BFL13 wrote:
The OP wants to stay out for a week, so all he needs is enough solar to help the batteries get by that long at his usage. Then he can go home and do a full recharge. IMO that would be say, a 130w panel...
Since they didn't specify their energy needs, we can only guess how much solar they need. They said "enough to run all my essentials", which can be anywhere from 20 to 200 AH a day.
A 130W panel on a dark day will collect 5 or 7 AH, it's difficult to keep batteries full with that little energy, even for a die-hard minimalist. So the charge will drop lower and lower every day if such a dark spell continues. Depending on their daily energy needs, with 2*6V they might be out of juice the very next day or 2 days later. Or batteries will be losing 5-10% every day, eventually reaching 40-50% by day 7 - you know well what this means for batteries.
A 2*270W will collect 30-35 AH under the same conditions, this is something that one could live on already.
500+ watt is not a "giant" anymore, get over it :)