Forum Discussion
azrving
Oct 29, 2017Explorer
If using AGM you may need to limit the charge voltage to 14.4 but it depends on the manufacturers recommendation. AGM will usually accept more amperage than wets. You may go for a couple weeks for incomplete charges but battery performance will drop off and plate damage can occur. With wet or agm you need to drive the charge all the way back up so sulfation and battery damage doesn't happen.
All of this depends on your energy usage. You are going to use and replace energy in AMP HOURS AH. Every device that you power will usually have an amp or wattage requirement listed on it. Every charging device will have a rating of what it can produce. An average RV just sitting there with the propane frig running but not being used will probably use about 36 AH in 24 hours. The radio, propane detector, monitor panel, card and propane valve for frig all draw some power and it's usually in that range.
An average 100 watt solar panel will give about 30 AH of power per day in good sun. So you have to figure that it's probably going to take more than a 100 watt panel just to keep it going if you never even use it. Now you need to add in all of your usage so lets picture a full battery and the sun has just gone down. I run an 2000 watt inverter which uses .5 amps just to be turned on. I also use my house furnace which pulls 5.5 amps and runs about 1/3 of the time at X temperature so in 12 hours it uses 22 AH. My 42" led Tv uses 6 amps and operates for 6 hours so that's 36 AH. My resi frig uses 7 amps and almost runs 50% of the time so that's 42 AH. My led lights probably pull 2 amps so add in 12 AH for a total of -118 AH. I have also been down 170 AH over night so there is a wide variation in power use between people. If you didn't use any additional power at night you could only be down 12 to 18 AH in the morning and 100 watts may carry you. I have 1000 watts of panel and pretty much use it all.
That gives you an idea of how it works. If you were to list the items that you want to operate and give us an idea of how you want to live we can give you better advice as to what you need. The first thing is to have some idea of how much power you will consume. That will tell us how big your battery needs to be to carry you over night and give some buffer. Your battery is your bank account. Your usage is your withdrawals and your charging ability is your income. You also have to pay the banker who is the inefficiency in the system. Roughly, you cant withdraw more than 50% of your account or you are penalized.
All of this depends on your energy usage. You are going to use and replace energy in AMP HOURS AH. Every device that you power will usually have an amp or wattage requirement listed on it. Every charging device will have a rating of what it can produce. An average RV just sitting there with the propane frig running but not being used will probably use about 36 AH in 24 hours. The radio, propane detector, monitor panel, card and propane valve for frig all draw some power and it's usually in that range.
An average 100 watt solar panel will give about 30 AH of power per day in good sun. So you have to figure that it's probably going to take more than a 100 watt panel just to keep it going if you never even use it. Now you need to add in all of your usage so lets picture a full battery and the sun has just gone down. I run an 2000 watt inverter which uses .5 amps just to be turned on. I also use my house furnace which pulls 5.5 amps and runs about 1/3 of the time at X temperature so in 12 hours it uses 22 AH. My 42" led Tv uses 6 amps and operates for 6 hours so that's 36 AH. My resi frig uses 7 amps and almost runs 50% of the time so that's 42 AH. My led lights probably pull 2 amps so add in 12 AH for a total of -118 AH. I have also been down 170 AH over night so there is a wide variation in power use between people. If you didn't use any additional power at night you could only be down 12 to 18 AH in the morning and 100 watts may carry you. I have 1000 watts of panel and pretty much use it all.
That gives you an idea of how it works. If you were to list the items that you want to operate and give us an idea of how you want to live we can give you better advice as to what you need. The first thing is to have some idea of how much power you will consume. That will tell us how big your battery needs to be to carry you over night and give some buffer. Your battery is your bank account. Your usage is your withdrawals and your charging ability is your income. You also have to pay the banker who is the inefficiency in the system. Roughly, you cant withdraw more than 50% of your account or you are penalized.
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