etrailer Solar Charging System with Digital Solar Controller - 195 Watt Solar Panel

Video Transcript for A Closer Look at the etrailer Solar Charging System with Digital Solar Controller

Hi, everybody. Andy here with etrailer.com. Let's take a look together at this etrailer solar charging system with digital solar charge controller. Now, this 195-watt monocrystalline solar panel is going to convert solar energy into DC electricity and that electricity is going to charge a battery in your RV so you can power your devices that are connected to your batteries. This is a 195-watt panel, as I mentioned at the beginning of our time together, and this is going to provide a maximum output current of 10.7 amps and a short circuit current of 11.4 amps. Now, as you might know and as you probably have experienced already, finding the right solar package for your particular application can be stressful.

It can be a daunting task whether you're trying to answer questions about wattage or panel dimensions or conversion formulas, things like that, well, I'm happy to say that we have done the hard work for you. On your screen, I am putting our link to our solar calculator here at etrailer.com. All you have to do is answer a few questions on that calculator and we'll do the hard work for you. That calculator will help you find just the right solar package that's going to work best for your particular application. So just take that link that you see there on your screen, pop it in your browser, and that will take you to that calculator and you'll be on your way.

Now, this panel is designed for a fixed mount installation on top of your RV or your van, and this weighs about a little over 23 pounds and so it's not going to be too terribly heavy. You're not gonna be adding a whole lot of additional weight to your roof. This does feature a tempered glass coating and a very durable, strong black aluminum frame that's going to do a great job of withstanding harsh road and weather conditions. Now, just to give you some measurements of this panel so you have a good idea of the size, looking at the length first, from end to end, we're sitting at about 55 and a half inches long. Looking at the width, we're sitting at about 27 and 11/16 inches wide.

And the thickness, about one and 3/16 inches thick. So you are going to need to make sure that you have a spot on your RV roof that's going to be big enough for this to be mounted. And then you also wanna keep in mind that you wanna stay away from like your air conditioning unit or anything that could potentially cast a shadow on this panel, thereby reducing its effectiveness. Now this does include hardware as you can see here to get this panel mounted into place. I wanted to point out you do get four of these Z brackets and on these brackets we already have butyl tape that are applied to each of the brackets.

So that's a great addition to these brackets to help keep moisture out of those holes that you'll be making with the screws as you run the screws through there. But I also am going to recommend that you pick up some self-leveling sealant if you don't already have some. That self-leveling sealant will create an additional seal or an additional layer of protection, especially over those holes that the screws are making to keep moisture and water from going through the roof and get it into your ceiling, causing potentially mold or mildew or that sort of thing down the road. So it's a good idea to seal up any holes that you make in your roof as you probably already know. Now, this is going to connect to your system with the MC4 connectors that are on the backside of this. So let me see if I can turn this around real quick just to show you those connectors. I'm gonna go out of frame there just for a minute and pop this back into place. I just wanted to show you these cables here. Hopefully my camera will stay focused. Looks like it will. So on this end here, we do have our MC4 connectors and these cables, I got them bundled up obviously, but they're about three feet long. But if you need more length, we do have extension cables here at etrailer.com if you're needing that additional length. So you see, get a good view of the the backside there. Let me go ahead and flip this back around, bring it back into frame, and then I wanna talk a minute or so about the controller that's included with this kit. So let me make sure I'm on my table here. You don't wanna accidentally tip over here. So let me go ahead and give you a closeup view of that controller. Now, that 30 amp controller that's included with this kit, that's going to help prevent overcharging of your RV batteries. It's going to monitor and adjust output from your solar panels. And this is going to work with your 12 volt, 24 volt, 36 volt, and 48 volt battery and solar systems, and this is going to work with your sealed gel, AGM, flooded lead acid, and lithium iron phosphate batteries. And the controller does feature a digital PWM or pulse with modulation technology that's going to regulate the panel output to provide a consistent charge. The automatic multi-stage charging is going to switch modes as the battery charges, helping to extend the life of your battery. And this does include preset charging profiles for sealed gel, AGM, flooded, and lithium batteries. Now just some other additional pieces of information that might prove helpful for you. I'm gonna put that on the screen there for you. You can also find this information on this product page if you need to refer back to it. And as you probably already saw, this has a really nice, relatively large LCD display so you're gonna be able to easily monitor the charge and discharge currents. The display is backlit and this does have four USBA ports, two on each side. So that's gonna let you charge devices while the solar panels are generating power. And just to give you an idea of the size of this panel, looking at the width first, measuring end to end, we're sitting about seven and 13/16 inches wide, four inches tall, and about two inches deep. So this kit does include everything that you see here on my table before me. Obviously, you are going to get our 195-watt panel. You're gonna get the charger, you're gonna get the hardware to mount the panel, but you're also gonna get the wiring. You're going to get black wire and red wire with the ring terminals, and then black and red wire with the MC4 connectors on the other side there. All four of these pieces of wire measure about seven and a half meters long. And we do also have other kits available with this 195-watt panel. You can get a kit with either two of these panels or three of these panels or we do also have other kits with smaller panels as well. If that is something you're interested in, we do, you can find those options here at etrailer.com. This one have a limited lifetime warranty if I failed to mention that. And I think that's gonna wrap up our look today. I do hope that our time together was helpful for you. Again, my name is Andy. Thank you for joining me.