Wendy had a factory-installed Host off-grid solar system installed that gave her 510w of Zamp solar panels with a 30amp PWM Zamp charge controller. She soon realized that while that is enough during the summer months, during winter months with the shorter days and lower sun angles, she was constantly running out of power.
Her first change was upgrading to a Victron 100/50 MPPT charge controller which helps capture that early morning and late evening sun more efficiently and she definitely saw an increase in 30% in her daily solar production. She still had space to add a 4th panel and this larger solar charge controller could accommodate it. We discussed adding a 4th Zamp panel to her truck camper, but that would only bring her up to 640w and a single 170w Zamp solar panel is $499. That’s $2.94/watt and you should easily be under $1.00/watt on RV size solar panels.
Wendy decided to go ahead and upgrade to 4 210w Hi-Tech Solar panels at $.93/watt that were barely larger than the 170w and gave her a whopping 840w of solar on her truck camper. I also arranged the panels in such a way that she could fit an additional 200-220w of panels to bring her up to 1240-1260w on a truck camper! This was an awesome upgrade for Wendy and now she is easily recharging to full each day and this includes leaving her inverter on 24/7.
Before & After
The Process
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