The solar panel! My favourite bit. I got it from AK Solar (via ebay). It’s a 50 Watt one which is designed to keep the leisure batteries topped up using free sunshine! Ace! Who doesn’t like free stuff? O.k., it cost over a hundred notes but worth it I reckon to have the batteries energised whilst you’re off doing other stuff. Incidently, the meter read about 15 volts in the sunshine before I connected it all up. I did try the voltage output when I’d fitted the panel. It was cloudy and it still read 12.6 volts. Not bad at all.
Oh yeah, another cautionary note to you young Vanbuilder, make sure you leave enough cable to connect the solar panel to when you’re doing the wiring carcase. Someone we know didn’t and was up a ladder for some time drilling an ever larger hole and poking about with bits of wire before I, I mean he, realised that the bloody thing wasn’t there. Carpet removal, several holes in plywood and a longer bit of cable were required to save the day.
I’d ordered a junction box which measured about 3″ square to connect between the roof and the panel so no harm done by having a larger hole really, just frustrating. I used tiger seal (wear gloves, it stains skin for days!) and a couple of short wood screws to hold the box in place whilst it set and squirted a dollop of it in the 1/2″ holes I drilled prior to putting the rubber fixings in. I unclipped the box on the panel (which turned out to be the same type as the junction box I ordered) and cut the cables off, aiming to use only the cables supplied with the newly fitted junction box so that there wouldn’t be too much cable flapping about in the breeze. You’ll find that when you open the box on the panel, you’ll see that the cables are soldered on so you’ll either have to cut the cables off inside. Either fit crimp-on eyelet type connectors or similar to the shortened cables and screw them to the appropriate fittings or solder them on.
