Camping solar panel technology has come a seriously long way, and these days it’s as integral a part of camping as LED lights or side awnings. Free camping is all about breaking away from the constraints of caravan parks, leaving the 240v sockets behind and heading out into this incredible country. There are thousands of picture-perfect free campsites dotted all around this great land, and many offer stays of up to a couple of weeks at a time. That’s perfect for those wanting to stretch our touring dollars as far as possible, but don’t think for a second that just because you’re leaving the caravan park that you have to leave the luxuries of home behind.

Solar blanket and solar panel technology is breaking new ground every year, and these days any camper on a budget can afford to add portable solar power to their setup. These type of camping solar panel setups are easily able to produce hundreds of watts of power and pack away to next-to-nothing. The price ranges are as varied as the models available, and it’s easy to think that the more expensive the panel the better it is, but that’s rarely the case. To cut through the hype we’ve chosen three of the most commonly-used and popular Adventure Kings solar panels and headed to our favourite local free campsite to test them back to back. We’ll examine performance – both in optimal conditions and sub-par conditions – and we’ll also look at things like usability, weight, ease of adjustment and how they store to determine the differences.

SETTING UP YOUR SOLAR

We set up our 160w folding solar panel quickly and easily. The legs are easily adjustable and to start with we put them at their maximum length. Aiming is as simple as standing behind the panel and pointing it towards the warm midday sun.

Setting our 200w solar blanket up took a little bit longer, as we first considered hanging it off the side of the awning then ended up moving it over to lay across the windscreen of the tow vehicle. Due to the way the campsite was setup – very typical, with the tow vehicle parked at 90° to the van – we needed to use an extra 10m Anderson extension lead to connect the blanket to the van’s cabling.

What we found was that it took a little bit of fiddling to get the blanket sitting just right. The windscreen, for instance, wasn’t the optimal angle to lay the solar blanket out, and the edges of the blanket fell away as it approached the B-pillars. Even after angling the vehicle to directly face the sun, we found that a much better way to set it up would be to hang it off the awning and peg it out with guy ropes.

It was immediately apparent that the biggest point to consider with using a fixed solar panel was that you had to obviously be parked in the sun. Our camping solar panel tested was fitted to the roof of the Navara’s canopy, and clear of any roofracks or anything that might block potential sunlight. While it wasn’t such a big deal having the tow vehicle parked in the sun during our winter test, that’s obviously the last place you want to park it when you’re up north in higher temperatures.

The other issue we had here was that the fixed solar panel was exactly that – fixed. At a rough guess it had approximately a 45° angle of misalignment to the sun at many times of the day, which is a long way away from being optimal.  

WHAT ELSE EFFECTS SOLAR PANEL PERFORMANCE?

Aside from the obvious answer of ‘not enough sunlight’, there are a few other things that can negatively effect the power your solar panel can deliver to your battery;

UNDER-SIZED WIRING: Voltage drop is a huge issue in all types of automotive electrical engineering. Generally speaking, the longer the cabling, the more voltage you’ll lose along the way, known as voltage drop. To counter-act this, the idea is to increase the size of the cabling’s diameter.

POSITION OF REGULATOR: Your camping solar panels produce somewhere around 20V of power, and your battery charges at between 13v and 14v. The regulator, as the name suggests, regulates that 20V of power down to what the battery needs. Let’s say for arguments sake you get 1v of voltage drop along the length of your cabline. Rather than the regulator drop the voltage up near the panel and then lose another volt on the trip down to the battery, it’s a much better setup to position the regulator closer to the battery. Much better to lose that 1V through voltage drop so the regulator gets 19V and puts out 13v, instead of getting 20V, putting out 13V and the battery only getting 12V.

HEAT: It may seem counter-intuitive, but hot sunny days aren’t what you want with portable solar panels. Sun yes, but heat no. Heat is the killer of electrical voltage, and on hot days your solar panel can put out up to 20% less power than on colder sunny days. Winter’s ideal – if you don’t count the short days!

DIRT AND DUST: Give your panels a good clean at least once a week with a soft cloth and some warm, mild soapy water. Dust can play a huge part in reducing the effectiveness of your panels.

What do you think? What type of camping solar panel are you running and why? Maybe it’s a nice portable compact solar blanket, or perhaps it’s a budget-friendly camping solar panel. Like us you might even run a combination of fixed solar panels on the roof of your rig or trailer plus a portable solar panel to setup when you get to camp. We’d love to hear from you!