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. This is a great thread! the title of which does it little justice. Please consider a thread title edit to include "air conditioning"?

. I can only enthusiastically endorse Morningstar or Trimetric charge controllers. If I were to start from scratch today, I'd use all Bogart Engineering's Trimetric hardware; their meter (which I can still use and plan to install in the near future) and their new charge controller. These people...

. The very first thing I'd be concerned with is the battery you're using in this scenario. Your fridge draws less than half of what one pair of 55W headlights will draw (3 amps as opposed to 8 amps). Like verkstad just mentioned, repeated deep discharge of a starting battery will place it's...

. It's considered "optional" to fuse PV at the controller. I did. For a disconnect as much as anything else. You may use circuit breakers too, but ones also considered switchable. I went with the far less expensive Maxi blade automotive fuse, 30A. (the green colored fuse to the left of the...

. I am not well-acquainted with that particular trailer. . Do you know what brand, and type battery it is? 15.2 is kinda high, unless it's being put through an [cell-] equalization phase... definitely too high a voltage for a sealed, AGM battery in my experience.

. . I may cost less, but three 100W panels (decent ones, @ $149. a pop) connected in series would net you a nominal 36V and with an MPPT controller, far more amperage (in this case +/- 25%). But max amps is just a number; there's more to charge profile for your batteries than amperage alone. ...

. . My experience differs from that posted above. A Renogy 100W monocrystalline panel, where the charge controller is reading it's output at 17-ish volts, ouputs well over 5.5 amps. With two of these panels connected in parallel (staying in "12V" mode), I've seen 11.86 amp to the battery...

. Yikes. With "100 watt" panels, this would be a factory stock Model A Ford's performance output as compared to, say, a 1965 289 Hi Performance-engine Mustang. In other words, pretty dismal performance (although a stock Model A Ford exhibits many other enjoyable dynamic attributes). Coupled...

. He's not exaggerating when he states, "2/0" if you're 10+ feet away from the battery source but since you're going to be within two feet of your planned aux battery... although! since broken1 thinks to fuse the setup for 200A, then you may want to think about a short 1/0 run. Dunno. Maybe #1...

. . I think rayra meant a very small-sized, small-output solar panel plugged into the cig lighter to overcome any "ghost" loads on your battery and to keep it topped off. Remember, all batteries will self-discharge to some degree even without some micro-short-circuit and/or parasitic load...

. ^ ^ ^ Indeed. . . See! You've got it wired! lol. . . . . . As long as the battery sees to the tenth of a volt what the peak voltage that the controller intends to send during any absorption phase, better yet the voltage that the battery really wants according to it's manufacturer, he's good...

. . I have a 2003 Ford (well maintained and still running and driving like a new car) that when the battery voltage is disconnected from it's adaptive "powertrain control module" pretty much erases anything it has learned. Granted, there are defaults in it's firmware that are used for initial...

/. /. Ideally, the controller should be positioned as close to the battery as possible, to limit volt drop. You're not putting the controller under the hood for the obvious reason that it's a high-heat environment unsuitable for most solar charge controllers (which are designed primarily for...

. . Not only is it a 60qt unit, he's set it to act as a freezer, which means it has a pretty busy duty cycle. Then there's the fan.. I figure the battery is at 50% (if he ever gets it truly "full" in the first place) after less than 48 hours... off the top of my head. . . . . . And why...

. I cannot say for sure if it would be "better", but this is how I am doing it with my small trailer's "house" battery. I'm leaving the tow vehicle's battery and alternator's work load strictly to the vehicle. One may simply use jumper cables to assist the tow vehicle's starting battery if it...

. Thank you dwh. Always enjoy reading your posts. I learn something new almost every time. Thanks too to LeishaShannon. . I suppose I could research this on my own, but what is "Vmp" or "lmp" as it pertains to electricity? There's (lol) VM&P Naphtha, a refined petroleum product (the key...

. Ooof. Yea. What Verkstad said. (I'm busted for not thoroughly reading the original post...)

. . With which controller manufacturer are you seeing this? The results I posted earlier in this thread were produced on a 90-degree day.

. I know where there are two NEW, matching-voltage (12.84 resting) DieHard Platinum Group 31s, made in Feb 2015. I'm thinking about buying them, then selling my current DieHardPlat Grp31 made in Jan 2014. If I'm going to run a dual-battery setup in my trailer with a 2000W inverter, I'd like my...

. Maybe the MPPT aspect helps... dunno. . Pretty neat, IdaSHO. When you say "all runs are 10 ga" does that include controller-to-battery? or simply your PV runs to the controller...