Upgrading power system
I have an old camper but I would rather just take care of it and fix/upgrade it as necessary as opposed to get rid of it and spend tens of thousands for another one. With that in mind, I'm at the poi...
Forum Discussion
Well, I went ahead and ordered everything and it should all be here sometime next week. I got brand new tires on the F250 today and new ball joints to come on Monday. The truck and camper are coming along nicely now for the new season and I'm stoked!
I heavenly ordered 300w in panels and my single panel on my radio station puts out 5.5 amps (measured) open circuit, at noon so the 3 panel kit should theoretically get me about 16 amps. Not bad for 2 batteries. I think I'll be ok with that.
The other thing, concerning the converter, I will pretty much never use it except when the camper is stored so I have no use for quick charging. If I have to recharge with the generator for some reason, I've never encountered generator restrictions on the BLM and national forest where I boondock except that I have to meet the requirements for the spark arrestor. One mountain I was camping on for 12 days and never even saw another soul to complain! I HATE generator noise myself so if my batteries are in bad enough condition that I need to run the generator, I'd sooner pack up and go home anyway. This is why I am investing in solar.
I can't believe that my panels won't replace what I use except for an extreme exception perhaps. We have nearly non-stop sun during the season and I usually only run a max of two lights at a time for 5 hours max each night. During hunting season I run the furnace all night but without solar and a brand new set of wet cells, I could run the furnace for 5 nights before the batteries needed a recharge.
I do plan on adding perhaps one more battery and panel somewhere in the next three months or so though. I think that 330Ah and 400 watts should do anything I want to do while camping, even calling CQ DX for three hours a night. In the past, I have spent 2-3 hours working DX on a 8.4Ah Lifepo4 battery and I expired before the battery did. I got into 13 countries in one night from the bottom of a canyon on an inverted vee with a feed point only about 14 feet off the ground.
I heavenly ordered 300w in panels and my single panel on my radio station puts out 5.5 amps (measured) open circuit, at noon so the 3 panel kit should theoretically get me about 16 amps. Not bad for 2 batteries. I think I'll be ok with that.
The other thing, concerning the converter, I will pretty much never use it except when the camper is stored so I have no use for quick charging. If I have to recharge with the generator for some reason, I've never encountered generator restrictions on the BLM and national forest where I boondock except that I have to meet the requirements for the spark arrestor. One mountain I was camping on for 12 days and never even saw another soul to complain! I HATE generator noise myself so if my batteries are in bad enough condition that I need to run the generator, I'd sooner pack up and go home anyway. This is why I am investing in solar.
I can't believe that my panels won't replace what I use except for an extreme exception perhaps. We have nearly non-stop sun during the season and I usually only run a max of two lights at a time for 5 hours max each night. During hunting season I run the furnace all night but without solar and a brand new set of wet cells, I could run the furnace for 5 nights before the batteries needed a recharge.
I do plan on adding perhaps one more battery and panel somewhere in the next three months or so though. I think that 330Ah and 400 watts should do anything I want to do while camping, even calling CQ DX for three hours a night. In the past, I have spent 2-3 hours working DX on a 8.4Ah Lifepo4 battery and I expired before the battery did. I got into 13 countries in one night from the bottom of a canyon on an inverted vee with a feed point only about 14 feet off the ground.
