Solar 1.0

We always knew we that we wanted to add solar, go off-grid and simply be more self-sufficient. Bubbles was pre-wired for solar which meant that the wiring for a solar charge controller, battery monitor and and external, portable panels was already in place. In theory, all we had to do was purchase our kit and plug it in. With an upcoming trek to Alaska, land of the midnight sun, we rationalized that we could live with our two recently installed 76Ah 12V AGM batteries, and go to town on solar.

After much research and deliberation, we decided that we were going to use a Victron MPPT Smart Solar charge controller. The smart portion of the controller is the ability to be managed using a phone app over Bluetooth as well as network with other Victron devices. They are also very programmable, and being a techno-weenie, this appealed to me!

Our next key decision point was the type of solar panels. It made sense to have portable, external panels that could be moved around to follow the sun or work in shaded areas. We didn’t want to give up space in the back of the truck to traditional portable kits and opted for two SunPower based flexible panels. SunPower makes one of the most efficient solar cells on the market, and WindyNation had them in stock. These were affixed to plastic corrugated board providing strength and rigidity. So little was added to the the panels that we could store them in their original box.

Our next decision was with regards to the roof panels and we decided that rigid panels made the most sense. We shopped around, long and hard, and decided upon Renogy Eclipse 100W panels as these were the best value for money at the time. We estimated that we could fit a total of seven rigid panels on the roof (three on starboard and four on port) but by the time we ordered, only five were available for purchase in their US inventory, so we went with five. We could add the other panels later. We had briefly considered setting up the panels in a 24V configuration but the simplicity of going 12V as well as having and odd number of panels kept us in 12V land.

We were in Texas long enough to order and receive the charge controller, flexible panels and a run of solar extension cords. We hooked everything up to the batteries and were good to go. We used our camp chairs as stands for the panels. This setup would do until we landed in Oregon and had time to tackle the real work on top of Bubbles.