Just located this forum - and am excited to see a place I can go to talk about the pop-up camper.
Little history - wife and I did our honey moon in a small slide in camper - I was 23 she was 19. That was in 1978.
Been thru a couple campers - side tracked raising kids, but back at it again. In 2004 bought a used 2003 F150 4x4, then started
looking for a slide in pop-up - bought a 2001 TC800 Northstar, (incorporated a few mods, bigger tires, air bags, better rotors and shocks)
Fast forward now it is Spring 2019, have had lots of adventures, but now have a little more time to go camping this summer with my
old trusty camper and truck, and trying to prep for the camping season.
Solar - about in 2005 I decided to buy a little 1.5V Solar trickle charger (about $10 back then at Harbor Freight) suppose to compensate
for steady battery drains from clock and alarm system. So my logic back then was to mount this to the roof of the pop-up and wire it thru the
roof vent and straight to the 12V wire going to closest light. No controller, no power regulator, just a trickle charger with no monitoring.
Over the years the camper sat out side, and I would walk by it with the sun a blazing and the carbon monoxide detector alarm would be
beeping because of low voltage, with no battery hooked up to the camper - yup, solar charging still working. I really don't know if I really
benefited from this little charger, or if it really did anything. Since that time I built a barn and the last 10 years the camper found a nice
cozy home and not exposed to the daily weather abuse. Been out of town for a year, and got home and took the camper out for a weekend.
The battery failed and wouldn't keep a charge and the furnace wouldn't work, it was a cold at night and my wife was not happy.
Anyway - bought a new battery and now getting the spring camping bug,
and preparing for a cold late march trip. But thinking about trying to do a nice solar setup before we go.
I would like to feed the wire from from roof to the 12V wire like I did before - without having to tear apart the walls to rewire for a new solar setup.
What kind of problems am I going to have? Can I mount the Solar Charger Controller by the vent before the 12V connection to the light - will this work?
Any suggestions would be helpful,
Thanks,
Dennis
Little history - wife and I did our honey moon in a small slide in camper - I was 23 she was 19. That was in 1978.
Been thru a couple campers - side tracked raising kids, but back at it again. In 2004 bought a used 2003 F150 4x4, then started
looking for a slide in pop-up - bought a 2001 TC800 Northstar, (incorporated a few mods, bigger tires, air bags, better rotors and shocks)
Fast forward now it is Spring 2019, have had lots of adventures, but now have a little more time to go camping this summer with my
old trusty camper and truck, and trying to prep for the camping season.
Solar - about in 2005 I decided to buy a little 1.5V Solar trickle charger (about $10 back then at Harbor Freight) suppose to compensate
for steady battery drains from clock and alarm system. So my logic back then was to mount this to the roof of the pop-up and wire it thru the
roof vent and straight to the 12V wire going to closest light. No controller, no power regulator, just a trickle charger with no monitoring.
Over the years the camper sat out side, and I would walk by it with the sun a blazing and the carbon monoxide detector alarm would be
beeping because of low voltage, with no battery hooked up to the camper - yup, solar charging still working. I really don't know if I really
benefited from this little charger, or if it really did anything. Since that time I built a barn and the last 10 years the camper found a nice
cozy home and not exposed to the daily weather abuse. Been out of town for a year, and got home and took the camper out for a weekend.
The battery failed and wouldn't keep a charge and the furnace wouldn't work, it was a cold at night and my wife was not happy.
Anyway - bought a new battery and now getting the spring camping bug,
and preparing for a cold late march trip. But thinking about trying to do a nice solar setup before we go.
I would like to feed the wire from from roof to the 12V wire like I did before - without having to tear apart the walls to rewire for a new solar setup.
What kind of problems am I going to have? Can I mount the Solar Charger Controller by the vent before the 12V connection to the light - will this work?
Any suggestions would be helpful,
Thanks,
Dennis
