Solar panel battery connection
Having bought a solar panel and successfully managed to get charge to my battery I am now looking at what options I have to route the cables from the panel outside to the battery inside my caravan. For those of you with more experience of caravan electrics would it be possible to utilise pins 9 and 13 of a spare tow socket in order make the connection to the battery via the towing plug? Just trying to think outside the box - or rather caravan.
Thanks!
Comments
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That sounds like a workable plan. However, the size (cross sectional area) of cables used to run low voltage DC circuits is important since there will be a small drop in voltage along the cable due to its resistance. Where battery charging via a solar panel is concerned every millevolt counts so the length of the cable to and from your plug and socket should be kept to a minimum. You will also loose a few millevolts through he plug and socket. Once your solar panel supply cable is inside your caravan I suggest you increase the size of the cable to your battery, especially if you have a long run of cable inside your caravan, to 2.5mmsq minimum. It is essential that you fit a fuse in the supply from your solar panel or solar panel controller at the positive connection of your battery. The size of this fuse will depend on the size of your smallest cable from your solar panel.
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You don't say much about what sort of solar panel you have. Is it mounted on the roof or a folding type thats portable. You don't say anything about a regulator for the solar or what caravn you have. I fitted one to the roof of a Lunar Delta and drilled from the cupboard above the worktop to outside, then used a small hole saw to drill from outside in and used a junction box all sealed on the roof where the cables came through to the reg fitted in the cupboard. Then took wires down to behind a panel on the worktop wher I joint to wires prefitted by Lunar that went down to the CPU and then could use/monitor from the control panel.
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