Just in case you missed the first part of this video, this is a detailed overview of the solar electric set up that we use for camping and working for a week at a time out of our ’99 Jeep Cherokee XJ.
I made this video because I haven’t seen a lot of good examples of smaller solar electric systems so I thought somebody might find this useful. When I’m designing a system like this, I usually figure out what I need and then oversize the components by about 30% to give me a little room to grow in the future if I need to. For example, I’m only running 200 W of panels, but I made sure that my charge controller could handle 300, also my current maximum load is around 350 watts but I bought a 500 watt inverter just in case.
The solar panels are Renogy 100 watt flexible panels and both the inverter and the charge controller are Victron. I’m a huge fan of Victron products, both for ease of use and rocksolid durability. It’s worth noting that most small inverters advertise the surge rating, and not the continuous rating.
Also, if you’re gonna be running wires in an engine bay, make sure that they are rated for that heat. Finally anytime you’re running electric in a four-wheel-drive vehicle you need to be extra careful to think about how you’re going to fuse your circuits, because if a positive wire rattles loose somewhere and contacts in the frame you’re basically completing the circuit to the battery which could set your rig on fire if you don’t have overcurrent protection to break that circuit. Just something to keep in mind..
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This post was originally featured on our Instagram feed.
See the original post and discussion here.
