Quote:
Originally Posted by Jschefcick
I have a 2018 keystone Cougar 29 bhswe. I recently bought a solar panel and furion plug adapter. Has anyone had issues with these? My panel is the 100 w power eco and when I put the alligator clips on the battery it shows them charging just fine. But when I plug it into the solar ready plug it doesn’t recognize or charge the batteries. Not a super huge deal as I don’t mind alligator clipping them when we dry camp, it would just be a lot easier to just go right into the plug. I’m using the ACO power adapter to hook into the furion port from the solar by the way. Am I doing something wrong?
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What’s important to know is, the connector on the side of your trailer connects directly to the battery. It may or may not have a fuse.
Between your solar panel and that connector needs to be a charge controller.
The “solar ready” is meant for a packaged system that has a panel, charge controller and the mating connector pre wired.
You are 2/3 of the way there, you just need the charge controller (and probably also an in-line fuse just to be safe). When you are shopping charge controllers, look for a MPPT controller, these are most efficient controllers.
To check to see If you haven’t damaged anything, without anything plugged into the trailer side connector, put a volt meter on the 2 pins on that connector. If you see 12-13ish Volts DC on those 2 pins, that connection is still good. If not, look for a fuse somewhere inline. Then check the panel. You will need to find the spec sheet for the panel (might be a label on the back side) to find the “open circuit voltage”. With the panel right side up in the sun, measure the voltage out of the panel. It should be close to the open circuit voltage on the specs. If it’s not, there could be a fuse in the black box that the wires come out of on the panel.
If every thing checks out, just follow wire instructions that come with the charge controller you purchase.