BASIC battery/solar advice please.

TUCANO

TUCANO

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Exiled in Yorkshire
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Pilote 600L
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Since 2006
Please be gentle and pardon my lack of knowledge, I hope to purchase another van soon. A Pilote van that has a manufacturer fitted solar panel and I have asked the dealer to fit for me a second leisure battery, 100 amps I believe to match the existing, I have to assume that whatever is required to charge the batteries from the solar is obviously already installed so the question is, what should be fitted please.
I would dearly love this, expensive, hobby of mine to be simply "load up and lets go places" but :unsure:
Many thanks,
Norman.
 
I've read that the 2 batteries need to be roughly the same age so check how old the original battery is
 
It really should be as simple as connecting the two batteries together.
Two lengths of wire, one between positive posts with at least one fuse and one between negative posts.
This doesn't mean the dealer won't bullshit you and bring your bill on a sack barrow.

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Nothing at all. You already have a solar panel, a solar charger, and a battery. All you are doing by adding the second battery is adding extra capacity, your solar charger now "sees" a bigger battery and will charge this "bigger battery" as if it were the original one.

You do nothing at all (actually there is some thing you do need to do, grab yourself a cold one and "load up and go places" !)
 
Many thanks gents, so l can happily go and grab myself a hot one, l don't drink alcohol, load up and go places (y)
 
It could be an ice cold cola or other non alcoholic beverage of course! Hope you get your new electrickery sorted to how you want it!
 
pappajohn said:
It really should be as simple as connecting the two batteries together.
Two lengths of wire, one between positive posts with at least one fuse and one between negative posts.
This doesn't mean the dealer won't bullshit you and bring your bill on a sack barrow.
Click to expand...
Hi John. What size wire would be used between the two batteries please.
 
I'm not an expert but have read that the solar controller needs to be of sufficient capacity to service the batteries attached or they won't get enough charge if that makes sense.
 
EastAngler said:
I'm not an expert but have read that the solar controller needs to be of sufficient capacity to service the batteries attached or they won't get enough charge if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

In a way it makes sense, in another way it does not, but this is how it kind of works...

The solar charger takes the "Raw" power from the solar panel, which by nature, fluctuates due to light levels etc and "smooths" it out (actually it regulates this power)

The voltage from the panel is around 17 to 19 volts DC, much too high to just connect to a 12v battery, the higher voltage wold over charge the battery and after a short time "cook" it to death.

Your solar charger (controller) sorts the voltage out to a nice charging level like a car battery charger you get from halfords, and because its smart, regulates this charge to what state your battery is in, ie is it deeply discharged (running on empty) almost charged, or full.

So it knows how much charge to put into the batteries depending on how much is in the battery when the sun is shining, keeping your battery nice and healthy.

So, what you read is almost correct BUT..... what you have to do is match the solar controller to THE SOLAR PANELS output in amps, and NOT the battery.

They are rated by how many amps they can take from the panel or panels, because you can connect as many panels as you want to a single controller, BUT you must know the total amps output from the panels to get the right controller or you will burn it out.
 

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