This customer has a 32 foot fifth wheel trailer with a single 200 watt solar panel and two battery 100 amp hour lithium batteries that came from the manufacturer. The trailer came with a cheap solar charge controller. They also have an on-board generator, plus a 1,000 watt inverter.
The Problem With Their Old Setup
Trying to stay warm at night has been a problem for this customer with their existing setup. They have an electric blanket that was drawing all the power from their 2 lithium batteries. Even with some generator charging and the single stock 200 watt solar panel wasn’t enough to keep power in the trailer all night. While they could recharge batteries for 3-5 hours a day with their generator, they were spending a lot of money on fuel. Even then, the converter that came with their trailer still wasn’t adequately recharging the batteries.
My Solution
I installed three 250 watt, residential grade, solar panels to their roof and wired them into a Victron MPPT 100/50 solar charge controller. I utilized the stock 200 watt solar panel with upgraded Victron 100/20 MPPT charge controller. I programmed the two Victron controllers to work together, giving the customer a total of 950 watts of solar. I installed Victron’s app on the customer’s cellphone so that they could monitor everything. The customer now has plenty of power to recharge their lithium batteries, as well as the proper equipment to charge them properly. They can now enjoy their electric blanket all the way into sunrise with battery to spare.