How Much Solar Power Do I Need for My Camper? | How to Calculate Camper Solar System Size

hey everybody its same from explorers life in this video I'm going to teach you step by step how to perform a camper electrical power audit so that by the end of the video you'll have a really educated guess as to how many amp hours of batteries watts of solar and size of inverter charger you'll need for your own setup this is just part of an overarching series about how to design and install a DIY camper electrical system now if you just stumbled across this video directly without saying that there's likely some things that we've already covered if you want to check out that step-by-step guide you can do so by checking the links in the description below also I have a page filled with interactive solar wiring diagrams that are a complete a-to-z solution for showing you exactly what parts go where what size wires to use few size recommendations wire leg sizes and all kinds of other stuff that will help save you time hopefully some frustration you can find that link in the description let's get rolling you need to know how much power you use on a daily basis to determine the size of your solar system you'll need to power your camper sure you can go by a random solar kit and just go for it but more often than not that tends to lead to some disappointment in the performance of the system and if you're like me you'd rather do it right and just do it once but be warned this isn't any easy but involved process because there's quite a few steps and quite a bit of stuff to do you're going to need to gather the items that you'll be using or look up their power usages and put some numbers into a spreadsheet that I've made for you but this will be worth it because after you followed the step by step guide in this video and the accompanying blog post you'll have a highly educated estimate of how much power you can anticipate using throughout the day if you're ready to get started physically go and get as many of the items as you want to power and put them in a pile together for the items that you don't yet have you need to make a list of the links to their product pages go ahead and do that now you will need that going forward in this video not all electrical appliances are the same there are AC components DC components and DC components disguised as AC components it's confusing I know just hang with me AC components these are items that you plug into your normal household outlet these are gonna be items like a coffee maker an instant pot blender or a miter saw gather all of these items into one pile and put a sticky note with table 1.1 next to them low weight there are also DC appliances disguised as AC appliances there are imposters in your AC components file there are likely items that plug into a normal household plug which is AC electricity that are actually DC appliances now these are items like computers but let's just talk about how to identify these imposters these items will typically have a wall wart or an inline power supply AC to DC power adapter that component converts AC power to DC power take action you need to segregate these items into their own pile and label it with a table 1.2 sticky note DC appliances now these items will be wired directly to your DC distribution fuse block these will be items like a 12-volt light strip 12-volt puck lights for Bowl fans Mac's air fans and a water pump you need to segregate these items into their own pile and label these with a table 1.3 sticky note single charge items these are going to be items like phones camera batteries drone batteries external charger packs basically anything you charge up in an unplug to use put these items into a pile and put a sticky note on that pile and label it table 1.4 full day / / day use items now these are the items that you're going to let run all day like a refrigerator that cycles off and on a weboost 4G booster or a hot water heater are a few examples these items go into yet another pile and we're gonna label it table 1.5 now that's the last file that we're going to make let's move on to the next step performing a step by step solar power audit now that you have your five separate piles labeled with tables 1.1 through 1.5 we're going to go through them pile by pile item by item and then put the actual numbers to get you as close as we possibly can to get you a proper educated guess that will tell you how much solar power that you need based on how much power you plan to use every single day this is where this fridge heats gonna come in handy so let's talk about that you can find it by following the link in the description below and looking for a bubble the looks like this click that bubble press make a copy and put your own title at the top now you've got your own power audit spreadsheet table 1.1 AC appliances look for a plate on a device that tells you how many the appliance uses you're going to be inputting these values into the table one point one section of the spreadsheet change the name of the item as necessary in column a and put the Watts of the device into column B input the number of minutes you plan to use the item per day into column D continue this process until you've entered all the items from your table one point one pile into table one point one now your spreadsheet has been pre-populated for popular appliances and power outputs if your needs vary just change the values as necessary by altering the numbers in the green columns now if you anticipate not using an item you can either delete the values and all the green columns of that particular row or simply input zero into the minutes used per day column which is probably the easier way to do that table 1.2 AC to DC adapter appliances you're going to need to look for a sticker on the wall wart or the AC to DC converter that tells you how many amps and volts is on the output side of the cord it'll look something like this now I head to the spreadsheet and change the item name as necessary in column a inserted the output volts and output amps into columns B and C in column F you're going to input the minutes per day you expect to use this device next you're going to repeat this until you've input all of the items from your table one point to pile into table one point two now the same thing I said in the last table about the pre-populated items holds true for this one as well you've either changed the items and the green columns or you just put 0 in the minutes column table one point 3 DC appliances DC powered appliances typically hide their power usage for some reason if you look for a label or a sticker with no success usually looking online is your best option to be honest finding the item on Amazon usually actually builds pretty good results same as before you're gonna change the name of the device in column a then you're going to be looking for the wattage of the device to insert it into column 2 now sometimes the device will list the amps and the volts of the device rather than the watts if this is the case I've added an amps to Watts calculator at the top of table 1.3 and here's how that works input your amps and bolts into their appropriate spots in the table 1.3 amps to watts calculator and look at the resulting wattage reading the answer that wattage reading into the table one point column-two under watts now to clarify you don't have to do that calculator if the device actually lists the watts now change column five to represent how many minutes you plan on using this device every day table 1.4 single charge items now you'll notice that there's actually two separate table one point fours the table one point four a is four items for the battery size listed in what hours and table one point four B is for items with their battery size listed in milliamp hours so whichever one your device gives you just go with that particular table change column a to the device name change column V to the battery size of the device and change column C to the number of times you plan to charge the device per day stable one point five full day or per day usage now table one point five is for items that get used constantly you'll have to take a constant measurement of your items over the course of 24 hours now this is good for things that cycle off and on like a refrigerator but the pre-populated refrigerator option is based on a top-loading ARV 50 quart 12-volt refrigerator now if you had that means necessary to measure the power usage of something like this like a shunt or a kilowatt meter go for it but if not that's fine just roll with what's been pre-populated and that should get you in the general ballpark so how much solar power do I need now that you have successfully filled in all of the blanks with the electrical items you anticipate using throughout your normal day check out table 1.6 this is how many amp hours that you will personally consume per day according to all of your inputs as well as recommendation on battery bank size solar array size and a few other goodies now the numbers that you see here are really just general recommendations if you want to spend more time in cloudy environments maybe you should consider sizing up a bit if your budget can't quite handle your recommended components maybe size down a little bit but always plan for expansion but like I said these are all general recommendations that I feel pretty confident in recommending anymore is better but any less is on you now that you know how big of an electrical system you need in your camper now it's time to decide if you want to play the short or the long game go with AGM batteries or lithium batteries you could start that video here and if you already know what type of batteries that you're going to get it's time to determine how many watts of solar that you need to charge those batteries and you could start that video down here now everything that you're learning here is put to use in our free interactive solar wiring diagrams and if you're haven't yet you should check them out is there a pretty complete solution for a high end camper electrical system if you like this video give it a thumbs up leave any questions you've got in the comments below subscribe and hit the bell if you want to be notified when I make more videos like this one and I will see you in the next video

Channel: EXPLORIST life Mobile Marine & Off-Grid Electrical

Views: 201,190

Keywords: how much solar power do i need, how much solar power do i need for a camper, how much solar power do i need for my camper, how much solar power do i need for my rv, how much solar power do i need for my van, how much solar power do i need for rv, how much solar do i need for camper, how much solar do i need for my camper, how much solar do i need for my rv, how much solar do i need for my van, how much solar do i need to run an rv, calculate solar power

Id: a406IxiU-Xg

Length: 9min 4sec (544 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 07 2019