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United States of America, Manchester
1 Level
497 Review
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Review on Renogy 200W 12V Solar Panel Starter Kit W/20A Rover MPPT Charge Controller & Mounting Z Brackets For RV, Boats, Trailer, Camper by Brittany Rodriguez

Revainrating 4 out of 5

Update: After 3 years

We've used these three summers now and they continue to work perfect for us. Even on our last trip to Wyoming, our battery started dying. As long as the sun was up, we had enough power to run everything in our small camper, whether it was cloudy or sunny. Once again, note that they don't work very well in the shade. I have them wired in series. That may be part of that issue? I'm certainly no expert.I lowered my rating from a 5 to a 4, not because the panels or controller are worse, but one of the things I liked is that I could call Renogy and they were so helpful. That has since stopped. Their phone system hasn't let me get to an agent in about a year. :-(Update a year later. These worked as planned last summer. We had our camper off the grid a number of times and these panels kept up. It's interesting that they generate a 3-5 amps cloudy days. The worst situation is when we are in the heavy shade of trees. The amperage drops enough then that they are not useful. I still give them a 5 star rating and still recommend them.Bought this a few weeks ago for the camper. Living in Wisconsin, We are still waiting the weather to warm up a bit before we install the panels. I was able to temporarily install them last weekend though and was impressed with the result. I'm no expert but I'll share what I know so far. We've had an 80w portable panel for three years and overall it worked ok for us. We are switching to a more permanent installation so we can always have the panels running. We were always uncomfortable leaving the portable panel out when we would leave for the day so we missed a lot of sun opportunity. I can tell already that with the 200 W from these two panels wired in series and the MPPT controller, it's able to put out quite a few more amps. With the sun shining bright and everything in the camper turned on it was able to generate 12 A as compared to the 5 A from the old portable panel. The coolest part though, was the next morning at 7:30 AM on a gloomy cloudy day in early April it was still able to generate a half amp which is enough to keep up with the refrigerator controller. The old panel would not have been generating anything at this point. That's all I know for now. I'll update this once we have it installed. By the way, if you are like me and need to learn more about solar for the rv, there are a ton of videos on tube. This is where Renogy started showing up as maybe being a little better than most.

Pros
  • Low maintenance, with no moving parts or required fuel to power
Cons
  • May not suit all personal preferences or energy needs