installed solar panels and more batteries (8 golf cart batteries) on the Patriot that I owned before the Marquis, and even though it reduced the amount of generator time that was required when dry camped, I still had to run the generator daily. I use 200 to 400 amp hours daily at 12 volts with my Marquis, and to produce that much power from solar panels, I would have to cover the roof of my coach with solar panels at a cost of several thousand dollars. To me it is not cost effective since I dry camp 2 to 3 weeks a year, and that is usually in the winter when solar panels are less effective. At $2 an hour for generator time, it is much more cost effective to run the generator for the times that I need the power.
Gerald
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