Solar Power ?
We have a 2009 Phaeton with a Cummings diesel. It has six 6 volt house batteries. The motorhome has a 2000 watt inverter and has a large residential frig. We did a lot of dry camping last winter in ...
Forum Discussion
I agree with the ^^^^^^ but you are dry camping in Key West (not paying $100/day...PM me where) and want to save $4/day on diesel fuel by spending $1500+ on solar if you install it yourself and no telling how much on Lithium???
Even with solar you should run the generator (good for 15,000+ hours) whenever you use a high amp item...microwave or even a coffee maker (charging your batteries instead of depleting). I would give the Lithium batteries time to come down in price...maybe when you need to replace your 6 house batteries. You do know you cannot put Lithium where your current house batteries are located??? You also know you are not going to run the AC using solar???
I would start by adding a 100 amp charger to help your 2000W (probably only charges 65 A briefly) to cut your generator time in half. I power mine from the engine block heater outlet and have found that turning it off and back on ever 10 minutes tricks it into charging at a higher rate...cutting down on generator time.
I would also convert everything to LED...lights and TVs, even the LCD TV up front. You can go much bigger by mounting on the face of your cabinet because LED TVs are very thin and VERY Energy efficient. LED lights use 1/10th of what a halogen uses. I like warm white 5050 chip LED bulbs on EBay for less than $1 each. Buy a couple different first before buying 10X.
Even with solar you should run the generator (good for 15,000+ hours) whenever you use a high amp item...microwave or even a coffee maker (charging your batteries instead of depleting). I would give the Lithium batteries time to come down in price...maybe when you need to replace your 6 house batteries. You do know you cannot put Lithium where your current house batteries are located??? You also know you are not going to run the AC using solar???
I would start by adding a 100 amp charger to help your 2000W (probably only charges 65 A briefly) to cut your generator time in half. I power mine from the engine block heater outlet and have found that turning it off and back on ever 10 minutes tricks it into charging at a higher rate...cutting down on generator time.
I would also convert everything to LED...lights and TVs, even the LCD TV up front. You can go much bigger by mounting on the face of your cabinet because LED TVs are very thin and VERY Energy efficient. LED lights use 1/10th of what a halogen uses. I like warm white 5050 chip LED bulbs on EBay for less than $1 each. Buy a couple different first before buying 10X.
