Need advice on setting up Solar for my 5th wheel

Re: Need advice on setting up Solar for my 5th wheel

New to this forum. Read entire thread and learned a few things.

We have been utilizing solar for seven years of full-time RV'ing (Alaska, Newfoundland, Keys/Everglades, Yucatan/Belize) and have found solar to be invaluable.
Current system is six x 235 W panels ganged in two series of 3 each so that voltage goes to controller at around 90V (TriStar MPPT-45). This goes to LFP battery bank (Manzanita) at 48V nominal (56.7V absorb and 54.6V float and about 9.5 kW-hours. Power goes to 5th wheel electrical system through Magnum 4.0 kW PSW inverter. Son designed and fabricated system (he has been in business/home solar for 23 years and just completed panels and low voltage wiring for 1.8 megawatt system). This makes us basically solar autonomous. Son trialed system running micro-wave and air conditioning (Dometic power hog 15,000 BTU) and it drew around 3 kW for half an hour.
Noted that moderator Caraboocoot had design for a 48V system based on 8 x 6V batteries in series.
We could put another 700 W of solar and another 4.4 kW-hours of LFP but see no reason to do such. 2100 W would run the a/c under full solar insolation conditions.
Generally run Dometic refrigerator (a real power hog best run on propane) on AC during day, and at night if weather report shows it will be a sunny day. This generally starts the day at -3 kW-hours deficit.
This does not permit full time air conditioning but we have run 3.5 hours several times as combination of solar and battery bank. Generally, we just run the a/c in late afternoon for an hour or so (2 kW-hours of battery) to get interior temperature down to below 85 F or so. We have had eight 12 V outlets placed about the 5th wheel for various purposes and using 12V fans which use little power after that. If the OP did emplace 1700 W of solar, then he could run air conditioning on solar through battery bank/inverter for much of mid-day without depleting battery bank.
Disagree that "excess" solar is a problem. We have gotten reasonable power in overcast and rain (200 to 300 W) and around 100 W with 8" of snow. We even got some power in Olympic Rain Forest (about 50 W which did little than take care of the day's "phantom" draws).
Someone on another forum made cardboard cutouts of different panel sizes and used them wandering about roof to see what might fit.
One thing that our son has done with our system is to emplace 1500 W of battery charger in the battery bay. This permits charging from impure/dirty line power such as we have found in Mexico (burned out a micro-wave in Baja and another in Yucatan - German couple burned out all 110 V systems and had to have 5th wheel rebuilt - which they now have permanently fixed in a palapa). This permits dumping 50 amp cabling (darned heavy and clumsy) and charging with merely a 15 amp power cord. We generally boondock and avoid RV parks but sometimes they are necessary.
Finally, there is supposedly a 48V DC a/c that takes only 750 W to run. Have written the firm for further information but have received nothing back as yet. Such as system would work well with our battery bank. I noted that there was a diagram for an 8 x 6V battery system in series in one of the moderators' posts.
Reed and Elaine

Re: Need advice on setting up Solar for my 5th wheel

An interesting thread. Ozz seems to have a greater need for power then we do. But then we have no TV, microwave or any other high wattage item. A small 400 watt inverter to charge what we can't directly off the 12 volt system.