Keeping battery topped up during winter

the folk i know who use a SP to keep their batteries fully charged even during the lower sunshine seasons also make sure its big enough for this job AND should they ever venture off grid at aires, Temp Hol Sites, non ehu CLs etc....

these are pretty well always roof mounted....fit and forget 

in this case, 60w is probably a tad small, 80w being about the smallest to 'do the job' and 100/120w being favoured by many.

even 150w or 2x 100w are often used, sometimes the extra kit in the van includes inverters and second leisure batteries...

much to read in the 'thrive on a 240v' thread...

They fitted the second panel to the MH today taking it to 120watt. Doesn't do anything for the engine battery though. I may fit another solely to keep the engine battery topped up for the alarm and was thinking a 20watt would have been sufficient for this.

On the boat I use a 15W rigid panel (about 12"x12") permanently mounted on the pushpit rail.  It maintains 160AH house batteries easily when not on board. (I deploy 80W of panel at anchor).

On the caravan a 100W panel on the roof is enough to sustain us indefinitely off-grid,  but we are negligible users of TV (the big power-drainer!)

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You should be able to fit a controller capable of charging 2 batteries.  You normally select them so that they favour one battery over the other copulent of  examples. 

Photonic universe

Morningstar

The photonic one is I believe identical to the Truma branded unit, the Morningstar is the one that I have. 

I use one of these to keep all three batteries (Starter and two Leisure) topped up.

I have an 80W Solar panel which does the job very well of keeping them topped up at all times of year and the CSB-2 diverts the power to the starter battery when the Leisure ones are at peak performance.

Cheap and effective.

 

CY, agree with all the recent posts re your starter battery. i would be annoyed if the workshop were happy to take more cash for fitting the extra SP but didnt offer a (simple) solution for charging the vehicle battery...and annoying that Eldiss omitted this in the first place, however its the way of things...especially when caravan makers start venturing into MHs....vehicle batteries, we dont have them on caravans

im sure mine is done via the solar charge controller but Battery Master and their clones are pretty easy to fit, they just take charge from the leisure battery to the vehicle battery (if its low) with the leisure battery being replenished by the SP...

still, getting there....good luck.

I had a 100W NDS solar panel with a dual output controller fitted to my campervan earlier this year. The work was done by Roadpro in Daventry making use of the CMC discount. This has enabled me to stay at several C&CC Temporary Holiday Sites since. Even in in high season the cost was £8 - £11 per night for two adults, kids usually go free. Also both batteries are kept topped up when the van is parked up on the drive between trips. If you have the skills to fit one yourself you'll save a few hundred pounds.   

I know greylag does not have an EHU when in storage but am I right in saying that while on EHU the vehicle battery and leisure battery are being charged up.

It will depend on the individual electrical set up with each van. On mine I can choose between charging the engine battery or leisure battery but not both at the same time. But since having the solar panel fitted I don't have to worry as both are kept charged automatically.