Adding Solar Panels to Power AC/TV/Microwave

Taradaktyl

New Member
Joined
Aug 20, 2023
Messages
9
Location
New Hampshire
Hello,

I have the factory mounted Furrion solar panel (165W, I believe) on my Imagine XLS 21BHE. As you likely know, when we are not connected to shore power, we cannot run the AC/TV and microwave. Is there a way to add to the existing solar installation to allow it to also power these items? Thanks for your input and apologies if this has already been asked.

Best,

Tara
 
Hello,

I have the factory mounted Furrion solar panel (165W, I believe) on my Imagine XLS 21BHE. As you likely know, when we are not connected to shore power, we cannot run the AC/TV and microwave. Is there a way to add to the existing solar installation to allow it to also power these items? Thanks for your input and apologies if this has already been asked.

Best,

Tara

Running an Air Conditioner and or a Microwave is going to involve a Large capacity battery system and a Lot of solar panels to keep them charged plus the addition of an Inverter that is large enough to supply the 120VAC to the devices.....or, an easier way might be to just buy a properly sized Gasoline or propane powered generator. If you go that route, get an Inverter style generator as they produce "clean" power and are almost always quieter than the open frame style generators....sometimes known as Construction type generators.
 
Last edited:
You'll need an inverter (3,000 watts) and plenty of solar and/or battery to do that.
 
Hello,

I have the factory mounted Furrion solar panel (165W, I believe) on my Imagine XLS 21BHE. As you likely know, when we are not connected to shore power, we cannot run the AC/TV and microwave. Is there a way to add to the existing solar installation to allow it to also power these items? Thanks for your input and apologies if this has already been asked.

Best,

Tara

Yes, as others have already said, solar doesn't solve that problem by itself.

Think of solar as a charger for the battery/ies.

You will need many more upgrades than just the solar to accomplish what you want to do.
 
Could you elaborate? How many solar panels/batteries/inverters, etc would I need to run the AC, TV and microwave for an evening?
 
Could you elaborate? How many solar panels/batteries/inverters, etc would I need to run the AC, TV and microwave for an evening?

As a rule of thumb you need one 100 AH lithium battery for one hour of AC use, and a 3000 watt inverter to run one AC until that battery drains.
Generally most are better off using a generator for AC use.
I have a good sized battery bank and solar system and that is what I do.
 
I do not know any 100ah hour that can supply enough current for an A/C or microwave operation. If you are going to use a 3,000 watt inverter, you are going to need about 250A of current to operate that at full tilt.

A real crude way of figuring it out would be that 1,500watt microwave would need 150A to operate. Which 100ah battery can do that? Same with A/C.

Define evening? From 5pm-10pm? I highly doubt if you will run a microwave for 5 hours. But if you did, you would need about 9000watts of power. A 100ah battery has about 1,200watts. So, you would need about 7.5 100ah batteries. If you plan on running A/C at the same time, you would need another 7.5 100ah batteries. So, you would need 15 100 ah batteries. Using Battle Born currency, that would be about $15,000 [including WA State sales tax]. If you wait for their sale......... Naw, lets not derail this thread :D

Not certain how much a TV runs, but maybe another 100ah battery will supply the juice to keep the TV working for 5 hours.

If you think solar panels will supply that type of current, they can, but you will need a lot of them and at night that's probably not going to happen. There are plenty of members here that have real data that can shed some light on solar power generation.

The way I think is, solar keeps the batteries charged. It has nothing to do with running your A/C, microwave, and TV. That is what the batteries do. Before anyone has a cow, yes solar does supply all the electrons the consumer will use, but typically most people use batteries to buffer the current draw, not the solar panels. I hope that makes sense because it certainly does not seem to be coming out right.

Feel free to question my numbers. I did not use a calculator, I did not consider efficiency loss either. Heck....I'm probably way off base, you just can't trust an automotive mechanic these days.
 
Last edited:
Wow! Thanks so much for all this info! Clearly my hope of solar panels powering the AC is unrealistic. I do dislike the noise of a generator though. �� any recommendations for a solar generator? ��
 
Wow! Thanks so much for all this info! Clearly my hope of solar panels powering the AC is unrealistic. I do dislike the noise of a generator though. �� any recommendations for a solar generator? ��

Have you ever been around a Honda/Yamaha and some other Inverter type generators? The sound level is no where close to being as loud as an open frame type construction generator. I had a 6300 Watt Yamaha Inverter generator at one time that was quiet enough that you could hold a conversation with someone that was 15 feet away from the generator.
 
Wow! Thanks so much for all this info! Clearly my hope of solar panels powering the AC is unrealistic. I do dislike the noise of a generator though. �� any recommendations for a solar generator? ��
A "solar generator" is simply a storage battery with an inverter, usually coupled with a solar panel. Very much a misnomer, designed to be misleading.
 
We have 800 Ah of LiFePo4 batteries (4x200). That will run our coach for at least four days with minimal solar (with everything but AC). Where we camp in New Hampshire there is rarely a lot of solar since most of the sites are wooded. We have a 200-watt portable panel that we move around to sunny spots. We're in the process of expanding the stock 165-watt panel to a total of 800 watts of solar on the roof. Once the solar is expanded, I'm hoping to be able to run the AC for about one hour (125 Ah) in the early evening to cool the coach down. Most of the time it's cool enough that we won't even need that much.
 
We don't boon dock often, but the last time we went out, we were there 3 days. We have 1200ah and according to Victron's shunt, we only used about 40%.

No A/C, it was not needed. The only real power consumer was the stock propane heater. Sure, we used the microwave, but it was only for a few minutes. My wife was pretty impressed that she could use anything in the trailer she wanted. She's pretty smart, but clueless where the power was coming from.
 
Last edited:
Installed 3 100amp lithium batteries and a 3000 w inverter from Battle Burn Batteries. The factory solar panel charges them just fine. I can run everything without a generator.
 
"Everything"? :) But not for very long. :)
I set my thermostat at 72, a/c runs when needed. I can use the microwave and other appliances whenever I want. Batteries give full power until they’re at zero. One time I had to run the generator for 40 minutes to bring them back to 100% charge. Even then I was the envy of all my camp mates - at Burning Man.
 
We're going to put our boondocking to the test in a few days. We have 1100 W of solar panels on the roof, two Redodo 24V 200AH batteries, a Victron MultiPlus II and a few other bits and pieces. Last month the power went out here at The Ranch and we didn't even know it. Of course, we weren't running much (no a/c, no microwave, etc.) but still...

Our plan is to boondock a total of seven nights (3 sets of two nights and one overnight) on the way to Escapade. Tuesday night is our first night out and we plan to boondock that night. We've tried going a day or two just on the batteries while we are at The Ranch, just in case, but so far all of the testing has worked out well.
 

Try RV LIFE Pro Free for 7 Days

  • New Ad-Free experience on this RV LIFE Community.
  • Plan the best RV Safe travel with RV LIFE Trip Wizard.
  • Navigate with our RV Safe GPS mobile app.
  • and much more...
Try RV LIFE Pro Today
Back
Top Bottom