Solar Panel

I'm thinking about mounting a solar panel to my roof rack, probably a 160-200 watt, won't need a regulator as I will run it through a ctek dual under the bonnet, any suggestion of a decent one at a decent price, cheers

I have a 200 watt from lowenergydevelopments (ebay) kept the two Waeco's running over the long weekend along with other stuff. Batteries were always charged back up by 1-2pm.

I purchased a 200 watt panel from Marsol Industries on ebay (marsol_ind ) about a year back.
At the time they were out of stock, I messaged them and when they had more stock they let me know.
:cheers:

Has anyone mounted a CTEK d250s charger under there bonnet of a GU, if so where did you mount it, or any other suggestions would be great.
Cheers
Tonks

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Originally Posted by Tonks

Has anyone mounted a CTEK d250s charger under there bonnet of a GU, if so where did you mount it, or any other suggestions would be great.
Cheers
Tonks

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It's too hot under there and the Unit should be as close to the Aux battery as possible anyway.
If your Aux is under the bonnet then you get minimal advantage from a DCDC charger unless you are running calcium batteries because the cable run is so short there is minimal voltage loss.
The DCDC chargers are temperature sensitive and will also reduce the charging rate if it is hot
The upside is the inbuilt Solar Reg I spose so if you do put one under there I'd try and get it in as well ventilated position as possible

Thanks et, just wanting to kill two birds with one stone,
A solar panel on the roof rack and a battery charger/isolator,
I have the redarc sbi12 at the moment which works a treat, but after the solar panel goes on the roof i need a regulator of some description and a decent one (morningstar) is around the $ 200 bucks,
As i have the CTEK d250s in the camper trailer and know they work well and are very hardy i thought this might be the way to go as they are value for money at around the $ 220 bucks, and then keep the sbi12 as a spare/back up if needed,
Anymore advice or info would be appreciated
Cheers
Tonks

Hiya Tonks

Different things work better for different people and what they do with their Trol's so it can be a loooong post to address all the advantages and disadvantages.

IMHO...
I like to keep any underbonnet battery system really simple and also capable of feeding both ways so I like a solenoid (smart or dumb) under there.
A flick of the switch and you can jump, winch or do whatever you want off either/both batteries.
I would leave the SBI12 in there.

Solar regulation depends a bit on what you do and where the truck is parked up etc but;
If you want to keep both batteries up and the truck spends a fair amount of time in the Sun daily then a reasonable quality normal PV reg will do the job admirably ( say about $50 bucks).
If you want to charge the Aux from a reasonably depeleted state because you run a load on it overnight and it doesn't get much of an Alternator charge then you would ideally put an MPPT reg on there for better efficiency (say about $150).
An MPPT wil NOT charge a battery any better than a PV reg, they just make slightly more efficient use of the available power so they essentially increase the Solar Panel capacity

Soooo bottom line?
If you were to go and buy an MPPT reg ( a real one) I would probably say bugger it and buy a CTEK or whatever for similar to maybe a few extra bucks.
If you want simple, robust and cheap I would buy a reasonable PV reg and leave the SBI12 in there
The choice revolves around how much Sun and how often you load up the Aux

... FWIW I have a Dual Sense SBI12 on the Aux vehicle battery under my Tray and a 40 Amp DCDC Charger (Power Tech) on my Van.
Camped up my 2 x 50 portable Panels drive an MPPT Reg.
I don't have any panels permanently on the Ute but can connect the panels or a backfeed from the Van if needs be

That works awesome for me

Tonks,
FWIW, I have a single 200 watt panel, actually two, one described earlier and the other from Marsol. I checked the Solar regulator today for input. Over three days the single panel put in 177 Amps. (After about 1300 I quit moving the panel so it was not always facing the sun)

I have an interconnect lead that allows me to combine the deep cycle in the 'trol with the CT's and charge them all up, or combine them to have a 3 battery bank.