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Renogy 50w solar battery tender install

Provience

Provience

Kill!
Joined
Jul 8, 2009
Member Number
15
Messages
9,464
Loc
Gatesville, TX
Figured I'd put up a thread separate as there is a little bitt more general interest in the solar stuff.

Bought a 50w renogy single panel kit with controller for $100. Prices have gone up on these, but it comes with everything ya need.

Rkit59dst part number

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Controller and panels mounts and all the wires with ends already is nice. Wiring size is like 10 or 12 gauge and way overkill. A single 50w panel would be fine with 16 ga. All wiring is black, so it looks nice


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Originally planned on mounting the controller high on the inner fender, but there is not much real estate there, so the inner firewall works. Even after pulling a bunch of wires out, still a solid mess under there. Controller isn't weather proof, so this should help it last a bit longer.

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Wires were at their limit to make it tto the battery, so flipped it upside down. Just says it wants it mounted vertical, doesn't say which way needs to be up :rasta:

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Underwood nightmare, but wanted to go direct to the battery

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50w for size comparison

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And in full sun its making 2.3 amp. Not much but about what a typical battery tender makes.



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For comparison, here is a long fucked up link that goes to a Chinese 2 amp tender for $30.

Truck is going to be sitting for a few months and the wife "might" drive it. This way she can just unplug the panel at the quick disconnect, set it in the bed or leave it at the house, toss the wire leads in the cab or under the hood or whatever and it will be fine.

The other reason I went solar rather than plug in, I can use this when I leave my other truck at my mountain home and don't need to worry about the battery draining with no wall power available.

2.5 amp is about the peak, considering where it is parked, it will likely only get a couple hours at most l, a smaller panel would likely fall behind. Now there is no need to fire up the truck unless she actually needs to do truck stuff.
 
CDA 455 II said:
What would be considered the standard/baseline/minimum, amp-wise, for charging a battery?
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I think 2 is bare bones if you have time. It'll be enough to overcome any natural draw and most of the real slow stand by draw stuff.

1 amp is a float only and should be able to keep it level.

5 amp is reasonable recharge stuff. That's what the 100 watt panel gets you, is several good hours at or above 5 amp, which will bring a low battery back in a day.
 
Godspeed getting the c h i n a m a n
to supply tech info like programing the missing information from the manual...
Let me know if you meed it, I'll get it posted here..
Took me 4 calls to get an English-speaking and knowledge filled tech:flipoff2:.
 
I have the the 100 watt version on the roof of my trailer for the lift gate batteries. It keeps 2 group 31 gel batteries ready to go while in long term storage. Going strong for 4 years now, you'll like it!
 
Firstram said:
I have the the 100 watt version on the roof of my trailer for the lift gate batteries. It keeps 2 group 31 gel batteries ready to go while in long term storage. Going strong for 4 years now, you'll like it!
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I've been real happy with my 100w on the coach, I'm going to add another panel to the setup though. I've got to finish cleaning up a power draw on that, but "normal" use it would get me about 3 days of light use before I had to kick off the generator and top the battery all the way up. 200w and 3 groups 31s would probably be enough to sideline the generator for only air conditioner use, that'd be neat
 
Did something similar about 6 month ago, used a 30 watt panel from amazon. Installed all of it in my tool box though. I've found the 30w panel to be barely enough even during the PNW winter, though I try to park so the panel has good southern exposure.

EDIT: So after 2 months of almost no sun and not starting the truck, it had barely enough juice to start, 50w would probably be better, but if you're somewhere that sees the more than once a month, 30w is probably enough.
 

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I gotta ask, why? do you drive it once every 6 months?

I woulda just put a battery disconnect and called it a day.

I do have a 50w renogy setup in my forjlifr though and love it, but thats because i start it often but run only a couple minutes, so it never regains the charge lost from starting
 
Sometimes I drive it 5 times a weekend, sometimes is sits for a month, sometimes I forget to use the battery disconnect. With the solar tender it's always ready to go, no surprise dead batteries.
 
fordguy said:
I gotta ask, why? do you drive it once every 6 months?

I woulda just put a battery disconnect and called it a day.

I do have a 50w renogy setup in my forjlifr though and love it, but thats because i start it often but run only a couple minutes, so it never regains the charge lost from starting
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Leaving the truck for several months, I would've just disconnected it and parked it out back but the wife wanted the truck handy "just in case she needs to do truck stuff" so now it's no big deal if it gets used or not.

Afterwards, hopefully next year, it'll get put up in a remote location with a truck I hope to be able to use a couple weeks out of the year at most.

Same kinda thought for the rv, the panel is much easier than dealing with running a power cord and the natural discharge of even a battery disco doesn't keep both batteries up
 
Super happy with how this worked. Came back home and the wife had the panel leaning against the tire, facing west and in the shadow of the house. Maybe an hour, possibly 2 a day of sunlight.

And sure enough, battery full and good to crank for 10 minutes until the truck primed itself:smokin:

Great success, next step for this panel will be getting mounted on the garage to power a couple of cameras and a small battery bank
 
Provience said:
Great success, next step for this panel will be getting mounted on the garage to power a couple of cameras and a small battery bank
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Solar is addicting huh?

I've been offgrid for several years and STILL incrementally upgrading stuff. My goal is zero generator which is actually pretty hard to achieve while living in a cabin full time and on a budget. Plus my property has a pretty steep ridge and tall trees to the S/W which really limits my solar even during the summer.
 
blakes said:
Solar is addicting huh?

I've been offgrid for several years and STILL incrementally upgrading stuff. My goal is zero generator which is actually pretty hard to achieve while living in a cabin full time and on a budget. Plus my property has a pretty steep ridge and tall trees to the S/W which really limits my solar even during the summer.
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Yeah I'm not as convinced as my wife and dad are that we will have power at the property in a decade when I can be there full time. So I'm trying to do as much playing around with it now as possible:laughing: keep it from being all brand new
 
Provience said:
Yeah I'm not as convinced as my wife and dad are that we will have power at the property in a decade when I can be there full time. So I'm trying to do as much playing around with it now as possible:laughing: keep it from being all brand new
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Power to the property? I suspect that eventually they will run power up to my place.....but even if they did....the cost of everything involved to connect to the grid is way more $$$ than a decent solar system. Especially with permits.

Here is what I'm running in my cabin. Just my GF and I.

Propane kitchen stove (that uses line 600w of power for the stove heaters...)

Propane water heater with (that uses like 100w of power for the exhaust fan)

Regular washing machine

Regular 220v dryer that is directly connected to 7200w generator and rarely used.

Nearly all Rengoy solar:

Main array is 2400w Renogy panels (6s4p), 8 Renogy 200ah 12v AGM batteries (4s2p) and Renogy 48v 3500w inverter/charger.

Secondary array is 1000w Renogy panels (4s2p), 4 Chins 12v (4p) Renogy 60amp controller and Renogy 12v 3000w inverter.

Cabin is wired to NEC 2020. Solar is not.

I'm running a generator right now. Several cloudy days.
 
blakes said:
Power to the property? I suspect that eventually they will run power up to my place.....but even if they did....the cost of everything involved to connect to the grid is way more $$$ than a decent solar system. Especially with permits.

Here is what I'm running in my cabin. Just my GF and I.

Propane kitchen stove (that uses line 600w of power for the stove heaters...)

Propane water heater with (that uses like 100w of power for the exhaust fan)

Regular washing machine

Regular 220v dryer that is directly connected to 7200w generator and rarely used.

Nearly all Rengoy solar:

Main array is 2400w Renogy panels (6s4p), 8 Renogy 200ah 12v AGM batteries (4s2p) and Renogy 48v 3500w inverter/charger.

Secondary array is 1000w Renogy panels (4s2p), 4 Chins 12v (4p) Renogy 60amp controller and Renogy 12v 3000w inverter.

Cabin is wired to NEC 2020. Solar is not.

I'm running a generator right now. Several cloudy days.
Click to expand...
What fuel is the generator running on?
 
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