Personally – go solar. We have friends who have been trying to arrange a week away with us for a while and since the statement “we’re all set up, even got a Genie” I won’t go with them.
Solar requires no maintainence and if you encounter cloudy conditions you will be OK as long as you have big panels. As far as reliability – My Dad purchased a panel for camping in 1981, it’s still going – by our tests at about 90% of original output.
To add to spudboy’s comment. There are plenty of good products coming from the no-name sellers (Chinese), however what I found is that there is a lot of creative output ratings on some of these cheap units. If you’re going to go cheap then you need your eyes wide open – and that’s the same for generators too!!
To give an example. This listing
200-Watt-12vdc-MONOCRYSTALLINE-SOLAR-PANEL
is advertised as a 200w 12v panel. Why does no-one else have a listing for a 200w 12v unit, everyone else 12v max is 130-140w above that they are 24v. I sent a Q asking for dimensions of this unit and received a message back stating that they “have many solar panels available for different applications. Call for details”. So they refused to give me anything in writing about this panel. Over the phone the details were provided (no Qs about application). Its 1200*810 and 12kg. Have a look around – that’s what most suppliers have listed as a 130/135 or 140W.
As a side note - The 175W panels on my roof (24V) are ~1530x810 and about 18kg each and they do produce 175w when cool. To qualify for Gov rebates these panels for home instalations are tested by gov body - unfortunately units sold outside regulated schemes aren't tested to any spec.
I found that this business (LHP Power) is also operating under a various other names, but they are easily recognised by their response to information requests. All of their panels are the same; they quote a 120W panel, that’s the same size/weight as others’ 80W. So my point is that the brand name panels are likely to output what they advertise – the really cheap ones won’t, so they might not be that cheap. For $599 LHP advertised a “240w folding solar kit”. Now these panels are the same size as others’ 80w panels, so if you go in with that sort of knowledge and that you are paying 599 for 160w kit with regulator, (short) lead, stands and carry bag then it’s still not a bad deal, but not as good as fist looks.
