New to solar? Don't forget the regulator.

If you want to safely use solar panels on your rig, they need to have a system to stop them from charging when your house batteries are full. At night, without a regulator system, the solar panels will turn into a "load" and actually cause your batteries to discharge.

There are "self regulated" panels available, the trouble is, their output is so small it's hardly practical for an RVer. Commercially built solar panel regulators are like a visit to Starbucks. You can get plain (OK, with crème and sugar) or you can add everything in the way of bells and whistles. What do you get with your cappuccino?

Some fancy regulators have built in meters that show battery voltage and charge current--that's a great bonus--and even those that track your battery "bank account" by showing how much power you've used, verses how much you've stored. Of course, the more you get, the more you pay.

What about prices? We've seen "charge controllers" as solar regulators are sometimes called, that will handle 20 amps worth of solar power for around $100--including a display that indicates battery voltage and the amount of charge current. In one of our installations where only a single panel was to be used, we found a very plain regulator with LEDs that simply indicated if the panel was charging or not, for around $25.

A plain-brown-wrapper regulator that simply that stops charging when the battery is full, and restarts charging when the battery needs it is great if you're on a budget. Just make sure you always buy a regulator that has more capacity than you need now. Later if you expand your solar power "farm" on the roof, you won't need to invest in another regulator
to invest in another regulator.

Remote control solar panel lift system

For boondockers who winter with solar, there's nothing like getting more bang for your buck from the sun than by tilting your solar panels. It's not too impractical to head up on the roof and tilt them if you'll be in one place for the season. But if you move around a lot, hiking up and down from the roof can get old if you need to do it often.

Here's one approach to the matter: A remote control operated solar panel lift system. Push a button, up it goes. Push a button, down it comes. Takes up less space than a ladder!

Industry tries "large and small" portable solar equipment

As we search high and low for new solar equipment and innovations for RVers, we're sometimes surprised by what else pops up on the market. Take GOAL ZERO for instance, an outfit that calls itself, "an innovator of portable solar power systems." (Italics ours). The company is trumpeting two entries to the portable power market, but we're wondering who their target customer base is. Perhaps Iron Man has come to life and gone green on us.

The first release seems like a modest, and interesting product for those who not only RV off the grid, but take their tech stuff out on long hikes. Says a company news release, "The new Sherpa 50 portable recharger, which was recently recognized by the CEA as CES Innovation Honoree for Portable Power, will change how consumers power vital devices like phones and laptops. Weighing only 14 oz. (0.9 lbs.), this latest, award-winning addition to the mid-size Sherpa line is less than half the load of its predecessor, yet it harnesses the same 50 watt hour power capacity. The most compact of the Sherpa line, the new Sherpa 50 truly represents on-the-go power, as it measures less than 5 inches on each side and is only 1 ½ inches thick, allowing it to easily fit in any bag or briefcase."

We don't take our briefcases out for a hike, but OK, maybe the businessman on the run would like to charge his iPod or iPod or whatever it is while running down Wall Street. It's the second, "portable" power system that has us head scratching: Dubbed the Yeti 1250 Solar Generator, we were immediately struck by the name. Yeti? Isn't that another name for the mysterious and vanishing beast AKA, Sasquatch?

The sasquatch, by all accounts, is a pretty good sized fellow, not somebody you'd invite to a Mexican Train game without second thoughts. Sure enough, the news release tells us that Yeti is as we thought: "The Yeti 1250 Solar Generator is Goal Zero’s highest capacity portable recharger to date and is the most easy to use, affordable, dependable and complete solution available for those looking to “trade-up” from their conventional gas-powered back-ups. The Yeti 1250 is a generating beast, standing 16 inches tall, 11.6 inches wide and 14.5 inches deep and weighing 103 lbs., and much like its namesake, the Yeti 1250 is extremely powerful, but rarely seen or heard."

A 103 pound generating beast? Are we ready to take this one backpacking. May we say, "Not yeti!" Perhaps you could hitch this rig on to the back bumper of your motorhome and use it for charging up the toys, and the house battery system as well. For our money, I think we'll stick with four solar panels on the roof and a tiny (in comparison) regulator on the bathroom wall.

Still, if you're interested, the Sherpa 50 Portable Recharger will be available in June 2012 as a part of a number of full system kits or separately for $249.99. The Yeti 1250 Solar Generator will be available in May 2012, both as a single unit ($1499.99) and as part of Yeti 1250 Solar Generator Kit ($1999.99) which also includes two Boulder 30 solar panels and a carrying cart for the kit. Visit www.goalzero.com or call 888-794-6250.