Solar Panel Port

[scottenj]

My 2015 329BHU came with the Zamp port as well.

I do a fair amount of dry camping and I tried to buy a Zamp solar panel but they were sold out everywhere. I ended up buying a GoPower 120 watt panel. It came with a harness to attach to the battery with a nice heavy duty quick disconnect. I hooked it up to the battery and tie wrapped the quick disconnect connector to the frame nearby. The connector has a cover so I am not worried about it getting dirty.

The panels are nicely made and they come folded up in a well made case. One of the latches that holds the panels closed was loose when the unit arrived but a pop rivet fixed that in a no time.

I have used the unit on a 6 day and an 8 day dry camping trip and it has worked great. It brings the battery back to a full charge every day easily. I haven't had to deal with multiple cloudy days in a row yet so I can't comment on that but all in all I really like it and would recommend it to anyone who dry camps.

[moallen]

I discovered it's handy for plugging in a 12v trouble light. Mine has LED's. The older type with a halogen lamp might draw too much current.

[N7VDR]

I don't think I had that on my camper either.

It's new to the 2016 16rb

[jcarlilesiu]

I don't think I had that on my camper either.

[pawpaw]

I wish my trailer had this port. I just attach my portable solar charger directly to the battery with alligator clips.

[moallen]

Starcraft travel trailers, like quite a few others, come with a solar panel port. Sounds like something really technical, but it’s actually just a pair of wires going to the positive and negative terminals of the 12V battery.

It’s intended use is for plugging in a Zamp solar panel to keep the battery charged. The wires appear to be about 18 gauge, which means they can only handle a couple amps. So there aren’t many accessories you could plug in there. But it’s an ideal place to plug in a 1 or 2 amp charger or a float charger.

As it turns out some of these small chargers come with adapter cables that fit this solar panel port perfectly. I happened to have a Peak 1.5 amp charger. In my case, I had to cut and reverse the wires to make the charger male pin negative to match the solar panel port. If you try this, be sure to meter your charger and determine which pin is positive and negative. It may be different from one charger manufacturer to the next.

You could also use the adapter cables to plug some other low current 12V device in like a radio or TV. Needless to say, you could also wire up a generic solar panel to one of these adapter cables. I'd stick to a 5-10 watt trickle charger solar panel, the kind that connects directly to a battery without a controller. Just be sure to check polarity.

Warranty concerns? None of this modifies anything that is part of the trailer. Just watch polarity.

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Peak_Charger.jpg (118.58 KiB) Viewed 11642 times