FRIDGE & SOLAR

My latest thoughts on the best value
major electrical components needed in an RV
My suggestions are mostly budget minded, but still with foremost in mind, quality, and good reliability.

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For solar panels, house panels are your best bet with their higher voltage that works much better when used in parallel through an MPPT controller.

Here I love the Victron SmartSolar controllers, sized appropriately for your system, and with as many solar panels as you can possibly fit on the roof (or elsewhere!) you can never ever have too much solar, ever!.

For a fridge, if going upright front opening, it is best to use a 240V household fridge (run through the inverter), specially if over 150L (240V will always be much better value, and better on power too than the overpriced RV fridges), just make sure that it is a new model and has a 'star' rating of 3 or better.

If you need a chest type fridge/freezer, or an upright fridge under 150L then look for the BRASS MONKEY range of fridges, from either JayCar or RTM (Road Tech Marine).

IMHO the best quality and value lithium batteries can be found from the likes of PowerPaul Australia, or Muller Energy, or Big Wei Battery.

For even less costly and budget minded, the Kings range of lithium batteries have proven to be well put together, albeit missing some of the nicer features like blue-tooth etc, and the case sizing is not optimised.

DC-DC charging using the 50A DC-DC Renogy battery charger is very reliable and inexpensive, although it is hard to go past the Victron Orion series of DC-DC battery chargers for exceptional quality at a reasonable price.

Best value quality inverter IMHO is the 3000W inverter/charger from Renogy Australia, again Victron inverter/chargers are really great, however they do start to get a bit pricey.

However, If you don't want a combined inverter/charger, then I would still go for a Renogy 3000W inverter, and for the separate AC (240V) battery charging I suggest the Victron Blue Smart 12/30 12V Battery Charger.

You must have a good battery monitor, and the Victron SmartShunt is the go here.

All of these items can be bought from eBay, and with some serious searching and comparing, (you really must do your due diligence here if you don't want to pay too much), good pricing can be found.

That should cover most of it, other than when you think of wiring and cable, bigger always is better, do NOT skimp here, just don't!

Now while there are some really good other brands out there, some of these can be a bit overpriced IMHO for what they are, and of course there are many really bad ones as well, and my suggestions are from my own experience of over 30 years in this field, both retail and hands on.




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FRIDGE & SOLAR 

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