etrailer Solar Charging System with Digital Solar Controller - 585 Watt Solar Panels

Video Transcript for etrailer Solar Charging System with Digital Solar Controller Spec Review

Hi everybody, Andy here with etrailer.com. Let's take a look at this etrailer solar charging system with the digital solar charge controller. Now, this is going to include three 195 watt monocrystalline solar panels. And these panels, as you probably know, are gonna convert the sun's energy into DC electricity. And then that electricity is gonna charge your batteries in your RV or camper so you're gonna be able to power your devices that are connected to your batteries. So again, this kit includes three 195 watt panels for a total of 585 watts.

And each panel is going to give you a maximum output current of 10.7 amps and a short circuit current of 11.4 amps. Now, finding the right solar package for your particular setup can be a daunting task, trying to answer questions regarding the size of panels that you need, amp hours, conversion formulas, and things like that, well, I'm happy to say that we have taken that hard work away from you and came up with a way for you to easily figure out what exactly you need in regards to a solar package for your particular application. So on your screen, I am including our link to our solar calculator here at etrailer.com and that solar calculator's just going to ask you a few questions and then provide some solutions for you in regards to helping you find the perfect solar package that you are going to need for your particular setup. So just take that link that you see there on your screen, pop it into your browser, the address bar of your browser, and that will take you to that solar calculator and you're gonna be able to find exactly what you need. Now, these panels are designed for a fixed mount installation on your RV or your van.

And each panel weighs a little over 23 pounds and they feature a tempered glass coating and then a black aluminum frame that's going to withstand harsh road and weather conditions. And these panels are very durable. They are very well designed, very well built, and very robust. I think they're gonna hold up for you real well. Let's talk measurements.

Looking at the overall length, we are sitting right at about 55-1/2 inches long. The overall width, we're sitting at about 27-11/16 inches wide. And then in regards to thickness, about 1-3/16 inches thick. So you are gonna need to make sure that you have room on the roof of your RV that's going to be big enough for these panels. And then you wanna make sure that you have them positioned in such a way that they're not gonna be getting persistent shadows from other things that are on your roof.

Those shadows, of course, are going to reduce the capacity or the effectiveness of these panels. Now, this kit does include all of the mounting hardware that you are going to need to install the brackets to the panels and then the brackets to your roof. I wanted to show you one of these Z brackets here that they do already have butyl tape applied to the bracket. So that butyl tape is going to do a great job of keeping moisture out of the holes that you are making in your roof. So when you run your screws through the holes of the brackets there, that butyl tape will fill in the gap there. But I do also recommend picking up some self-leveling sealant so that you can put that sealant on top of the heads of the screws, just another layer of protection to cover up those holes, to steal up those holes to prevent water from going into the holes through the roof, through the roof there, getting into your ceiling and possibly giving you problems with mold or mildew. Now, this is going to connect to your system with MC4 connectors that are on the backside of these panels. Let me just take this panel here and quickly turn it around so you can see the back here. So as you can see, we do have these cables here with these MC4 connectors, and these cables are just about three feet long. And then you are also going to get there, right there in the middle of the table, you're also going to get four M4 branch connectors that are going to allow you to connect these panels in series. Now, let me go ahead and give you a closeup there of the controller there at the front of the table while I put this panel back. That is a 30 amp solar controller that's included with this kit and that controller is going to help you prevent harmful overcharging of your batteries, and it does 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. As you see there, this is gonna work with your sealed/gel, AGM, flooded lead acid, and lithium iron phosphate batteries. And this does feature digital PWM or pulse width modulation technology that's going to regulate the panel output to provide a consistent charge, the automatic multi-stage charging switches modes as the battery charges, helping to extend your battery life. And this is going to include preset charging profiles, again, for the sealed/gel, the AGM, the flooded, and the lithium batteries. Now, on your screen, I am including some other bits of information there for you that's gonna prove helpful for you. And this does feature a backlit digital LED display that's gonna help you easily monitor the charge and discharge currents. And as you probably already noticed, we do have four USB-A ports here, two on each side. So that's gonna let you charge your devices while the solar panels are generating power. And just some overall measurements of the panel itself. Looking at the overall width, we're sitting about 7-13/16 inches wide, four inches tall, and about two inches thick or deep, however you'd like to identify that measurement. So this does include everything that you see here on my table before me. You are going to get the wiring, you're gonna get red and black wiring with the ring terminals, and then red and black wiring with the MC4 connectors, and each of these wires are about 7-1/2 meters long. This does have a limited lifetime warranty. And we do provide this kit with the 195 watt panels in a quantity of just one panel or two panels. This is, of course, the kit with three panels. So it depends on the power that you're looking for. We also have kits with smaller panels as well. So again, take advantage of our solar calculator and let that point you in the right direction so you can get just the solar package that you need for your particular application. Well, 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.