VAN BUILD POST 12: DIY Solar Setup

If you’re wondering how you’re going to run your van without a generator, this is the post for you! While we power our van with two main sources: solar and DC to DC charger, this particular post is about our solar. We chose to use the Renogy 400W Solar Premium Kit. This kit is fantastic because it includes basically everything you need in order to have a very experience setting up your solar! The only things that you need to supply yourself are the batteries!

What’s Included

  • 4- 100 Watt Solar Panels
  • Z- Brackets, Screws, etc. to attach the panels
  • In-line fuse
  • Fuse for between batteries and Solar Charge Controller
  • All necessary Wires for connecting
  • Bluetooth Module

What’s NOT Included (But You’ll Need)

Notes After 10 months on the Road

Overall, we love our solar setup! However, we knew going into it that we would probably want about 600W of solar for our 300 amp hour battery bank. Our batteries would probably charge up much, much quicker if we had the extra 2 panels, and sometimes I wish we had them, but between the 400W of solar and the 60A DC to DC charger, I think we still do pretty well! Other than this, we have not had any issues at all with the products!

YouTube Video

Here is our Solar YouTube video, which shows you how to install the kit. It should also answer some of your questions about the differences between WPM and MPPT charge controllers, and series and parallel connections.

As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below or on the YouTube video. You can also reach us through our contact page!

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