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New User
Posts: 2
| My dad just installed 3 flood lights on my trailer for outdoor lighting and suggested I use a solar panel for keeping the battery charged. Any suggestions on the size of panel I'd need to keep the 12v battery charged? |
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Elite Veteran
Posts: 954
  
Location: Hagerstown, MD | I'd suggest purchasing a solar panel that is advertised by the manufacturer for keeping a 12 volt battery charged up under normal conditions. You see them sitting on dashboards of cars in airport parking lots all the time. A friend of mine just bought one a panel that is about 8" wide and a little over 12" long to keep in his horse trailer. When we are out on the trail, he hangs it out on the front of the trailer and it's adding juice back into his batteries while we are gone. Happy trails. |
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Expert
Posts: 2955
Location: North Carolina | Originally written by jillahuskey on 2006-01-22 9:52 PM My dad just installed 3 flood lights on my trailer for outdoor lighting and suggested I use a solar panel for keeping the battery charged. Any suggestions on the size of panel I'd need to keep the 12v battery charged? Welcome to the forum.. Your question needs more details for a complete answer. All batteries lose some of their charge just setting. If you merely want to (maintain) keep a charge then Deranger's suggestion is right. If you want to recharge the electricity used by the flood lights, you'll need a significantly larger and more expensive solar cell array. You could figure the size by added the watt draw of your 3 lights and buying an array of that wattage. The you'll have a situation of being able to use your lights about the same time the solar cells are charging. 5 hours of full sunlight = 5 hours of flood lights. Or NOT, double the charging time, means halving the cell wattage, Or doubling the cell size means halving the charging time. You'll have to chose money for a solar array or light time.
Edited by hosspuller 2006-01-23 12:02 PM
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 Expert
Posts: 2453
Location: Northern Utah | he ones you see on the dash of cars are usually 2-5 watts. Not enough to worry about running flood lights. I don't know what wattage your flood lights are. But for example look at using three 100 watt floodlights. To run them for 1 hour would take 300 watts. To recharge that would take you 60 hours of good sunlight with those small solar cells. Most of the RV battery chargers you see are 20 watt units and cost around $300. Headlights on most cars are 50 watts for low beam and 55 or 65 watts for high beam. So if your flood lights are as powerfull as a car's headlight, you will consume 50 watts x 3 = 150watts per hour. If you get 10 hours of good sunlight in the summer (no clouds or overcast) you can expect to generate 200 watts. (20watts x 10 hours ) Which would power your lights for an hour and 20 minutes. Which may be fine for the 10 minutes it takes to saddle or unsaddle a horse. But may not be enough to cook dinner and read a magazine. In addition to a charger, you need a battery with the capacity to store the power you generate. In general terms, if you just want a few minutes of light for loading-unlodading, saddling etc the charges may be fine. If you are camping and want to light up a camp site, you are better off with a Propane lantern or a generator. |
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 Extreme Veteran
Posts: 524
Location: Lone Oak, Tx | So far I have 1 20 watt panel mounted to my roof top. I have every intention to get at least one more, making it 40 watts and that will produce about 2.5 amps in full sun in the middle of the day. I have 2 group 24 batteries on my trailer and so far the one panel has performed great for me but I would like the peace of mind knoing that I have enough. I would eventually like to be able to run my fridge and not worry, but right now I'm happy conserving and having enough for my water pump and lights. You can find these panels all over Ebay but watch what you buy. You'll also need a charge controller to control the rate at which your batteries get charged. Most of your panels will put out 14 and 17 volts on average and that will boil a battery up so the charge controller or regulator takes care of that. I have some links and pictures of my panel on my website: http://todd.redwrench.com/Solar%20Panels.htm
You can aslo do a search fo something like "rv solar panels" and get loads of information.
Hope this helps.
Edited by maccwall 2006-01-23 8:23 PM
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Regular
Posts: 50
Location: Portland, OR | Wow Todd!
Thank you for the super helpful photos and info!
Very generous of you to go to the trouble to post them and
add explanations.
Really cleared up some questions.
Have one more though...
Will you be installing a water heater?
If so...where and what kind?
Will you have gas in addition to solar?
Thanks!
K |
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New User
Posts: 2
| Thanks for all the help. I think the lights are 50w a piece, set up with 2 lights on one switch and one on the other, and I won't be running them all on a daily basis (mostly the 2 on the tack room side every other day for 20 min or so), but I do want to have enough juice to be able to run them for a bit longer if I had trouble on the road or setting up camp or something. Would it be feasable to install a 10w with a charge controller, see how it does and then add another 10w later? I plan to put them on the front of the trailer on either side, (I have a fiberglass roof, steel trailer) and live in a sunny location. Jill |
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solar panels for charging lights
