Saturday, April 30, 2016

Mounting a solar panel on a vehicle

Note that small solar panels won't provide enormous amounts of energy, but they can keep small electronics working, particularly if they keep a spare car battery topped up. A coworker uses a panel on his Nissan Xterra to run everything required to login into work from the desert when he gets paged on camping trips (assuming a cell signal is available).

The first link from camperizecom.com
http://www.camperize.com/solar-panel-mounting.html

A similar link:
 http://www.expeditionportal.com/forum/threads/79454-Solar-Panels-Installed-On-Roof-Rack

Amazon searches for useful products:
"30 watt solar panel" - multiple small panels can be more flexible in mounting.  60 watts or more seems desirable. Check overall dimensions and allow space for mounting brackets.
"Solar panel controller" - required for most panels.  Match to power output.
"Solar panel vehicle mount" - a variety of fixed and adjustable mounts are available.

At the current state of the art, factory installed solar panels aren't worth their cost:
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410454/does-car-mounted-solar-make-sense/

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