I expect that whenever winter starts rolling around, the conversation
turns to Vanagon heaters and storage and suchlike. I see that with
summer now upon us, the subject of air conditioning has turned up. This
season brings additional hours of sunlight along with its warmth. And
this young man's fancy turns to solar re-charging his aux battery.

Years ago I had a solar panel that I carted around with my Coleman popup
trailer. It was about 15'' x 30'' or thereabouts. I mounted an ammeter
on it so I could see the current flowing into the battery. Even a bit of
shade would shut the thing off, and it required constant care to make
sure it was facing smack into the sun for maximum current flow. Peaked
at about 3.5A, if memory serves. No battery management circuitry was
needed as it didn't have enough grunt to hurt the battery.

I read that some newer style of panels are more shade-tolerant, but I
don't know how helpful that turns out to be in practice. And I bet that
aiming them at the sun is still helpful. Since I park in the shade where
possible, I expect I'd still want to "remote" the panel/s on a long
hefty wire.

I'd like to hear "success stories" from folks that have  implemented a
system that works well for them. Something that stows easily and has
enough muscle to replenish 20 or 30 ampere-hours in, say, eight hours of
sunlight. I need more than the little toy 5W dashboard cigarette lighter
chargers.

--

Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
Carlsbad, CA
KG6RCR