# connecting solar to battery ??



## kezbea (Jan 5, 2008)

I have put a 80w solar panel on the roof of the van and now need to connect to my battery .

The thing is i have two 110 battery fitted in parallel ,
and my question is do i fit solar/ regulator to 1st or 2nd battery
bearing in mind that i may be on hook up at times.

Thank you Dave


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## Techno100 (May 8, 2010)

As your batteries are in parallel it is in effect 1 x 220 amp battery.
Makes no difference


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## Techno100 (May 8, 2010)

As my van has a Cab/Hab battery selector switch I've connected the positive of mine to the common terminal of this switch and the negative to the main -ve terminal block. This allows me to top up either batteries


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## sideways (Jun 2, 2008)

Make sure you connect the regulator to the battery first then the panel.


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## Vennwood (Feb 4, 2007)

kezbea said:


> I have put a 80w solar panel on the roof of the van and now need to connect to my battery .
> 
> The thing is i have two 110 battery fitted in parallel ,
> and my question is do i fit solar/ regulator to 1st or 2nd battery
> ...


If the batteries are connected in parallel it doesn't matter which battery you connect to.

IMPORTANT - You must use a regulator and connect the battery to the regulator, then the regulator to the solar panel.

The regulator (not all) takes the first thing that is connected to it as its base voltage. So if you connect the battery first then it will regulate the output at 12 volts. If you connect the solar panel first it will regulate the output to 18 volts and over time could fry the batteries.

Another sensible thing would be to fit an in-line fuse as close to the battery as possible rated just above the max amperage of the solar panel


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## dikyenfo (Feb 16, 2008)

Now is the time to think about a splitter so that the cab batt. gets charged when the leisure one is full via. the splitter.
Cak tanks do a cheapo.


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## kezbea (Jan 5, 2008)

Thank you all some good advice, and job now finished 
.
Dave.


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