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If you’re looking to keep your rear (aka “leisure) battery setup charged in #vanlife, you have a couple of options: charge via a DC-to-DC charger from your alternator while you drive; always be plugged in to shore power, and connect to solar panels.
The DC-to-DC charger is great if:
(a) you have a newer van (or an older van with a stronger alternator) and
(b) you don’t stay in one place too long.
For our #vanlife plans, we didn’t want to have to constantly be on the move – so the DC-to-DC charger wasn’t a viable primary solution. We also try not to pay for overnight stays (with a few exceptions) – so the constant shore power option was also out. That left us with solar.
As we discovered early on, you CANNOT connect solar panels straight to a battery. You need a go-between so you don’t fry your battery. That’s where a solar charge controller comes in. This helps regulate the current, and allows the power coming in from the solar panels to be converted into usable energy that can charge your battery.
While there are a ton of options out there, we decided on the Renogy Rover 30A Solar Charge Controller. This seemed like the easiest to use for us. It takes most of the guesswork out of setup. You simply attach all the pieces together, turn it on, and voila! It’s working!
It’s a MPPT controller (simply put, that’s the kind you want) and it’s good for all types of batteries. If you start out with AGM and want to switch to Lithium later on, there’s no need to replace the controller – just the batteries.
And, as a bonus, you can pick up a bluetooth transmitter that plugs in to the solar charge controller. That way you can see your charge level on your battery, how much wattage the solar panels are pulling in, etc. – all from the screen of your phone or tablet via an app (more on that below). You can even change your settings right from the app, so you can safely tuck away your solar charge controller somewhere that doesn’t necessarily need to be easily accessible from inside the van (we put ours in a cabinet that sits by the bed, and can’t be opened without lifting the mattress, but a lot of people put their controllers within their “garage”).
While Renogy has it’s own app, DC Home, you have to sign up through Renogy to use the app, which is always a pain (another password to create and remember). And, to be honest, the app is a bit annoying to use. We discovered that a different app, Renogy BT, is much more user-friendly. It doesn’t require you to sign up for anything, it just connects and shows all the info you need in a glance. You can even go in and change setting on your charge controller. Simple and easy.
The only big drawback to the Renogy Rover 30A Solar Charge Controller is the connectors that keep the wires in place. To set this up, you have to connect a positive and negative wire from your solar panel array, your battery and your fuse box. The only problem is, the connection to keep those wires attached to the solar charge controller could be vastly improved.
The Rover 30A uses basically a metal box that you insert each wire into, which is then pushed down via a screw until it locks the wire in place. Unfortunately, unlike the typical attachment (where you use a ring or u-shaped connector to securely fasten wires to posts), this box doesn’t keep the wires attached as securely as we would like. It takes a lot more effort to keep them secure, and we wonder why Renogy had to stray away from the posts you typically see. Those were a lot easier – and a lot more effective. We’re still trying to find a wire connector (in a 2-gauge size) that would work better with this controller.
After saying all that, however, we must point out that once you do finally get the wires jammed in enough and tightened down, as long as your solar charge controller is firmly attached and doesn’t flop around, they don’t disconnect. It’s just during the initial setup of your electrical system that you’ll encounter this issue.
Despite some flaws, the ease of daily use of this Rover 30A Solar Charge Controller from Renogy makes it worth its price. It’s kind of a set it and forget it type of system. Once you go through the initial setup, you won’t need to be constantly adjusting it (the only time you’d have to change the settings is if you change the battery type later on). And, watching your battery replenish through the sun is a fun feeling, to be sure.
