Camper creators standard solar and battery information
100-Watt solar panel
Average amount of usable light in one day 3.3 hr
100 watts x 3.3hr = 330-watt hours – 30% voltage drop = 231-watt hours per day.
Typical watt hours for devices
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Laptop = 40 watts @3hours=120wh
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LED Lights = 10 watts @5hours=50wh
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Phone = 7 watts@3hours=21wh
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Tablet = 7 watts@4 hours = 28wh
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Wi-Fi dongle = 7 watts@6 hours = 12wh
Total= hours
It is important to remember to check your devices wattage and see how much use you will be able to get out of them before draining the battery.
120-amp hour battery
To Store this Power coming in we use a leisure battery, it is important with the leisure battery not to drain it past 50% continuously as this will be bad for the health of the battery.
With the above example of using 231-watt hours a day we can calculate how many amp hours that will require. 231wh/12v= 19.3 AH per day.
As the leisure battery is 120AH this means realistically you could use the battery for two full days without any charge coming in off the solar panel.
The charge controller doesn’t allow the battery to be drained this much and will alert you by an E01 message if it is over discharged. If this happens just wait for the battery to charge up again before use.
If this happens you will still be able to use lights and water pump as they have an incredibly low wattage, so you won’t be left without light or water.
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