60 watt solar panel from Maplins £199

[solitaire woman]

Have just seen a 60watt solar panel from maplins for £199 which seems quite cheap to me. Have to say the whole solar thing is quite confusing to me, there seem so many different types to choose from. Would this one be suitable for a motorhome? Could I link 2 together, and what size inverter would I need? What about the leisure battery/s?

Any advice on any other panel would be gratefully accepted! Great site for help and information!
Thanks.

 

[Road Runner]

Thanks for that SW:thumb:

Heres a link Link Removed

 

[Gonewiththewind]

Hi Solitair, sounds good. I got 130 Watt and cost £500 so £190 for 60 Watt sounds a bargain.
Yes you can link them together much the same as you do with a Battery, although the panel should have a connecter box on the back, mine has two connecter blocks, one is to control panel and one is incoming from another panel.
At that price I would go for it.
I was advised that it should be a min of 50 Watt solar to 100 Watt battery per adult person. I went for the 130 sollar and 200 Watt Battery, even though I am a single camper.
Good luck:thumb:

 

[Wildman]

solar panels connect in parallel via a charge controller to your leisure batteries. The inverter runs off of the batteries. Work out how many amp hours a day you use. Then make sure you have double that amount of battery storage x the max number of days you will be relient on power without a hookup. 60Watt solar panel will produce an average og 30W per hour to put back in the batteries. So make sure any heavy inverter use is during daylight hours to give batteries a chance to recover for the evening. Remember they produce no charge at night. A pair of 60W PLUS a charge controller!!!!!! and a pair of 120 amp/hr batteries should be plenty depending on how often you move and add charge via the engine. I go for a week or more wild camping and only had 10W solar but moved every day, never run out of power. However I don't use an inverter/hairdryer/microwave etc. TV an old BW job (soon to be obsolete) The panels are a good buy (if there are any left). As to the size of the inverter it depends on what you wish to run I now have a 300W to power a 45W tV or a 45W laptop. Again wok out what you are likely to use, does it have to be 240V are 12v versions available, if so use them. Don't forget to change bulbs for led bulbs as well and you should be all set. Finally only use what power you can replace.
Simple really, as a last resort run the engine or a generator. Good luck.

 

[Don Madge]

Have just seen a 60watt solar panel from maplins for £199 which seems quite cheap to me. Have to say the whole solar thing is quite confusing to me, there seem so many different types to choose from. Would this one be suitable for a motorhome? Could I link 2 together, and what size inverter would I need? What about the leisure battery/s?

Any advice on any other panel would be gratefully accepted! Great site for help and information!
Thanks.

Hi,

We have a Timberland LWB panel van conversion with a 60 watt solar panel which we have had for the last ten years. I've got two 100amp leisure batteries which are linked to the engine battery by a battery master. The panel keeps all three batteries topped up throughout the year.

We don't have a TV, we have a 150 watt inverter for charging camera/phone/razor. We run the laptop with a 120watt DC power adapter.:thumb:

Don

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[Digger Driver]

Last time i looked that was a web only offer!

 

[solitaire woman]

It was indeed a web offer! Delivery is free though, and if you sign up for their news letter they send you discount vouchers, so I think if I bought 2 the vouchers would come to £25 off. Have phoned them to ask the size and weight of them, but they say to email their technical department, so am now waiting for a reply.

 

[Frankia]

It would appear that you get a charge regulator with each panel. If you are buying 2 I would suggest as it is a 10 amp regulator (more than sufficient for 120 w panel which at best will probably not deliver more than 7 amps for a short period around mid day) that you wire the 2 panels via one regulator to your batteries. - Less weight to carry and store and you don't get the regulators "fighting each other" (one regulator switching off when a certain voltage has been reached even if the batteries are not yet fully charged).

I think that their usage table is maybe a bit ambitious - You could only run all those items for those lengths of time in perfect conditions i.e. sitting on the equator on a perfect cloudless day and getting 18hrs of daylight. We didn't get that in Lincolnshire on mid summers day!

 

[pappajohn]

just about to order one but i cant find the dimensions. might not have enough roof space

bugger it...........ordered and awaiting delivery. i'll take the frizbee off the roof.

would appear no-one has any in stock at hull, leeds, middlesborough or anywhere near me.
derrrr. could this be because its a web only offer.oh:

£185 with discount code. :thumb:

 

[Wildman]

never mind John you will wake up eventually.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[bsb2000]

Been looking at those myself, but it said not for permenant fixing, but can't see why !!

Have you recieved them yet and what are they like?

Ian

 

[pappajohn]

ordered but on back order so dont know when it will arrive.

yes it does say 'weatherproof' but some one asked if it is and the reply was 'can be used in overcast and damp conditions but not recommended for inclement weather and not designed for permenant installation'

now it comes on a big plastic frame so why cant you mount it ?

also the sum of the parts is a lot less than the whole.

it has shrunk by 20.3cm in length and grown in depth by 71.8cm


Individual solar panel size: 34.3 (w) x 97.3 (l) x 1.8cm (d)
(supplied with 4 panels each of this size)

Assembled size: 142 (w) x 77 (l) x 79cm (d)

 

[bsb2000]

Been looking at one of these (65 watt) Aire & Sun Power Systems: Polycrystalline Panels , bit more expensive but it won't take up half the roof space ;-)

About the best value around for a single 65 watt panel, unless you know better ;-)

Ian

 

[johnsandywhite]

About the best value around for a single 65 watt panel, unless you know better ;-)

Ian

Link Removed

 

[bsb2000]

Thanks for that John, I struggled to find them on Ebay last week but didn't look in 'Gadgets'

Ian

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[pappajohn]

Have just seen a 60watt solar panel from maplins for £199 which seems quite cheap to me. Have to say the whole solar thing is quite confusing to me, there seem so many different types to choose from. Would this one be suitable for a motorhome? Could I link 2 together, and what size inverter would I need? What about the leisure battery/s?

Any advice on any other panel would be gratefully accepted! Great site for help and information!
Thanks.

just rang maplins to see where my order is.............still on back order until........................15th september:Angry:

looks like genny power again at the western MH show and if any of the locals complain again i'll remove the silencer.

 

[bsb2000]

Funny that Pappa, I rang about my inverter that I ordered almost 2 weeks ago, and guess what........it's on back order till Oct 3rd aaarrgghh :shout:

Ian

 

[justy]

quick calc

Then make sure you have double that amount of battery storage x the max number of days you will be relient on power without a hookup. 60Watt solar panel will produce an average og 30W per hour to put back in the batteries.

==========================

To test this:
- I use 25 amp hours a day
- The leisure batteries take charge each day
- I have 110 Amp Hour battery (deep cycle)

Travelling in various parts of Scotland all year round, will a 60 Watt solar panel be enough?
Or do I need more ?

Cheers
Justin

 

[johnsandywhite]

To test this:
- I use 25 amp hours a day
- The leisure batteries take charge each day
- I have 110 Amp Hour battery (deep cycle)

Travelling in various parts of Scotland all year round, will a 60 Watt solar panel be enough?
Or do I need more ?

Cheers
Justin

:Cool: Hi Justin. you will get between 2 and 3.5 amps a day from you 60W panel dependant on Sunlight.
Based on 50% discharge of the 110 AH battery. You will get 5 days before you need to find some other way of charging your batteries. Colder weather will deplete the battery faster.
You can never have too much Solar power or batteries. IMHO.

 

[johnsandywhite]

:Cool: Hi Justin. you will get between 2 and 3.5 amps a day from you 60W panel dependant on Sunlight.
Based on 50% discharge of the 110 AH battery. You will get 5 days before you need to find some other way of charging your batteries. Colder weather will deplete the battery faster.
You can never have too much Solar power or batteries. IMHO.

oh: Wildman pointed out to me that I made an error. It should be between 2 and 3.5 amps per hour. Average of 4 to 8 hours a day.

Worst case = 8 amps
Best case = 28 amps

Between 5 and infinity days.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[justy]

usage

Thank you Gents.

Your response has steered me in the right direction

Without being a guru in the field of amps and watts, I was trying to estimate how much value I would get from 1 of the maplins 60watt solar panel.
I understand the price is very good and was originally unclear about how many of these panels I would need to power my setup.

Looking at the below guide, I think I will require two of these maplin 60 watt panels.

I found an website that broke this down in lay mans terms for me.

Link Removed

This is quoted text from the website and is quite helpful.

I guess now my quest is to find appliances that use the least amount of amps per hour. Energy efficient appliances - or something of the like.

Cheers
Justin

=============================
160 watts delivers roughly 13 amps per hour of charging time.

If you count on six good hours of charging per day, the two solar panels can put 78 amps away daily.
This was plenty to charge the six deep cycle 12 volt batteries.
Each battery furnishes 115 amp hours for 690 amp hours in the pool to draw from.

To determine how many amp hours you will need take the watts of the device and divide by 12.

A 60 watt bulb uses five amps per hour.
If you took that 60 watt bulb and left it on for six hours in the evening, it would draw 30 amps of power from your pool.
The next day when the sun was out you would need to replace those 30 amps with the solar panels.

Here is a rough break down in amp of what the cabin currently draws.
Everything at the cabin runs on 12 volt.

Three 20 watt halogen lights kitchen - 5 amps - 3 hours - 15 amps
Two 5 watt florescent lights living room - 1 amps - 4 hours - 4 amps
One 1 watt LED reading light bedroom - 0.2 amps - 5 hours - 1 amps
Sirius Radio - 1.5 amps - 6 hours - 9 amps
Cooling Fan - 2 amps - 6 hours - 12 amps
Water pump - 6 amps - 1/2 hours - 3 amps
Laptop - 6 amps - 3 hours - 18 amps

Total daily amps - 62 amps
===============================