RV fire

[dan slote]

Good-day I thought that solar was a great way to maintain my two 12v batteries. I saw a noma 30v flex panel at canadian tire stores.Mounted with suction cups on the front stone quard of my airstream trailer.As recamended I used a coleman 8.5w charge controller. I checked the volts all fall until the snow was too deep to get to the trailer. All was good on the charge. The draw was a 12v clock and a carbon monozide monitor. The fire deptment said the one battery shorted out and caused the fire,total loss. The solar system was the only source of power. As I became a member I saw a reply that said don't buy auto parts store solar. Well boys and girls THATS ME. What do you think For me it's a great time as I can't do much until the snow melts. dan

[SunEagle]

Hello dan slote and welcome to Solar Panel Talk

Sorry to hear about the loss of your RV.

Unfortunately you have learned that even a 12volt system can turn around and bite you if you leave it unobserved for any length of time. Cheap equipment have a tendency not to work correctly and will continue to over charge the battery until they boil away the fluid and short it out. usually the battery just fails but in some cases a fire is started.

Auto parts store solar equipment is just one place cheap parts can be found. eBay is another or for that matter just about any place on the internet that is not a certified manufacturer seller can sell you junk and get away with it. Buyer beware. Simple as that.

Hang in there and hopefully this forum and help you learn more about solar technology and what to stay away from.

[dan slote]

th ank-you for the reply You all will have to bear with me as my computer skills are on the same skill level as my solar knowledge. I thought that the charge controller was to look after my trailer.Now that I don't have the trailer I'm going to set up a charge system in my shop and watch the charge of my other batteries. I will hook-up two 30v panels and what charge controller should I use? dan

[SunEagle]

Dan

A solar / battery system needs to be balanced.

First you determine you daily watt hour usage. From that you size your battery. From that and your location you determine your panel wattage and your charge controller.

There are a number of quality charge controllers that can be found but again the size in Amp, battery voltage, and charge settings are too numerous to list. Especially without knowing the battery system size and panel specification.

What loads do you want to run with your solar / battery system? Without that as a starting point there is no good answer on what type of charge controller you will need.

[dan slote]

As I work on my lawn tractor,trailers and trucks in my barn I'm going to just top-up 12v batteries using the two 30v panels. I got lucky and found/purchased a 31ft airstream in great shape. For now I'm going to use a battery tender, with the batteries out of the trailer ? what would I use for a solar battery tender and a 12v tender. Will stay away from the auto stores,as I do like my barn. dan

[SunEagle]

Dan

Even "solar battery tenders" can slowly over charge your batteries if you leave them unattended for long lengths of times. You need to check the water levels to see how they are doing as well as the acid level for SOC. If they are sealed then you really have no way of knowing what their state of charge is (measuring the voltage can be misleading).

Using a solar panel to charge a battery requires also using a quality charge controller that will not over charge or undercharge your battery.

Normally you would need 1/10th of an FLA battery Ah rating in charging amps. (IE. a 100Ah 20hour battery should be charged by 10amps). And if you have too many amps you can over charge the battery.

So what is the Vmp and Imp rating of those 30v panels? And what is the Ah rating of the battery?

[dan slote]

thanks I'm doing this in the shop and will watch the charge daily. If unatended will disconnect.Please give me some time to get the panel and a general Ah rating on a auto battery Dan

[LETitROLL]

As I work on my lawn tractor,trailers and trucks in my barn I'm going to just top-up 12v batteries using the two 30v panels. I got lucky and found/purchased a 31ft airstream in great shape. For now I'm going to use a battery tender, with the batteries out of the trailer ? what would I use for a solar battery tender and a 12v tender. Will stay away from the auto stores,as I do like my barn. dan

If you are going to charge different (one at a time) batteries like lawn tractor, deep cycle from trailer, trucks, etc. you may want to make sure that the Charge Controller you choose has a adjustable output amp setting (most of the better ones have this), then you can set it to 3 amp max. for example for a 30ah lawn tractor batt., 8 amp max for 80ah battery, and 10 amp max. for a 100ah battery.