Simple Solar for Camping - Help please

[OneHungLo]

Hello ,
I really am a noob when it comes to Solar power systems.
My wife bought me a Renogy 100W panel for christmas , and now i would like to use it for our Roof Top Tent camping trips.
I would like to use the one panel for LED lights inside and outside the tent , and some USB powered accessories like a small fan , disco lights , and to charge cell phones.
I have a USB battery pack , and i would like to power my accessories from this , but charge the battery pack with the Solar panel.
So , in my research , i think i need :
1 - inline fuse from panel to controler
2 - controler
3- USB cable to battery pack
4- USB powered accessories.

Is this correct ? Am i over looking something ?
Thank you in advance!

 

[dreadlocks]

yeah no this is very unlikely to work.. solar chargers wont power devices directly, it needs a battery to charge.

You need a battery bank that can take a solar input or the direct output of the solar controller..

Hook the Renogy 100W panel up to your vehicle with a solar charger, recharge the battery bank off the vehicle..

 

[OneHungLo]

yeah no this is very unlikely to work.. solar chargers wont power devices directly, it needs a battery to charge.

You need a battery bank that can take a solar input or the direct output of the solar controller..

Hook the Renogy 100W panel up to your vehicle with a solar charger, recharge the battery bank off the vehicle..

Thank You!
I am still trying to absorb some info on this subject. The Renogy controller i ordered has 2 USB ports , so I will need a battery after the controller to power devices from the controller ?
This is unit i bought

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07NPDWZJ7/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[dreadlocks]

That controller is designed to charge a 12v or 24v battery on the battery terminals, the USB ports are just a 5v regulator output for USB devices.. I highly doubt that thing will do anything if you dont hook it up to a battery.

 

[OneHungLo]

That controller is designed to charge a 12v or 24v battery on the battery terminals, the USB ports are just a 5v regulator output for USB devices.. I highly doubt that thing will do anything if you dont hook it up to a battery.

Thanks Again. Looking for a decent battery for this system now.

 

[CaliMobber]

So you have a vehicle with a rooftop tent and your jut looking to charge usb items mostly?

Sounds like your best bet is to forget the solar and just get a solid USB battery backup and just charge it while in the car driving. You can bring it up with you to bed and it should power everything you need for the night. Just charge it back up off the car the next day.

https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Charger-Anker-PowerCore-20100mAh/dp/B00X5RV14Y/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=anker+battery&qid=1591977762&sr=8-3

As for already having the solar stuff. If you dont mind carrying around the pane I would put some clamp style clips on the charge controller and if your going to be at camp for a long period of time you could just setup the solar to keep your car battery topped off. I dont have solar on our tacoma and we have a fridge, cell booster, phone chargers.. The truck starts just fine after sitting a day at camp but we have a jumper pack in case it does die.


I would setup the solar at home in the garage and try and run a bunch of little lights and projects off it

 

[DaveInDenver]

yeah no this is very unlikely to work.. solar chargers wont power devices directly, it needs a battery to charge.

You need a battery bank that can take a solar input or the direct output of the solar controller..

Hook the Renogy 100W panel up to your vehicle with a solar charger, recharge the battery bank off the vehicle..

He does have a battery, in the USB battery pack. But the solar panel controller needs a suitable USB output for it to work, which some do have. Using this with a 100W panel and something like a typical 10 A-hr portable USB battery pack is a huge waste of solar energy but it *might* work.

I highlight *might* because solar chargers sometimes require a big enough 12V (or whatever it's sized to use) load battery connected to them to work and even if they work (or seem to work) without one it might be hard on them not to have one connected (meaning they'll be damaged internally) or they may not stay in regulation. That just means that hooking a solar controller to the panel without a "real" battery might mean the 5V USB can't actually stay at 5V and will damage anything plugged into it.

Read the manual if in doubt...

 

[dreadlocks]

Yeah thats what he has and I read the manual for that and it has no indication it will output USB power w/out a battery hooked up.. Infact it has a fault state for too low voltage on battery, so I'm betting he wires it up w/nothing on battery terminals its just gonna sit there in a fault state and do nothing.. but I guess only one way to find out for sure, try it.

 

[broncobowsher]

Sunkeeper SK6 or SK12 will give a usable regulated 12V output even without a battery attached. I have run my solar to my SK6 to my ARB fridge with no battery while playing around and everything was happy.

 

[dreadlocks]

they make smaller portable setups w/USB outputs for charging phones/banks.. but considering most USB-A taps out at ~12W hooking a 100W panel up to that is rather huge unless your hooking it up to a USB-C output to fast charge a large PD capable bank.. then it would work rather good in all kinds of lighting conditions charging at 18-48W depending... charging a big bank over USB-A would need long day soaking.

With OP's piddly lil power usage all working off a power bank I still think his best choice given what he has is to just wire it up to his vehicle, he can turn on the radio when sun's a shining, charge everything he wants off onboard 12v ports, if he wants power in RTT its easy to get an extension he can run up to power a FAN/Lights.. Mebe carry a jump starter just incase you over-do it, but I doubt with a 100W solar panel hooked up to level off a handful of watts of need..

I use a couple powerbanks too because putting USB outlets everywhere is not reasonable, but I charge it off my bigger system.. they are USB-C PD banks and in like 3-4h they are good to go again.. every night when everyone tucks in I put most things on the hardwired chargers when the sun's not even shining.

 

[workerdrone]

^yeah this

Make sure your vehicle has a good starting battery or even upgrade to the largest size that will fit under the hood, do the simplest/cheapest plug in charging mod so you can quickly deploy the panel to keep the car battery topped off, and run everything off the starting battery.

If you want you could add a lithium jump starter with USB ports, so you'd have a portable battery to charge phones and run small stuff, and in the off chance something goes wrong and you drain your starting battery, you can jump it with the lithium pack.

Simple, cheap, light, easily moved to another vehicle

 

[67cj5]

Sunkeeper SK6 or SK12 will give a usable regulated 12V output even without a battery attached. I have run my solar to my SK6 to my ARB fridge with no battery while playing around and everything was happy.

So how many Ah is your sk6 because when the sun goes down a solar panel won't run your ARB when it's dark because depending on what the ambient temp is and what the fridge is set to could require up to 30Ah in reserve just to get you through the night. ??

 

[VanIsle_Greg]

You should look into a solar generator, like the GOal Zero or Bluetti or similar. This way you can charge the batteries off of your panel all day and run your stuff all night.

Bluetti

Goal Zero

Lots of others out there, these 2 seem to get a pretty good review. The newest Bluetti units are VERY slick, but for a price. The best thing about 99% of these, you can plug your solar directly into them and skip the controller.

 

[broncobowsher]

So how many Ah is your sk6 because when the sun goes down a solar panel won't run your ARB when it's dark because depending on what the ambient temp is and what the fridge is set to could require up to 30Ah in reserve just to get you through the night. ??

SK6 is just a charge controller. No battery storage. I was stating that since people were talking about a charge controller won't work unless it can see a battery. The SK6 will work and provide output without a battery. Nice, simple, no BS 6A charge controller. Doesn't try and do everything, it is just a charge controller.

Yes, you will need a battery to run the fridge at night. How much battery? depends on how cold you want it and how hot of a location you are using it in.

 

[67cj5]

SK6 is just a charge controller. No battery storage. I was stating that since people were talking about a charge controller won't work unless it can see a battery. The SK6 will work and provide output without a battery. Nice, simple, no BS 6A charge controller. Doesn't try and do everything, it is just a charge controller.

Yes, you will need a battery to run the fridge at night. How much battery? depends on how cold you want it and how hot of a location you are using it in.

Well I have seen one brand of fridge set to -18*c / 0*f use over 57Ah in 24 hours in ambient temperatures of less than 16*c / 60*f, So to successfully run a fridge without damaging a battery you will need at leased a 60Ah battery using 50% of it's power and that will only cover you for 12 hours and the hotter the ambient temp the more power it will use, by not running it colder than -12*c / 10.4*f you could get by with a 60Ah battery but it will need to be on charge as soon as the sun comes up and if it is cloudy or it rains then you will kill the battery by not being able to charge it, which is why most of us use a minimum of 100Ah,

There is no cheap short cuts here, You either need to buy a big battery so you have some capacity spare and or a DC - DC 12v Chargers or have a good solar setup or option 3 is to buy an all in one unit like the Dometic PLB-40 that will charge direct from your Cigar socket within a few hours of driving or Direct from a 100w +/- solar panel without the need of a charge controller,

Your final option is to carry a large battery and a normal battery charger and a small generator which works fine if you don't use it in the rain, Also note that running a fridge direct from a generator is also not a wise thing to do even more so when using cheap generators which is why most people here shell out the big bucks and buy something like the top of the line Honda Generators.

People have given you quite a few options but the bottom line is there is no such thing as a cheap way out because anything to do with Solar or running Generators and such is dependant on the weather conditions and because of that you will always need a backup plan which is why most of us use nearly all of this stuff at one time or another,

Sounds daunting but it's not, Just do it right the first time and you will save money along with having a good reliable system,

For fair weather camping get your self a good 100/200w solar panel and at leased a 100Ah Battery and you will be good to Go.

hope that helps.