What Is The PERFECT Amount Of Solar For Van Life? 

Bottom line...you can never have enough solar. I have 450 watts and in the winter I have to carry a Honda EU2200i generator for those times the sun is playing hide and seek. And yes, I can charge my batteries off of my engine but running the diesel engine for two hours is terribly annoying and wasteful, thus the Honda.

I have 2x 285 watt house panels i scored on craigslist for $120 total! I have them bolted to my roof rack in my yard just waiting for two friends to come over and help me mount it up because its pretty heavy. I have an econoline e150

I put 2x200w mounted flat to a roof rack - feeding into my Bluetti solar power generator. But we are weekend users so this solution provides all the power we need unless we need to run our portable AC unit in the hot summer months to keep the 6 dogs that travel with us safe. In that case I can power both the AC unit and augment the solar charging of the Bluetti with a small Predator gas generator feeding a 30Amp shore power connection.

Five years ago, we took an early retirement, sold everything, bought an older MH and hit the road FT. It was the best decision we ever made. We discovered that we enjoy boondocking and it helps stretch our budget too. We quickly learned the advantages of solar and decided to build our solar/battery system in 2 phases, a 12v system for our basic 12v DC needs and a 48v system for our 110v A/C needs. We started with a pair of lead acid golf cart batteries and built a 620-watt liftable solar array mounted on the side of our motorhome. We lift the array to the optimal angle to improve their output by 20-30% vs flat mounted panels - even more in the winter, when the sun is lower in the sky. This size liftable array should be more than adequate for FT van use for most folk, coupled with 300+ah of lithium batteries. It serves as a nice bedroom window awning too, practically lifting itself to the desired angle with a couple gas struts, and it's easy to clean with a windshield squeegee, standing safely on the ground. This set-up, while far from optimal, allowed us to boondock till we could afford to do better. We finished the 12v part of our build about a year and a half ago, with the addition of a 560ah LiFePo-4 battery that we built with 8, 280ah "A" grade prismatic cells. We use a Heltec 330amp BMS, and a 5a active balancer to keep the cells synched up. We typically used less than 20% of its capacity daily giving us enough reserve capacity for about a week of bad weather before we had to run our generator for charging. Now that our 48v phase is completed we barely scratch the surface of our 12v bank's capacity, so it's about time to upgrade our propane fridge to an efficient 12v model. We use an 80A Progressive Dynamics LFP converter/charger, a 1,000w Renogy PSW inverter (as a back-up for our 55" TV, PC, ice maker, etc.), a 50a MPPT Epever charge controller and a Lnex battery monitor/shunt. This entire 12v system cost us under $3,500 to build and takes care of all of our basic off-grid needs except for air conditioning and microwave use, which was run by our generator, but is now handled by our 48v system.

I roll with 600 watts mono, 60 amps MPPT controller. 400 amp hours LiFePo 4 storage.👍

I use two 150 Watt , thin, flat marine panels on my W907 sprinter 144wb. This 300 Watt solar power support my 2Kw Li Battery well. I use only a webasto heater, a small ice box, a micro wave, sometimes a water heater and a toaster. I get additional power over the alternator and a small 800 W gas generator when needed, that sits in the engine conp. The panels are low profile, aerodynamic and the do well on higher highway ( here in germany) autobahn speed 😊

I run a single 390w panel into a 12v 200Ah LiPo4 battery. Back up are 2x100w side out panels on 60ft of extension lead

I use a 7watt thunderbolt panel with a 45watt nature power solar controller with a single truck battery. I can get up to about 26/28 volts of power @ 12amps.

im thinking of having at least 2 independent solar power systmes wired up in my van so anything that MUST be powered 24/7 i want on one sustainable loop.

was hoping to hear more about different brands and setups of lithium ion batteries. do you have a video on this?

Would being able to tilt a 300W panel to face the sun, particularly during winter, low sun azimuth and intensity periods, keep you at 300W year round?

I am installing 800 watt solar to my truck camper with 2 100 ah lithium iron batteries. Still learning this "stuff". I am running 400 now but just today bought 4 more 100 watt mono panels. I have starlink which is notoriously power hungry and my wife and I want to sell everything and go totally off grid... We are in Alberta and plan on winters in the southern states... BTW I subscribed to your channel!

This has been my takeaway as well. We originally built our van with 200w solar, and it was definitely not enough. We are filmmakers, and like you guys, are on our computers for work all day and have heavy battery charging needs. We're upgrading our 144 '07 Sprinter from 2x 100w panels to four Renogy 175w panels now, and will probably have around 13KW of battery storage. Hopefully it'll be enough haha!

were building our first one right now, we put 220w solar to a 190Ah battery bank. Hopefully it will be enough. we only have a 80L 12v fridge, LED strips for celing lights and som USB ports for charging our phones.

I seen some panels with 1000w in one panel so you don't need a lot space i don't think but you do need to have the money as those would be more expensive

I run 200 watts on my Odyssey with 210 watts portable. I keep a 50, 20, 18 Ah Lifepo4 batteries, and a small Bluetti. Runs my fans, lights, and fridge.

😄👍Good To Know, Great Tips

4x200 watt panels - 2x100watt panels - (2X200watt portable solar panels) 600whr lithium battery bank. Plan for parking in tree lined camping spots. Whereas the roof has shade.

380 here on flat panels (Promaster). I’ve got 600ah of lithium. If money was no object, I’d double that. I’ve got room for over 1,200 kWh. The “game changer” for me was the installation of a second under hood alternator. My 600ah of lithium are always fully charged at arrival. I converted all appliances and AC to 12 volt. With the power stroke of the V-6, the second alternator will charge at idle.. this was the game changer for me. I’m just not sure upgrading/expanding my solar would make a ton of sense. But I haven’t ruled it out. Oh… almost forgot… I haven’t plugged in for over a year. But I still dream of massive lithium storage. A man can dream, right?

800w? That's it? If there's less sun, you need MORE panels if you're off grid. I would more than double that on the bus --you have the roof space. Rack 'em up to expand and you're solid! While you've got a football field of space up there, why not try a wind turbine?

Next build is a dual system for redundancy: 2x550w panels, one on a slide 4x12v, 200aH LiPo4 batteries for the 48v system 2x solar controllers 2x synchronized 3000w inverters All to run a hair dryer, microwave, fridge and LED lighting 😅😅

Anyone seen solar panels that can tilt both ways?

Why don't anybody make rails to move the Solar panels to sides? if you Stack them two high and have them ppen up like a drawer sliders.😅 That's the way i'm going to design minds

1200w, wouldn't have anything less, because I don't use fossil fuels for power. If anything I'd go to 1600w and have the whole roof covered, but I wanted room for a chimney and a skylight. The short answer is as much as you can put up there.

Electric cook pot, laptop, ac, fridge, phone, small 7w fan. 600w about covers it. Having a battery to soak up the unused electricity for rainy/cloudy days is great 800watts is overly perfect.

Living with a total of 600W (3 x 200W) 😊

Cant find your other channel

The perfect amount of solar is as much as you can fit. My van has 1,200 watts of solar panels

400W (2 x 200W)

Just use alternator to charge

450 bendable solar panel but still not enough

Buy a power bank instead of solar because you’ll never have enough power with solar.