Solar panel for ford Auto Sleeper Duetto 1995

Hi there can anyone help me i have just bought a ford Autosleeper Duetto 1995 and want to fit a solar panel to the leisure battery the problem is it is under the bonnet and i believe you need to place the controller for the panel within 1m of the battery so it can measure temperature changes, can anyone help with this.

Thanks

Lozzat666

Plenty of Duetto owners on here who I'm sure will help but you need to do a brief introduction here first...

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lozzat666 wrote:Hi there can anyone help me i have just bought a ford duetto 1995 and want to fit a solar panel to the liesure battery the problem is it is under the bonnet and i believe you need to place the controller for the panel within 1m of the battery so it can measure temprature changes, can anyone help with this.

Hi lozzat666
Yes in theory the charging system needs to take account of the battery temperature but in practice very few do! This applies to all chargers not just solar panel units. Actually I’ve never found a commercial unit that uses takes account of anything but the battery terminal voltage (other member of this forum may well know better).
My Duetto’s 1997 and so is probably not very different from your vehicle. If you don’t want to drill the bodywork, looking under the bonnet there are a couple of mounting points at the top where you could attach a steel panel and mount the controller facing backwards toward the bulkhead. Look at the top about ¼ and ¾ from the drivers side looking from the front.
Don’t worry too much about the temperature sensing. It’s ideal but but not essential

If your van battery layout is the same as mine, another option could be to mount the controller in the cab behind the glove box. This has the advantage of not being exposed to both water spray and high temperatures in the engine compartment. Ford fitted the ECU on my vehicle there, and there is plenty of space to mount electrical equipment nearby. On my van you can access that space simply by lifting out the dash odds&ends tray in front of the passenger seat.

Incidentally, is your van manual or auto transmission?

That is very useful, I thought that might be the case but just wanted to make sure, by the way mine is a manual transmission.

Thanks again