Do you own a camper trailer? A trailer sailor? Or are you getting your 4WD fully kitted and properly set up for off road touring? If so, this article may be extremely helpful for you in helping to get your brand new permanent solar setup installed and operating smoothly.

To ensure that you don’t run into any hiccups, we are going to be showing you how easy it is to install the Adventure Kings 110W Fixed Solar Panel to your setup!
110w may not sound like much but in an average 8hr day of sunshine, you’ll be able to generate a massive 50 amps easily able to top up your 115ah battery. With most 12v fridges drawing around 1amp/hour, you could run your fridge all day long + all of your other 12v accessories, without batting an eyelid.

Things you’ll need (most tools can be found in the Bush mechanic toolkit):

– 12v DC regulator (such as the reliable CTEK D250SA + smartpass120 or Kings MPPT or Kings PWM)

– 13mm ring spanner (can be found in the Bush mechanic toolkit )

– Drill + drill bits (cordless will be easier to use)

– Multimeter (12v DC)

– Side cutters

– Crimping tool

– Soldering iron + Solder

– Heat shrink tubing

– Ring terminals

– Cable ties

– Split perforated tubing

STEP 1

Locate your new 110W Fixed solar panel on your roof racks in a location where it will get plenty of sun, and will not be damaged by other equipment (or stones thrown up from the road). Some people angle their panel to make it point more towards the sun.

STEP 2

Use the supplied brackets to secure the panel to your roof racks, you may have to drill through your crossbars, be sure to drill a pilot hole first, and then widen the hole with a drill bit that is slightly larger than the diameter of the included fasteners.

Tighten fasteners with your ring spanner.

STEP 3

Secure the included wiring for the panel neatly along crossbars and out of the way. Using the corrugated split perforation tubing and cable ties to protect and shield from any damage. Making sure to fasten along the wire run with cable ties.

STEP 4

Now that the Adventure Kings 110w Fixed panel is installed and the wiring has been run all the way to your solar regulator. The closer your voltage regulator is to the battery the better, so if you have the choice you should mount yours closer to your second battery, this will decrease the amount of voltage drop and offer the best performance for your solar setup.

Now you have your regulator mounted and connected to your battery, you can terminate the solar input cable, the best method is to use solder and crimp on ring terminals, this will give a great mechanical, and electrical connection. On any join in your vehicles wiring additional heat shrink tubing should be added and will ensure that the join doesn’t short out on any part of your vehicle.

In this demonstration we are using a CTEK D250SA + smartpass120 which has a built-in solar regulator, however, if you haven’t got a CTEK DC-DC dual battery setup already fitted, you can purchase an MPPT or a PWM solar regulator from Adventure Kings to do a similar job!

STEP 5

Now that everything has been installed, double check your connections and the run of wiring to make sure it will not chafe or short out on anything, and it is now time to test your new fixed solar panel out.

To test your new setup, simply drive your vehicle into bright sunshine and check the voltage at the battery. If you are having any issues double check that your regulator is connected directly to your battery and that your panel is connected to your regulator and that there are no exposed wires that could be grounding the circuit out to your chassis.

Now that everything is tested and working as expected a congratulations is in order, you just successfuly installed a fully operational 12v solar charging system that doesn’t require setting up everytime you get to camp, on top of that, it should be able to keep the fridge cranking, the music blaring and your 12v LED camp lighting beaming easily, no matter where you are!